As featured in Global Living Magazine Summer 2013. Being an accompanying partner on relocation provides the perfect freedom to choose a new identity or update our existing one. What freedom....!
Finding My Identity: The Changing Faces of a Trailing Spouse
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photographybyCarolyneKauser-Abbott
Emerald Lake Lodge's Point Cabin balcony imagecourtesyofEmeraldLakeLodge
v
Finding
My
Identity
The Changing Faces of a Trailing Spouse
contributed by Nichole Esparon
O
n a trip to Singapore a few years ago, I had a conversation with
an expatriate friend that would eventually change the course
of my life. Having not long before relocated from the U.K. to
Singapore where her husband was setting up the company’s
regional headquarters, she had the archetypal expat lifestyle: idyllic house,
generous income and the ultimate outdoor playground on her doorstep in
the form of one of the world’s most vibrant cities. I don’t mind admitting – I
was more than a little jealous.
But that day, sipping her Chablis by the buzzy riverside where we sat, my
friend launched into a jaw-dropping attack on her life that shattered the
rose-colored glasses through which I had been looking at it. “I’m invisible,”
she suddenly poured out. “I’m not even sure who I am here. I hate it.” Her
words got me thinking. Just how did newly relocated professionals pick up
and leave their regular lifestyles, with its home comforts and social networks,
to jet off to a completely foreign environment to work?
Years later, I found myself back in London following a period of working
internationally, at home with two young pre-school children, stung with
a sense of isolation and loneliness that I was in no way prepared for, when
memories of that day at Singapore Riverside flooded my mind. And so began
a new phase in my life that, unbeknownst to us at the time, had germinated
during that fateful afternoon. I embarked on a voyage through the lives of
accompanying partners about relocation. I was curious – the glamour and
excitement was clearly a huge incentive, but there was clearly more to it.
What made so-called ‘trailing spouses’ agree to suspend their own careers
and social lives to pursue their partners’ goals? How easy was it to integrate
into a completely new location? And was there anything I could do to help
them in the process?
It used to be the case only a couple of decades ago that companies could
practically take spouses’ cooperation for granted when relocating employees.
They would largely be willing participants, packing their families’ lives into
2. 44 Global Living Magazine Global Living Magazine 45
suitcases and moving vans, ready to be
recreated in a new environment. Fast
forward to 2013 and the landscape is
almost unrecognizable. Well-educated
and highly independent, today’s
accompanying partners are driven
to achieving dizzy heights in their
own careers. Not surprisingly, there
is increasing reluctance to the idea of
puttingtheirgoalsonhold–orinsome
cases abandoning them altogether
– to accompany their partners on
relocation.
Asurveycarriedoutin2008byPermits
Foundation (a lobbying organization
working to persuade governments to
provide work visas for accompanying
partnersonrelocation)discoveredthat
82 percent of accompanying partners
have university degrees and almost 90
percent were working prior to their
partners’ assignment. Yet, during the
assignment, only 36 percent were
employed. Put those statistics together
and it isn’t hard to imagine the scene:
one partner desperately trying to get to
gripswithaforeignworkenvironment
while an intelligent, highly educated
partner sits at home bored.
Despite the drawbacks, relocation
offersameshofuniqueexperiencesthat
many find irresistible. Opportunities
offered by an international move
are vast: a chance to re-evaluate life
choices, gain new skills or completely
change careers – the options are
seeminglyendlessforthosethatchoose
to embrace them. And the sense of
adventure, glamour and excitement
associated with the expat lifestyle is
clearly still very much in evidence
during my conversations with trailing
spouses.
It seems perverse that one of the
greatest advantages of relocation is
also one of its greatest disadvantages:
anonymity. I have heard it described
as both a help and a hindrance at
various times. Meeting one of our
newly-arrived members at their
welcome evening earlier this year, it
was clear which side of the fence she
sat on: “I didn’t realize how restricted
I had become by my own identity until
I was anonymous,” she said. “Suddenly,
I’m free to be whoever I choose to be,
not what I’m expected to be – because,
actually, there aren’t any expectations.
How can there be? Nobody knows me
yet. I find that incredibly liberating.”
It makes sense. No one will know
that you were the last teenager to have
aboyfriendinhighschool–leavingyou
free to reinvent yourself as a vamp, if
that’s what you choose. On the other
hand,ifyouwanttobethepure-as-the-
driven-snow mother of four, there’s
no one to spoil the image by divulging
those drunken episodes at university.
In other words, you can be exactly who
you want to be.
Yet, while many might welcome the
anonymity that a new location offers,
others confess waking up in a state of
panic when they suddenly realize that
they have to actually choose who they
want to be. It’s not uncommon to find
spouses withholding from integrating
into their new environments simply
becausethey’reworkingoutwhattosay
when people ask the dreaded question:
“What do you do?” My advice to any of
mymemberswhoaskmeisclear:Jump
in. We can only truly develop a sense
of identity once we’ve taken steps to
integrate into the host location. To a
large extent, our identities are shaped
by our relationships, and so to regain
the sense of self we crave, we need to
start developing those relationships.
When it comes to making friends,
and those oh-so-vital connections,
each city will have its own social
‘rituals,’ and newly-relocated families
often find it isn’t as easy to integrate
socially as they had imagined. London,
for example, is a city where building
friendships can be a bit of a minefield
for the uninitiated. Jump onto any
mode of public transport in England’s
capitalandtheexperienceoftheBritish
reserve will be immediately evident.
Those that try to break through it with
small talk will often be met by a wall
of total silence, leaving them with a
sense of rejection. Does that mean the
British are unfriendly? Not at all. The
British culture simply doesn’t allow for
conversationstogenerallybestartedin
such situations. In other words, there
is a particular social ‘ritual’ that needs
to be undertaken before the British
can make friends.
When it comes down to it, sure, the
expat lifestyle is glamorous; sure it’s
exciting. But we should also celebrate
themanysacrificesthatgloballymobile
professionals must make to achieve
success abroad in the broadest terms.
We also need to appreciate that each
time they move on to new pastures,
those lessons have to be relearned in
the context of the new location.
My journey through the lifestyles
and preferences of relocating families
over the past years has left me with a
huge sense of admiration for repeat
assignees; it has also left me with one
inevitable conclusion. With all its
challenges, the global lifestyle offers a
unique gift that few people are lucky
enough to ever receive: the chance to
design a truly bespoke identity.
We should
celebrate
the sacrifices
that many
globally mobile
professionals must
make to achieve
success abroad in
the broadest terms.
allimagesforspreadprovidedbyNicholeEsparon,
usedunderlicensefromShutterstock