RESENTMENT

Everything that distinguishes you (career, community, friends, family) disappears when you move abroad for your partner’s job. While your partner sets out every morning into a strange new city to do a strange new job, you face endless days without structure. No one to call and nowhere to be. Seeds of RESENTMENT are sown as the new power structure in your relationship becomes apparent. 

The shift in balance in your relationship requires you to give up everything familiar to nurture your partner taking a new job elsewhere. The burden of the move and the adjustments it entails often rests on your shoulders, while your partner is caught up in their new job. 

Most of us struggle with our own self-worth. When our support network of family and friends are taken away, that struggle becomes even tougher. 

As the balance in our relationship shifts and tilts, a woman’s feelings about herself will also shift, changing with the day or hour. Those feelings will often be focused on the only person you may know in the new location, your partner. Your self-esteem challenge will be exacerbated by the move and will certainly impact your relationship. 

Feelings of isolation and disorientation often surface by something seemingly commonplace such as not being able to find an everyday cleaning product in your new location, or knowing what store would sell it, or how to get there or how to ask for it. The lack of control and power represented is often shrugged off by your partner who is busy trying to make their way in their new job. 

The only way to regain equilibrium is to learn new ways to assert yourself, but it’s not easy when you are suffering from a lack of self-esteem and self-confidence, often a side effect from relocation.

Never assume your partner is a mind reader. If you have a concern, you need to say so directly and without personal criticism. How you say what is on your mind is just as important as what you say. 

Negotiate the tasks. From your perspective it may look like you are taking on all the responsibilities, including the move, setting up the new house, establishing new routines, etc. Often it is enlightening to hear from your partner that they feel they have done most of the work including the financial and strategic aspects. Make sure you are both on the same page by making a giant to-do list that spells out all of the tasks necessary. You may both be surprised to see how evenly the responsibilities are actually split. If not, renegotiating ways that power can be shared is one key to restoring mutual respect. When you both decide who will do what, it helps address RESENTMENT and puts your relationship on the road to success.

The most successful relationships operate as a team. And a team sticks together through the ups and downs. Make time to listen to each other’s hopes and dreams to create a positive experience in supporting each other. It will go a long way towards helping your relationship survive difficulties abroad. 

Reconnect as often as possible during the disconnecting experience of moving abroad. Sit down and share the ups and downs of your day. Be sure to listen! The more connected you feel, the less likely you will be to fight over the small stuff. 

World renowned for his couple’s research, Dr. John Gottman says, “Happy couples have hit upon a dynamic in their day-to-day lives that keeps their negative thoughts and feelings about each other (which all couples have) from overwhelming their positive ones.” 

When you least expect it or are not looking, RESENTMENT can rear its ugly head. I struggled the most when some aspect of our relationship went through a major change. Our first move abroad meant I wasn’t working for the first time ever, and that really shook me to the core. Our next two moves, my partner joined me much later due to his work commitments, so I felt stuck with all the logistics and settling in concerns of the move. Once we had a child together, the dynamics changed again and this was when I really suffered the most from RESENTMENT. I felt completely alone with the baby, while his life looked from the outside as though it had barely changed. As our daughter grew up, I took on all the responsibilities related to her schooling and chauffeuring to activities, while he couldn’t even figure out what her schedule was. Even now, I find myself almost every summer in charge of entertaining my daughter during school vacations, while he heads off to work as usual. 

Once I recognize that RESENTMENT is growing, I make sure to address it head on. I remember to talk about my concerns calmly, negotiate the tasks, say ‘no’, listen to my partner’s big dreams, and connect daily with my partner. Doing these things, especially listening, helps me realize that often my partner is feeling like he is getting the short end of the stick, while I am convinced that I am the one suffering. What we both want is connection, not RESENTMENT.