Hello,
can't find anything telse similar in postings - mostly seem to be pre-marriage visa stuff. this is background to post-marriage visa question:

US citizen married UK citizen in USA autumn, 2002. in autumn 2003 they relocated to UK, wife (US citizen) is deported on arrival because they didn't apply for visa from USA. she goes back, applies for and gets 2 year settlement visa.

she comes back to the UK one month later armed with entry clearance, gets a job, all is well until relationship breaks down autumn 2004. she finds a new place to live and they separate. a couple of months later he begins collecting jobseekers allowance and housing benefit.

now 2 years of visa are almost up and she wishes to remain resident in the UK, even though the marriage has broken down. she has been employed continuously, and become quite involved with her local community. she wishes to apply for indefinite leave to remain when her settlement visa runs out in the autumn, but as the relationship has broken down, she is concerned and wonder whether she could switch to a work permit status, and apply for indefinite leave to remain subsequently?

would she be better off attempting to reconcile with her husband and continuing under dependent status? not sure if his collecting jobseekers allowance and housing benefit will affect this?

or would she try to switch categories from dependent to work permit? is such a thing possible? and will this mean that she will have to remain resident in the uk for three more years before being eligible to apply for UK passport?

none of the home office / immigration / visa sites seem to have answers...