My journey as a trailing spouse began 18 years ago, when my husband accepted a postdoc position in Ontario, Canada after earning his Ph.D. in computer science from Germany’s Karlsruhe University.
I had been working as a process management and business development manager for Observer AB, an international media monitoring company, for almost a decade. I was on an amazing career trajectory with great colleagues, a good salary, and no shortage of exciting and challenging projects. As much as I loved my job, however, I had always hoped to live abroad again after getting a taste for it during two semesters spent exploring London and Paris.
Also, since our Canadian adventure was supposed to be limited to two years (the usual postdoctoral period), I viewed our relocation more like a sabbatical for myself and informed my parents that we would be back “before you know it.”
(Oops.)
Move #1: Karlsruhe, Germany to Waterloo, ON, Canada
After working 60- to 80-hour weeks for years, I dreamed of finally taking it easy and living “a life of leisure,” with lots of plans to explore the country and local culture, travel, and enjoy my newfound free time. I thought I could always get my old job back once we’d return… (more about that later!)
Unfortunately, our relocation began with a series of sad events: my grandmother passed away two weeks after we left Germany. At the same time, my mom got very sick and had to be in the ICU for several days. This gave us an early taste of the challenge of being far from home when disaster strikes — something many relocating family encounter at some point. It was a tough time but, thankfully, my mom recovered and we were finally able to focus on getting settled in.
At first, the lack of busyness in my life was quite refreshing — but it got old rather quickly.
While my husband was at university, interacting with tons of people every day, I soon felt isolated. I would spend hours writing long emails to family and friends back home and started watching Oprah, Ellen, and other daytime TV shows… not exactly an intellectually stimulating pastime.
My friend Anja came for a month-long visit and we went on a beautiful road trip through Ontario and Québec. After she left, I realized that I really needed to get out of the house more often.
Since I didn’t have a work permit, I looked into volunteering options and took a position as receptionist at the local multicultural center. For several hours a week, I answered phones, translated documents, and pointed other newcomers from all over the world in the right direction. It felt so good to have some social interaction and to provide a useful service at the same time! It also gave me great appreciation of the many benefits of the great Canadian approach to multiculturalism.
On the Gupte Scale, I would rate this move a 9/15. While I am a huge fan of Canada and Canadians, the freezing cold, long winters and the city of Waterloo weren’t really my cup of tea (2 points out of 5). The timing was fine (4/5) but I never felt at home there and had almost zero social contacts or local support (3/5).
The biggest lesson I took away from this experience was to never again look at a move as temporary. By being focused on our exit date, I never quite found my footing or even tried to grow roots. If I were to start my trailing spouse journey over, I would look into volunteering opportunities much sooner. It is such a fabulous way to serve and meet people at the same time! (Editor’s Note: Estelle Broyer and Kavya Sarat shared similar advice earlier this year!)
Move #2: Waterloo, ON, Canada to Princeton, NJ, USA
When our two years in Canada were up, it was a tough pill to swallow that there weren’t any job openings back home in Germany in my husband’s area of expertise. The field of quantum computing was still in its infancy and there just weren’t many opportunities, even globally.
After applying for positions all around the world, he was offered a job at a research lab in Princeton, NJ, starting January 2005.
Due to the post-9/11 political climate, we weren’t all too thrilled about moving to the U.S. in general, or New Jersey in particular. That state brought up images of smokestacks and industrial areas in my mind’s eye, probably due to what you see around Newark Airport when you fly in. On top of this, our parents were devastated to realize that we weren’t coming home after all.
Nevertheless, this second move rated slightly higher than our first move; I would give it a 10/15 on the Gupte Scale: 4 points for timing, 3 for resources, and 3 for destination. Princeton turned out to be charming, sophisticated, and downright beautiful. Plus, we were only 40 minutes away from the Jersey Shore, a quick getaway that always made us feel like we were on vacation — especially after we had kids.
Shortly after moving into our new apartment — in the middle of a snow storm, naturally — I found out that I was pregnant with our first child. I was over-the-moon excited, but other than with my OB/GYN, I didn’t have any social interactions for months. We only owned one car, so I drove my husband to work in the morning, then picked him up in the afternoon. (Hey, at least that got me out of our apartment twice a day?)
My daily routine finally changed when I learned about the local Newcomers Club. This fantastic group of women, organized by the YWCA of Princeton, aims to welcome everyone into the community. They hosted monthly meet-and-greets, social coffees, and interest groups that ranged from game nights to crafting or sports.
All of a sudden, I became very busy and began meeting many wonderful people from all over the world. I made my first Jersey friend and I will forever be grateful to the couple who hosted the dominoes game night and spontaneously invited us to their family’s Thanksgiving dinner. What a generous and lovely gesture!
Once our daughter Ella was born, I also found it a lot easier to make friends. Thinking back, this was probably driven by me finally being proactive in this matter: I decided to start two playgroups for new moms (one for English speakers and another for German-speaking moms), which grew from just a few members at first into a wonderful circle of close friends.
While I was feeling better socially, I still wasn’t really sure what to do with my professional life over the long term. That changed when I had a full-blown epiphany while sitting under a dryer at the hair salon (pun intended), and decided to go back to school to become a licensed massage therapist! That was quite the 180 from my previous job — but I have never doubted my decision.
I loved being a student again and learning something completely new. I became totally fascinated with the human body and wanted to know everything about it.
Shortly after graduating with high honors from the massage therapy program of the Institute for Therapeutic Massage in Red Bank, NJ, I opened my first private practice, Magnificent You, in downtown Princeton. I loved my clients and my new profession — and especially the peace and quiet in the treatment room away from two screaming children at home!
Two more milestones happened during my stay in New Jersey: we bought our first home and our 13-month-old son was diagnosed with Crohn’s disease, prompting us to quickly learn our way around hospitals and doctor’s appointments.
The following year, I expanded my massage business by renting more treatment space and I hired two therapists to work with me. I was ecstatic! On the starting day of my new lease, however, my husband lost his job. Luckily, he was offered a new position within a few short weeks. Due to his narrow specialization, the offer was too good to turn down, but that meant that, all of a sudden, we were moving across the country to Seattle, the beautiful Pacific Northwest…
My biggest takeaway from our 9.5 years in New Jersey is be proactive, get out of the house, go with the flow, and trust the process. There were three things in particular that confirmed my conviction that life ultimately is rigged in my favor, even when it didn’t look that way at first:
- During massage school, I had discovered a local wellness center where I could rent a treatment room as-needed. It was a beautiful space, absolutely perfect; since I didn’t have any clients yet, it would minimize my risk of starting a new business. I wrote my whole business plan based on this location –— only to find out, right after graduation, that the owner had decided to downsize and that there was no longer any space available to rent! I was so upset, completely sure that never again would I ever find such a perfect scenario again. Well, I was wrong. Shortly after, a friend forwarded me a little ad from a local newspaper about another therapist looking to share her space. This space was a much better location (downtown Princeton) with easy access and a very affordable rent. It couldn’t have been more perfect.
- After the epiphany at the hair salon, I had gone straight into action and found a school that I absolutely loved and felt completely aligned with. I signed up, only to find out that I was pregnant and had to put my plans on hold. When I was ready to revisit my goal, the school had closed down. I was heartbroken! How could I ever find a school as good as this one? Well, I did. I had to drive an hour each way to attend, but after our move to Seattle, it turns out that this school was the only school in all of New Jersey that was accredited with the State of Washington! I had heard that transferring credits between states could be a nightmare with additional training and fees involved, but because of my choice of school, I could simply apply for a WA license without any problem at all.
- When we needed to move and the time came to dissolve my practice just days after I had finished renovating it, I put an ad out looking for someone to take it over. Only a single person replied. This one person was the perfect match and took over my lease, my new furniture, everything… It was all good.
Move #3: Princeton, NJ, to Seattle, WA
This move, in mid 2013, rated an 11/15 on the Gupte Scale. Seattle truly deserves a 5 for location because it is so beautiful here. Also, Washington State felt a bit more European to us, in terms of being more environmentally friendly than the East Coast, and we fell in love with the area.
As far as timing goes, well… I would give it a 2. As described above, I had to quickly dissolve my Princeton practice, we had to sell our new house, and organize the cross-country move.
Luckily, everything worked out well and my husband’s new employer was very supportive throughout the move (4 points for resources). Once we arrived in Seattle, we were lucky to find a great home pretty much right away. We even got a puppy!
I had chosen to give myself some time to get to know the area first before deciding on a new business location. After I helped settle every family member into their new role, however, I felt more and more unsettled myself. All those empty hours during the day didn’t agree with me, and making new friends felt much harder this time around, with the kids at school. Everyone seemed so set in their busy schedules. I became quite depressed but didn’t know it back then. It took me almost a year to get myself out of this funk.
What helped me most, once again, was to immerse myself in learning something completely new. I decided to switch my professional focus away from relaxation massages to the treatment of complex pain conditions. I began to train in some cutting-edge neurology-based modalities and opened my new practice Eastside Bodywork. Gradually, my manual neurotherapy practice filled and my regional reputation as an expert for chronic pain conditions grew.
Move #4: Sheltering in Place
Then, COVID-19 struck. I made the difficult decision to shut my practice down. With two immuno-compromised children at home, I just didn’t want to take any additional risk. When my lease was up at the end of 2020, I let go of my beautiful space. It was time to pivot yet again.
It’s a good thing that I truly enjoy reinventing myself.
Since I genuinely love working with people and helping them move forward and overcoming their own limitations — whether physically or mentally — I had been offering mindset coaching sessions since 2019. This was something that I could move online and be independent of COVID! Building on that service, I trained with Melissa Tiers to become a certified life coach and a registered hypnotherapist. At the moment I’m studying Positive Psychology and Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP) and I’m also in the process of getting certified via the ICF (the International Coach Federation).
In 2020, I decided to focus my coaching work exclusively on female relocating spouses who struggle with the challenge and the opportunity of starting over from scratch, helping them to get crystal clear on what it is that they want to do in their next chapter. (I surely would have benefited from coaching myself had I known about it back in the day!)
My new business is called The Ideal Mindset. Seeing other women succeed in their new role has been my greatest joy this past year. I love that I’m able to coach remotely, so this time around my business is portable and I won’t have to start over from scratch should we ever decide to move again.
Looking back on the journey
As I am writing this article and reflecting back over the past two decades, I realize that the biggest challenge for me has been the journey from independence to dependence — or rather, feeling dependent.
My husband never did anything to give me that feeling, however. On the contrary, he wholeheartedly supported me in all of my growth endeavors. That limiting belief was all in my head. It took me many, many years to learn how to work through this issue and help others get rid of their limiting beliefs, as well. (I’ve created an Inner Critic Workbook as an entry point into the topic. You can download it here.)
Relocating to a new country or city is an amazing opportunity and adventure, one that enriches us and helps us grow in directions we never knew were possible. But it can also be difficult to feel at home or connected to your new destination. I’ve already shared some of my takeaways above but have compiled a whole list of my favorite 26 Tips on how to Settle into a New City and Feel at Home Faster. Check it out and let me know what you think!
Overall, I think it’s best to not think of your relocating journey as linear. You might start out thinking of doing one thing, then end up doing something entirely different. Life as a trailing spouse has many twists and turns, which can often feel like detours. Since it’s all about mindset and perspective, I suggest you think of them as “the scenic route.” I personally love taking the scenic route — and I trust that in the end, it will take me to where I’m meant to be.
