ura-soul, very nice! 👍🏿 I'll explain..

I never needed the residency prior so we never jumped through the hoops to apply for it. My wife is dual citizen. I am American.

We went back to UK in January last year thinking we could just wait out Covid there, we had no idea England would react as strictly as they have otherwise we would've just flown back to US. Shortly after we landed Virgin, Delta, America, all the airlines suspended flights. We were trapped.

At that time and currently to the best of my understanding, they ceased spousal residency applications because of Covid. I couldn't apply for residency. I only had 6 months allowable on my passport.

So every 15 days I would get a reminder from the embassy in London that my passport would expire August 1st. Planes still were not flying. They would sell tickets and offer refunds but not refund passengers for two years, we weren't willing to take that chance.

But I kept getting that email from the embassy letting me know I had to be out of England by August 1. Meanwhile applying for spousal residency is still paused due to Covid.

My wife could've stayed. I couldn't. We finally caught a flight out of there August 3. Had a 3-row seated 777 all time ourselves, too, one of the first flights to actually leave the ground.

I hope this explanation is easier to understand.