Feel guilty I couldn't provide everything for my (immigrant from USA) spouse

McAnniee

Caroline_a wrote: »

Why wasn't he on the electoral role? This is starting to sound very fishy...

Because only UK or EU (I think EU are eligible?) citizens can be on the electoral role.

He had US citizenship, permanent residence here (UK) but didn't take British citizenship, so, wasn't eligible. I can assure you there's nothing fishy about that (unless you count "why didn't he take British Citizenship" in which case that's a separate can of worms!)

justme111

Op, for the purpose of discussing your responsibility to him it does not matter whether he worked on nice jobs, whether he in any way exploited you, whether someone did not want him at a job place because he was american and whether "keeping his pants on" expression would apply. You and other posters getting sidetracked. Whichever way it was it still does not change that him not getting on with the country is not your responsibility.

*max*

McAnniee wrote: »

I'm not sure if "racism" is the right word actually but I've come across a lot of vocal dislike of Americans and actually in one situation a hiring manager at my employer had received my OH's CV as there was a job vacancy and he would have been a good fit. I overheard the hiring manager going through the CVs commenting on them and rejected his as "We don't want any Americans here!"

(This manager later rejected a perfectly suited different applicant for a different job on the grounds that "we can't hire this guy cos his name is James*, we already have a James in the team and it would be too confusing") Many years later 'James' was hired for that role when it came up again, with a different manager by that stage, and was perfect!
* not real name

Do your work at Faulty Towers? I have never heard of anything remotely like that happening in any company I, or anyone I know, have worked in. I am of course aware there are exceptions, but what are the chances your husband happened to only ever apply to the exceptions, in 15 years? Really...

And I'm also foreign, btw, and my native language is not English. Never had an issue finding work.


Message too short

NBLondon

McAnniee wrote: »

Because only UK or EU (I think EU are eligible?) citizens can be on the electoral role.

British, EU (for now!) and Commonwealth citizens. However, if he had proof of permanent residence that should suffice for most employment checks. Credit-checks, I'm not sure about. If it was an ongoing problem then looking at dual citizenship or naturalisation would have been a sensible option - somewhere in the first 10 years once he was certain he was staying with you. I've known Americans settled over here, who got professional jobs and bought houses without taking out citizenship - it must be possible, even it takes a bit more effort.

balletshoes

"no credit history" and "not on the electoral roll for proving ID" are issues which are experienced by lots of people in the UK, not just new immigrants on spouse visas.

There are other ways of proving ID - a national insurance number (which you can apply for as soon as you're in the UK with a spouse settlement visa), with a passport (with the visa in). Or a birth certificate - or even a UK provisional driving licence.
Many banks in the UK will allow adults to open a bank account without being on the electoral roll as long as they have some ID. Once you've had a bank account for a few months (it doesn't need to have credit facilities on it to start with) you can get a low-cost mobile phone contract (go instore with your ID) and then you're on the way to getting a good credit history.

These are temporary issues OP, they can be addressed within the first year of being in the country usually, it really shouldn't be an issue 17 years later, and if your husband is still moaning about it now, then he's let it hold him back, nothing and no-one else has.

My husband doesn't have British citizenship, he's been living and working here for nearly 15 years, we have a mortgage, he has a business etc, he's not been required to be a British citizen for either.

McAnniee

*max* wrote: »

Do your work at Faulty Towers? I have never heard of anything remotely like that happening in any company I, or anyone I know, have worked in. I am of course aware there are exceptions, but what are the chances your husband happened to only ever apply to the exceptions, in 15 years? Really...
Message too short

Haha, it wasn't Faulty Towers exactly but in retrospect, was a pretty strange (and badly run) place to work. I left there quite a few years ago now.

I have mentioned the "it would be too confusing to have more than one James" story to a few people since and always get a !!!!!! reaction! But it is 100% true.

Yeah, the chances are pretty low I suppose that he would only encounter the bad / loony tunes / unbelievable-if-I-hadn't-witnessed-it situations. Or there's a lot of bad companies out there!

He did seem to have bad luck with employers but I don't know if that's because the pool of "available" jobs (factory type etc, willing to take on a "non-standard" candidate) have disproportionately high amounts of bad situations! What I mean by that is that perhaps companies that are 'bad' overall in some way, are less likely to be "picky" about candidates (or are always recruiting as the good people leave for a better employer!), things like that.

McAnniee

Another specific example:

He was made redundant (along with the rest of the remaining staff) when the company closed - he'd 'survived' several previous rounds of redundancies and was one of the "last men standing" so to speak. So then had to look for a new job.

At this point his CV was populated with relevant and recent British employment history having been working here in the UK for ~4 years at that point. We went through all the guides for best practice in putting together a CV etc, and I think it was pretty decent. Much more concise than I'm able to come up with for my own CV but still capturing all the information! Properly structured and formatted with no typos, "I work equally well in a team or on my own" wordings or other silly oversights like that.

He was then rejected from jobs because,
- After interview: "not authoritative enough" (my summary) the Hiring Manager wanted someone who would be a bit more.....forceful with their direct reports. Wrongly IMO (they were trying to fix a bad situation with the wrong solution).
- After interview: too young looking (?!)
- After interview: I'm not sure how to word this, but the HR manager doing the interview was obviously a "doofus" and didn't listen to the answers my H gave in the interview but just made assumptions and incorrectly wrote down what he'd said (it was a "Q and A" type interview).
- At application stage: your experience isn't relevant at all (but was actually highly relevant)

Admittedly none of these are openly anti-American sentiments. (I don't know if the hiring managers' stated reasons were the real ones as I only know what I was told. I'm a good judge of people in general but only if I can observe!)

I'm still struggling though with the idea that he had to go to interviews for these low level jobs and be humiliated by jumped up hiring managers who were probably just promoted so they couldn't do any damage to actual operations (That's my assessment, not his!) when I "should" or "could" have been able to provide so that he wouldn't have to.

What it comes down to is I suppose I see moving to another country with a Spouse to be a kind of "indefinite hospitality" situation (wrongly as many of you have convinced me). For example if I invite my Mum to come and stay for a few days I wouldn't expect her to pay for food and electricity etc, I'd pay for that myself as she is a "guest"! But how long is someone a 'guest'?

Caroline_a

I can see you giving the same sort of excuses that I used to make for my ex. It's always someone else's fault, never theirs. If he moves over to this country he isn't a guest, he's an immigrant - and like so many before and after him he has to make his own way. In fact, like any worker in any country! Your example is from (I think) 13 years ago. It obviously still rankles with you, but these things happen. There are good and bad employers and good and bad employees. I would guess that you were more affected by this than he was/is.

You are both going your separate ways, so why does it matter? And as for being a guest.... how many guests stay for 17 years, and if they did you'd be very fed up with propping them up for all that time!

springdreams

OP, if your husband was not keen on working, or just simply of the view that the work that he would most likely be offered was beneath him, he may well have scuppered his own chances of being offered the job during the interview stage by making these feelings known, albeit indirectly. It is highly possible that he intentionally presented himself badly at interviews. You only have his word for what went on at the interviews given that you were not actually present at any of them.

You also seem to be looking for excuses for his lazyness ...

McAnniee

Caroline_a wrote: »

I can see you giving the same sort of excuses that I used to make for my ex. It's always someone else's fault, never theirs. If he moves over to this country he isn't a guest, he's an immigrant - and like so many before and after him he has to make his own way. In fact, like any worker in any country! Your example is from (I think) 13 years ago. It obviously still rankles with you, but these things happen. There are good and bad employers and good and bad employees. I would guess that you were more affected by this than he was/is.

You are both going your separate ways, so why does it matter? And as for being a guest.... how many guests stay for 17 years, and if they did you'd be very fed up with propping them up for all that time!

Yeah, it was quite a long time ago! But it does still rankle with me, yes, because it seems like these hiring managers were so stupid and I get annoyed quickly with incompetence, people who just don't think, etc.!

Why does it matter? Yes I should be able to just 'Let it Go' but I can't as I am still hanging on to what I did "wrong" or have I been unreasonable in what I expected etc. I feel like our relationship would have been much better (it was bad for a long time) if I'd been able to provide an environment where he didn't have to worry about jobs and crappy managers etc.

You're right about "how many guests stay for 17 years". I suppose what I meant by that is that when one person moves to another country for a relationship, the dynamic is always (even if just in the background or not acknowledged) that the immigrant is a 'visitor' who doesn't have ties to the new country and so on. I feel like he always had one foot out the door because he had the option to. So everything fell to me as the "default" person because it was 'my country'.