To paraphrase from The Lord of the Rings, “One does not simply become a trailing spouse.” We may accept the idea of relocating for our partner’s career as a one-time event or even as a lifestyle, but it takes a lot of time and experience to completely adapt to the “trailing” part of the deal.
As a young adult, I became acquainted with some of the highs and lows of expat life by working in the Russian Far East in business skills education and international development through a program supported by USAID. And yet when I married Erin, a foreign service officer, I still had a lot to learn about how to balance raising a family and maintaining my professional interests with her frequent, somewhat unpredictable assignments.