Many of us expats are what can be called a trailing spouse. A trailing spouse is a person who follows his or her life partner to another city or country because of a work assignment. Finding yourself in this situation can take a toll on your RELATIONSHIP.
Trailing spouses often feel lonely without their family and friends, especially if their partner works a majority of the time, travels for business, and meets new colleagues. As a result, partners often feel a distance developing as they try to establish themselves as individuals in their new conditions.
Think about it: your partner has a new job with a built in social network, that is taking up most of his time, while you have to work hard to establish yourself and find your footing. It isn’t a surprise that many expat couples find it difficult as they adjust to life abroad. Feeling like you have sacrificed your career goals for your spouse can take a toll on your RELATIONSHIP and build resentment if you aren’t careful.
The phrase I hear most often from my clients is, “I gave up everything for him.” That phrase, that belief is like poison. It breeds resentment. It assigns all blame to your mate, and gives them complete and utter control over your life and your own happiness. The truth is, you had a choice. You didn’t have to go. Many people in our shoes wouldn’t have gone. But we did. We made the choice to move, to go along on this adventure, and it is up to us to make the most of it.
We have so many expectations when it comes to our mate, and our number one expectation is usually that they complete us, that they make us happy. It’s no wonder so many of us are unhappy in our RELATIONSHIPS. They just don’t do it right. They just don’t make us happy. They just don’t make us feel loved. They just don’t make us feel sexy, and wanted, and beautiful, and everything we want someone else to do for us. It’s our job by the way, but we want our mate to do it, and then we are so mad when they don’t do it right.
He can’t make me happy, because my happiness comes from my feelings and my thoughts. My feelings and my thoughts are the only thing that can make me feel happy, or sexy, or wanted, or loved. It’s all an inside job. Number one on how to be a good mate is to drop all expectations and accept that your mate is just there for you to love. If you can do that, you will change your entire RELATIONSHIP.
Now, a lot of people will say, “I’ll do that for my husband, but he won’t do that for me”. It only takes one of you. “But that’s not fair.” Who cares? You get to feel love all of the time. Your mate is lovable all of the time. Why? Because you’re choosing to love him all of the time even when he’s human, even when he’s a total jerk, even when he shows up late, even when he leaves all of his stuff all over the floor. Even when he doesn’t do it right, you get to love him. That’s always an option available to you.
What is the case you’re making for your mate? Are you making a case for love? Are you brainstorming love, or are you brainstorming all the ways he lets you down? When I sit there and tell you everything I love about my husband, when I tell you he’s the best man I know, has the best contagious laugh, when I tell you those things, how do you think I feel? Amazing, luckiest girl in the world, best husband in the world, but I want you to feel that way about your husband.
Now, for some of you, it may be really challenging because you may have been really focused on everything you don’t like, so you have to practice. Look for things to love and make them even better in your mind. The story I tell about my husband is a love story on purpose. The story I tell about my husband is that he is the best man I know on purpose, and when I look at my husband, that is what I see. I see the way he supports me and loves me, and encourages me. That’s what I see because that’s the story I tell. The story you tell, the thought you think about your mate will determine how you feel about him. So tell yourself a good story, and then make it even better.
Stop trying to change them. First, it will not work. If it did work, after 20 years of marriage I would have managed to get my husband to stop leaving his dirty socks all over the house. They really don’t like it when you try and change them. You know what people want you to do? Love them and accept them for who they are. They do not want you to change them. You are trying to change your mate because you think that if they were different, you would be happier.
First of all, you cannot change them. Second, if you did change them, you would not be happier because you changed them. You would be happier because you changed your thinking. Stop trying to change your mate. There’s so much perfection and goodness and loveliness in just exactly the way they are. Stop trying to make them different from who they are. You’re missing who they are by trying to change them.
Be the mate you want to be. How many of you are the mate you want to be? How many of you feel proud about how you’re showing up as a wife, or as a lover, or as a girlfriend? Ask yourself, “How do you want to be as a wife?”, and then challenge yourself to be that person. Stop blaming your mate for how you’re showing up in the RELATIONSHIP. You get to behave how you want to behave and you are 100% responsible for how you behave. You’re not responsible for their behavior. You’re responsible for yours always. Who do you want to be as a wife? Do you want to be kinder, nicer, more giving, more adventurous, more loving? Decide and do that.
There’s that saying, “Pick your battles”. What if you picked no battles? What if you just let it go? Does it really matter in the big picture the stupid things that we get angry about, that we miss an opportunity to love about? I mean I can’t even tell you how many things that I have used as an excuse not to love my husband. Stupid things. His dirty socks around the house. Let it go.
Tell the truth about what you’re insecure about. Tell the truth about what you really want. Tell the truth about how you are living your life. Don’t keep secrets. Intimacy can only be found in the truth, not in a bunch of lies, not in a bunch of pretending. Right? So let him know that you are struggling to find your footing, but don’t have expectations of how he will react, or change, or fix things.
Make your own happiness and meet your own needs. Your happiness is your responsibility. Please do not try and delegate it to your mate. Figure out what all your own needs are and meet them yourself. That’s a good time. True intimacy isn’t “I have all these needs, and I need you to take care of them”. That’s obligation, and nobody enjoys it.
Stop complaining. Stop it. There is no upside to complaining. Nobody wants to hear you complaining. Complaining gets nothing done. Complaining doesn’t serve you. It doesn’t serve your RELATIONSHIP. There are many more productive ways.
Stop justifying. Notice how we want to justify being angry. We want to justify complaining. We want to justify our excuses. We always want to justify things that hurt us. You don’t want to feel the way you’re feeling. Why would you spend time justifying it?
Greet them like a puppy. It always puts a smile on my face when a puppy runs to greet me with complete excitement and attention. A puppy just wants to shower me with love and attention, which is so often contagious, that I can’t help but shower him with love and attention too.
So greet your mate like a puppy. Drop your expectations for him to return the greeting. Stop complaining. Make your own happiness. Be the mate you want to be. And look for all the ways to love him. It will only take your changes to improve your RELATIONSHIP. He doesn’t need to change at all. You can’t control him, you can only control your behaviour, your thoughts, your feelings. The good news is, that you are in control of your own happiness.
If you would like to continue this work with me, then schedule a free trial coaching session.
If you want to stop focusing on what you’ve given up and start loving your life abroad, then contact me now.
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