For 10 years, I shared a London office at Yves Delorme, a luxury textile brand, with a wonderful colleague whose family was from India. I always admired her holiday pictures from Amritsar or jungle safaris — with no idea that one day, I would be having similar adventures with my own family.
Exploring the world. Studying yoga with experts. Making friends from dozens of countries. Learning Spanish. Raising tri-lingual, adventurous kids. Starting a business. Building my brand.
For some trailing spouses, moving to a new country can be a career setback. But for me, following my husband’s career to Guatemala and India opened up incredible opportunities that I never could have imagined back home.
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.)