Carol RH Malasig is a journalist, and her husband is a diplomat. She followed him to the Philippines, where he is stationed, and wrote about her experience as a “following spouse” in the pages of the Manila Bulletin. She remembers the remark of a diplomat: “You wives of diplomats have the good life. Just go to the parties, while we do all the heavy lifting.“However, she explains, the life of a diplomat’s wife is far from being a long calm river, just like, more broadly, the life of a “following” expatriate woman.
We must make do “the loss of one’s identity and career, having to start from scratch each time one changes country, the fact that one’s own life is turned towards the career of one’s spouse without officially being part of it, or even the fact of not knowing what its place is”, not to mention the distance from his relatives. Of course, this life is often materially much easier than the one that many people live, and this precisely pushes many “following spouses” not to express themselves, for fear of appearing ungrateful. “We’re supposed to get through all of that, because we have an easier life than most people.”
My personal experience has shown me that it takes a lot of courage to go and live abroad when you are a woman. […] I have met women doctors, women who have very important positions in companies, or even lawyers who have given up their careers to follow their diplomat husbands and have had to reinvent themselves with each new expatriation. They radically change career paths or choose to stop working to raise their children. Some find activities that become passions, like teaching yoga or volunteering. And there are also women who had a comfortable life in their country and who choose to emigrate for their own career, because at home they were no longer progressing.
If you meet one of these women, don’t think that everything is easy for her. Don’t judge her, don’t despise her. Support her.