Visa Problems: Why I Am Not Living With My Husband And Daughter

In these posts I always do my best to provide you with resources to help navigate the challenges you experience. This week is no different, but to do so I find it necessary to share a little more of my story, in particular around visa problems.

One reason for this is that people have been asking why it is that, as a skilled family therapist, I live in a different country to my husband and daughter. Have Stephen and I really broken up?

Events and Stories

As a systemic and narrative therapist, I was trained to see that events happen simply because they happen – no true explanation is possible. We have no way of tracking all the causes and conditions that bring events into the world. Much has been written about this from a philosophical perspective. Buddhists say that when causes and conditions are right an event must inevitably occur. But, since we can never be aware of every cause and event since the beginning of our universe, this doesn’t get us far.

Nevertheless, as human beings we seek meaning through which we may shape our lives. This is both a curse and a blessing. It is perhaps this meaning shaping instinct that causes us to create stories about the events that affect us, and it is through believing in and acting upon these stories that we see possibilities for free will.

This is one such story.

Last year Stephen and I have decided to spend more time in England and to give our daughter Amazon the opportunity to experience her English roots.  We thought about this deeply and continue to believe that as she grows older, she needs to experience England in order to fully understand the Englishness within her – just as living in Turkey has helped her to understand her Turkishness. Through this possibility we hope she can enjoy the best both cultures can offer and offer something original and positive to the world.

We once took a decision to live near the beach at Amos because it seemed a safe place to bring up a young child. These were wonderful years, and a remarkable life, beyond our imagination, opened up for us as a result of our decision to leave the city. I may share that story with you one day, because it has some parallels with what I am writing about here.

When we took the decision to give our daughter time in England we had no idea that we were going to be separated as a family for the lengthy periods we have been.

I have applied for a visa twice, in the past year, and have been refused each time.  This situation is so difficult to comprehend for most people that I am being asked more, and more, frequently if we are separated as a couple?

The short answer to this is ‘no’, in fact we are all in contact, several times a day, both by e-mail and Skype.

Visa Problems – Why I’m Not Living With My Family

Stephen, through his U.K. based business, continues to support the backbone of my practice – just as he did when we lived together in Turkey. He even helped me to prepare this article!

Refusals Of My Visas

At the end of last year I thought that I could convey to the UK authorities our situation and they would put a stamp on my passport which will allow me to freely travel with my husband and daughter.  I lived in England twice before.

After the first refusal we realized that border authorities have little discretion about how to exercise rules. Our situation didn’t fit into a category permitting an entry visa. Back then, we had no permanent home in the U.K., and because we had built our foundations upon my business income Stephen, as the U.K. citizen, was not showing enough income to sponsor my application. Of course, he was doing the work – just as he does now – it’s simply that one day he had hoped to retire, and before me, so there seemed little point in me paying him a salary when we were in Turkey because we regarded all our money, after tax, as joint income.

The first time I applied for a visa U.K. Borders wrote to say that, since returning to Turkey from living in England, ‘I had made a life for myself in Turkey and was settled’.

My second application was made last month. In the meantime my husband and daughter had gone on ahead to England, set up a home, Stephen registered a business and has started to earn money so that he could, if we wish, eventually, sponsor my coming to live as a family. During the summer we spent two months as a family together in Turkey, and we intend to continue to meet up as our story unfolds. Unfortunately, it seems, the one place we may not do so, for the time being is anywhere in the United Kingdom!

My husband needs to earn a substantial income to sponsor any application for my residence. Under the rules, earnings from my work cannot be considered. He is long past retirement age, so can only do so as a self-employed person, and also needs to manage the home and single handedly look after our 13 year old daughter.

I thought that I could go and visit them a few months at a time, so that I may look after my daughter so that Stephen could develop his business more rapidly.

At the end of October I closed our house in Amos, organized my assistant, came to Istanbul to apply for visitor’s visa this time. I have been waiting in Istanbul to take the plane and go. I packed presents given by our extended family for our daughter together with few clothes ready to go.

However this time I was denied visa because of this: ‘….. Whilst I acknowledge the need for you to have adequate childcare for your daughter you have not demonstrated what, if any alternative arrangements are in place after your 4 months visit.  This leads me to doubt your stated intentions and I further doubt you will have strong enough reasons to leave the UK after completion of your stated 4 month visit.  I am not satisfied that you are seeking entry as a genuine visitor…..‘

They also added: ‘Any future applications you make will be considered on their individual merits however you are likely to be refused unless the circumstances of your application change.  In relation to this decision there is no right of appeal or right to administrative review.’

So, here I am, still in Turkey, and still optimistic.

Synchronicity:   Meaningful Coincidences

Just as I was opening the package that contained my passport, and the letter turning down my visa application, I received a message from a friend inviting me for a drink the same evening. When I realized I was not going to be able to reunite with my family I held back my emotions whilst I responded with a yes to my friend. Grieving is best done with a community.

Carl Gustav Jung refers to meaningful connections between events that are not related causally as Synchronicity.  We often think of  them as coincidences. Jung believed that events of our life are not random. They express a deeper order and lead to insights.   Dreams and Synchronicity belong to the same realm, guiding towards a spiritual awakening, an invitation for the ego to identify with the greater wholeness.

When I received the news of the refusal of a visa I was initially numbed, as if my body was not mine.  I did not mind the traffic jams, in fact I wanted the traffic to be stuck forever. I wondered in the streets feeling very sad.

Then while I was having a drink with my friend I received a message from my brother asking me to call him urgently. He told me that our aunt passed away; him and my cousin, the aunt’s only daughter, were in the hospital and that it would be helpful if I could be around to support her.

Suddenly I had a purpose for staying and my mood transformed.

When I notice such Synchronicity I ask myself some questions

• What is the meaning of this synchronic experience?
• How does it guide me towards spiritual awareness?
• What new opportunities will come out of this for all of us?

Then I wait for the answers to present themselves.

Constructive Purpose

Constructive Purpose is a term I use to refer to a very special and useful attitude. It involves exploring my full resources and applying them within the boundaries of the framework created by events.  This allows me using my energy in order to create better stories, from which to act, rather than waste time in unnecessary conflict. Five days after the refusal of the visa here are some ideas Stephen and I came up as constructive purposes:

• We may travel together to countries where I can be allowed access such as Italy, France, Switzerland or Holland .
• We will be co-authoring a book together.
• We intend to share more of our family life with you so you can see how we manage our challenges.
• We intend to learn, and adapt, from younger people who are an inspiration.

What stories are evoked in you by life’s challenges? Have you had similar experiences?  How did you approach them? What constructive purposes can you identify in your life?