Today I apply to settle in the UK – this basically means I don’t have to keep renewing my visa to live here, and in a year I can become a British citizen. It also means that I can be in the UK on my own – previous visas required my continuing to be married to my husband, but once I get this I can get divorced and still live in the UK (although you don’t go in guns blazing during the application and state your intentions).
When I first began considering the divorce idea seriously, I contemplated the two possible options I had – live in the UK or go back to India. The latter option is a decent fail-safe, but I am so un-Indian now that I fear I will find it worse there than unemployed here. To continue to live here, I needed an ILR (the permission to settle), and now I am actually packing the papers up to take to the appointment.
The freedom I was waiting for has just given me a glimpse and I am… unnerved. I’ve been unemployed for 4 years now. I am in a country where I don’t have any qualifications or credentials to find a job with. I live in one of the most expensive cities in the world. What the hell am I going to do on my own? What sort of life will I be leading 10 years from now, and will I be happy with my choice, whatever it was?
A Ph.D In Me 
Only time will tell… But keep you faith steady. :)
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Why not go to a job centre or somewhere similar when you have time. Talk to the people there and see what your options are. Maybe you could spend your year before you get your citizenship getting some sort of training? There’s lots of things you could do a short vocational course for and then you will be all ready when you can strike out on your own.
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Oh and wish you luck!
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