The wife of a Royal Navy pilot who has served his country for more than 20 years and clocked up over 400 flying hours during his service in Afghanistan is trapped in the US while he serves in the UK because the Home Office will not give her a visa to join her husband.

Marianne Rawlins, 34, said she was now homeless after her husband, Lt Commander Simon Rawlins, nicknamed Top Gun by his colleagues, relocated to the UK earlier this year and she packed up her life and belongings in the expectation of joining him.

“Agreeing to move to the UK was a difficult decision for me because my family in the US is very small and incredibly close,” Mrs Rawlins. “Added to that, there is absolutely no doubt I risk losing a great deal of money by moving to the UK while my business is based in the US.

“Nevertheless, I was willing to make these sacrifices because Simon’s job as a Royal Navy pilot is etched into the very fibre of who he is. When he got his orders to move to the UK, I worked day and night to ensure my business could handle my move across the pond,” she said. “I never imagined the visa component would be this difficult.”

The couple married in April and a month later, Lt Commander Rawlins received orders to return to the UK and his wife applied for her settlement visa. “We followed the rules to a T and even paid for priority processing,” she said.

Two weeks after submitting her application, the UK Visa and Immigration department said her application was not straightforward and that they required extra information. “The additional documents were not listed as requirements anywhere in the application instructions, and anyway I’d submitted other documents that contained all the information they were now asking for,” Mrs Rawlins said. “I nevertheless submitted the extra documents immediately but now that my application has been deemed not straightforward, there’s no time limit for them to process it.

“A month after our marriage, my husband and I were torn apart and now, three months later, I am still moving from friend’s couch to friend’s couch and living out of three suitcases, mostly consisting of clothing that is not warm enough in October, because that clothing was packed in July. Every day is harder than the last,” she said.

She is now looking for temporary accommodation. Every month she is forced to wait will cost her around $5,500 for rent, a rental car and temporary office space so she can continue working.

“Had I known it would be three months, I would have signed a three-month lease for an apartment, car and office. The issue, and main expense, is the not knowing,” she said. “I don’t believe I will reunited with my husband in the UK for Christmas. Frankly, I won’t be surprised if I am still sitting here, roaming around and hopping from couch to couch this time next summer.”

Lt Commander Rawlins is a decorated pilot who has flown almost 200 missions in Afghanistan, including one in which he flew upside down at more than 500mph over the side of a mountain at the minimum safe height to scare off Taliban militants. He received an operational award for bravery in the face of enemy fire in 2008. “Surely the UK government cannot be happy that his wife is currently homeless, living out of a suitcase, and struggling to get by?” asked Mrs Rawlins. “Is this how Britain honours its servicemen and their families?”

Lt Rawlins is living in limbo in the UK. “I feel so badly for Simon,” his wife said. “He is completely alone. He doesn’t want to decorate the house without his wife, so he sits in his empty home, surrounded by boxes filled with wedding gifts that are still wrapped. I was having a particularly difficult day last Saturday. I cried myself to sleep that night.”

• This article was amended on 20 October 2017 to correct the rank of Lt Commander Rawlins.

