Think of exiles in modern history, and you think of people forced to live away from where? Castro’s Cuba? Franco’s Spain? Apartheid South Africa? Well, now you can add David Cameron’s UK to that list. And no, that’s not a typo – nor am I about to make a leftie jibe about people who can’t bear to live under the Tories or another series of Downton Abbey. I’m talking about real exiles; people who cannot go back to their homeland. People like me.

Today marks the first anniversary of draconian changes introduced by the British government to visas for foreign spouses brought in by home secretary Theresa May. There are two key features of the new rules: first, the Brit (and only the Brit) has to have an income of £18,600 before the visa can even be applied for; second, the probationary period before permanent residency is granted ("indefinite leave to remain"), increased from two years to five.

The changes are barring thousands of British expats around the world from going home. In my own case, my Australian wife and I planned a 2013 return to England with our two sons after almost five years in Sydney. But when we looked into getting her a visa earlier this year – something I’d always assumed would be a simple formality – we discovered it would be impossible.

What’s proved to be the most iniquitous change, and gained most attention, is the new financial hurdle – though that alone is not the main problem for me. I’m a TV producer and could realistically earn a lot more than £18,600. But I am freelance and, strange as it may seem, it’s hard to line up a job back in the UK while living in Australia. The only way I could likely find the job necessary to allow my wife to submit her visa application would be to return alone. Many Brits are doing just that, and news coverage of the APPG report reflected the “anguish” this causes. But I will not be apart from my wife and sons for what could be months.

What is ultimately leaving me exiled is the extension of the probationary period. My wife wants to train as a midwife, which you can only do in the UK with an NHS bursary. You can’t get that bursary if there is any question mark over your residency. For my wife, who hated the prospect of leaving her vast, sunny, prosperous homeland for the small, grey, depressed place I still love, her new career was the one personal incentive she could find for going.

The long probationary period is meant to make it harder for sham marriages to last, and to be a period in which the applicant can assimilate into society. To me, it feels as if there is a presumption of criminality that I find offensive. I do not want my wife to spend that long as an outsider when she’s already lived in the UK for four years on an ancestry visa. She’s pretty well assimilated, thanks very much. What’s more, in marrying me she cemented a lifelong connection to Britain. Her grandfather was British. Her mother has a British passport. And she created Britons! Anyone who gives birth to two eight-pound bundles of Britishness deserves to be treated with a bit more respect by HM Government.

In their zeal to keep people out, May and her colleagues show no understanding of the emotional and logistical complexity that international relationships face. So I have spent the past few months trying to make sense of living in what feels like a Kafka plot. Of struggling to contain my panic when I think I will never again call England home. Of feeling such utter sadness that I am forced to choose between my loved ones in England and my new family here. A few times I have wondered what would happen if I called the British Consulate General and asked for help:

Me: Hello, I’m being prevented from returning to the UK, I need your help! Consulate General: Who is preventing you from going back? Me: The British government! Consulate General: ... [long silence, sound of receiver hanging up]

There is growing opposition to the visa changes, with a demonstration today outside the Home Office. I hope the protestors are successful in getting some humanity and common sense back into the family visa system. For myself, and many others, it is already too late. I am trying to resign myself to exile in Australia; aware that it is a goal many asylum seekers lose their lives trying to achieve. So even though exile doesn’t seem a very British thing, exile it is.