Trailing spouse in international development sector: just can't stomach one more assignment....

[user1466715461]

I'm a trailing spouse and a SAHM. My husband is in the international development sector. If we're lucky we end up in a nice (safe, clean) enough place that we can have some kind of family life but most of the time the industry is built around workaholic/alcoholic/cause driven mavericks, living in shared housing, bed hoping and who are mostly single and childless who accept a lot of travel, long hours and living apart from their families. I never imagined my marriage would involve so much time apart. He has been offered a well paid contract where I would live in a horrible city and he would live in another horrible city in the same country and see each other at weekends (I would have to live in an overpopulated polluted megacity) or I can return home, be a single mum, see him on school holidays. I feel so burned out. Exhausted by the industry. Exhausted by struggle to find good contracts, trying to make my family invisible so as not to burden my husband, or unemployable. Exhausted by the fear that any periods of family bliss are short lived, that unaccompanied contract is only around the corner. I have to face my children not seeing their Dad as much but the industry has left me so burned that I don't even know how I feel about my husband right now. The love has become resentment and anger, there no room for romance. It's not been his fault always but sometimes too much struggle takes the romance away. I don't want to try any more. I just want a house, garden, fresh air, running water, electricity, normal life with a husband who is around to keep me company. I'm an only child, i need to build friendships for old age, not transient expat ones, and would really like more companionship in my marriage, as a lonely only I really wanted a good marriage. Any other lonely expat spouses, living in countries where it's really hard to get employment (although i have a part time job it doesn't fix the loneliness).

Don't have any experience in afraid but I didn't want to read and run. To be honest it sounds at the moment like you're prioritising your husband's job over your own wellbeing and the stability of your children. What do you really want? Is that compatible in the slightest with what your husband wants? Do you have any supporting the UK? To be honest I'd be tempted to just go home and build myself a life that didn't have my husband in it as it doesn't sound like he's interested in building a proper family life with you.

We did this for nearly 10 years, moving with air freight only at the drop of a hat, changing assignment and country every few months in some cases. We then decided to slow down and start a family, spent 5 years in one country and now another 5 in the USA so far and will be here to see our kids through to the end of school.

I don't think the lifestyle you describe is sustainable with a family. Do you have a plan that you agree on for the future? Can you decide on a location where you would like dcs to grow up? What industry is your dh in?

OP and what is the reasoning behind working in this industry?
fab pension, great pay, future promotion to a stable lovely countryside?

My first thought was Nigeria, dunno why!

In your shoes, I would go somewhere calm and where I could be happy giving my childten a stable time. You are resenting your DH and ypur priorities have changed. I would act on that, in these circs.

How old are your kids? I think at some point you have to pick a home and stay there so they can stay in a consistent school system as they get older.

There are other jobs in the sector. Based in HQ of an org. Lots in Geneva!

DH needs to see the impact his choice is having on his family's wellbeing, and on his own ability to have a relationship with his children. He needs to get it into his head that he is not the only person in the world to end up in this situation, it doesn't take a miracle to change track career wise, just a plan and some effort.

That is tough. You and your husband have made a great contribution to development. Now it is time for him to take the family's needs into account. These include your need to have a husband in the same location.
Can you sit him down and put the options to him? The option of racketing around as you have been is off the table.

I used to do what your husband does. But I chucked it when I got married. That sort of lifestyle only works if you’re both onboard (my DH is a homebody with no wanderlust and no desire to make the world a better place )

What age are your kids? I’m also a product of a family who spent time in developing countries. While grateful for the experience, it’s not something I’d choose for my own child.

Are your parents still alive? Do they live in the uk? I’d be keen to see them for a bit if I was you.

Thanks everyone. To be fair to my husband I'm giving the impression that he is somehow heart and soul in this job, that faded ages ago, but he does enjoy the challenge, variety and he works hard. He's actually just struggling to find decent paid job in the UK, the salaries are terrible, and even what is considered a good salary (enough to cut child benefit) would not pay a mortgage, yes we would both be working and it still doesn't add up. He will be paid very very well as a contractor, well in the top 1% earners in the UK but it doesn't make the gilded cage of expat life any more palatable, it doesn't make the countries we live in any less polluted, any less tough, any less corrupt, any less poor and I'm starting to realise that life is slipping by. If only house prices and salaries in the UK matched. Feel so stuck in the expat life, less by the lifestyle and more by the economic reality back home.

Get yourself a job and put you and your kids first. If you want to stay in UK, stay.

What is the industry? Most international development personnel leverage their experience in finance, oil and gas, or the civil service when they return to the UK & your husband should be able to do the same.

I personally wouldn’t leave him ‘alone’ in a new country as that would further destroy family life. It’s far better to travel with him. You haven’t mentioned the country, but if it’s a megacity I am assuming Asia or Africa. Private education in thoss continents is a million times better than any school in the UK.

Top 1% UK is about 200k. Save 1 year op f his salary and that will be enough to buy a house in cash in many places in UK. You stay in UK and work to support your UK home.

You sound a bit resigned and black and white about the situation at the moment. Everything changes, including people. Can you sit down with your DH to discuss your respective priorities and order them in terms of importance and what you'd be willing to compromise on?
If you moved to the UK, would you only want to live in London or the South? If so, that is expensive in terms of housing costs but there are plenty of other less expensive options that still offer a great lifestyle.
We moved to coastal rural Ireland as we wanted a more gentle pace of life for our family to grow up in, much less pollution and to be mortgage free.

I think there may be a bit of a logical fallacy going on here OP. You talk about it being difficult to buy in the U.K. but if you’re moving every few months at the moment then presumably you’re not owning a property at the moment ? So the question is not buy in U.K. or rent elsewhere, it’s rent in the U.K. or rent elsewhere.

If I was you I think I’d take the kids back to the U.K.
If your parents are still around (and you get on with them of course) then being close to them would be my priority.

I work in the sector. There seems to be a big division between family/accompanied postings and non-accompanied, and many of the family postings are lovely in safe places with international schools included- it sounds v much like your husband is actively choosing to take hardship postings,
Possibly for more money, and not factoring the family in as much as he should.

You will, however, have to accept that he's in a lower paid sector re: mortgage and moving back to the UK- I wouldn't take an overseas posting with a young family, in v senior management now and still in a pay band
that would have me in receipt of children's allowance because despite many qualifications and much experience the charity sector is there for people who are motivated by it so they generally earn less money. There are limited jobs outside the south east, but they do exist: ultimately you need to make choices and t sounds like prioritising income/his interests aren't helping you.

I’m struggling to understand. It wouldn’t take longer in the top 1% to save for a house in the UK???

If you've been living in developing countries though and he's been getting paid well, have you managed to save? I'm confused.

Sorry the high pay is only this new job, not in the past but we have saved modestly. I feel it's come to late. I'm burned out. If it had come 3 or 4 years ago I would have had it in me but I'm exhausted.

Also the project is not aid or relief or anything life that so it's ok to be taking a good salary, it will be hard work in difficult isolated conditions. I'm just very burned out after over a decade in developing countries but my life on hold or reinventing myself every step of the way. I don't want to sound ungrateful but sometimes these things come along when you feel you're already running on empty.

So he takes the job, you return to the UK and rent. You see him when he can get away.

With that salary, you can rent, establish a life in the UK and in a couple of years time, buy outright.

Your children will need stability when they go to school.

User you sound defeated and as if every course of action is a mountain to climb. This is where being married should help. When you have reached the very end of your tether, you should be able to say to your dh - this is it, now, it's time to help me. It is not at all impossible to live in the UK if that is what you would like. Yes you probably won't have a personal swimming pool or whatever you mean by 'expat life' (excuse my ignorance about all this) but you don't really need one; live near a river perhaps and in a council area that prioritises good leisure centres and you're fine. In your situation I would choose to live in somewhere like a really nice area of Birmingham, where prices are less than london, plenty of good schools but connections are brilliant (great airport). I'd rent to start with but aim to buy. But you don't have to decide anything just yet - be clear to your husband that you are near to a breakdown - you sound so lost I actually wonder if you are already having one. Hes good at helping people? Time to help you. Maybe see your doctor too.

I am sorry you feel like you are running on empty. How long is the current position for? Maybe it is time for you and the children to have an adventure, which involves Tesco, English rain and soggy chips.

I wasn't exactly in your position as my DH is in the financial sector, so every new country was at least a first world country. I stopped moving even before we had DC and I was happier for it. It wasn't ideal but he was at least close enough to come back most weekends. It did work out well for us in the end as he works mostly in the city that we live in and travels every second week.

It was tough being apart from him, but tbh the admin involved in settling into every new country plus the social stress of trying to find friends etc was even tougher, even without DC to think about. I think both of my DC would have been very stressed by constant moving, especially my younger one who dreads the unknown, like new school or new sports club.

Sorry I think I didn't make it so clear that I'm an only child and my mother although only in her late 60s is now widowed and alone. It weighs heavily on me. I dedicate large chunks of our school holidays to spending time with her, even my poor in-laws miss out, but these will be her only grandchildren so we actually rarely have our own family holidays unless we can fit them in our host country. It's hard being an expat only child. If his job was in the same city I would be living in and I saw him every day then it would be a matter of sucking it up for the family, and I would do it but when I sit down and look at the calendar somehow I wonder how much worse would it be to flip it round, give my mum the weekends and give my husband the school holidays (they would be longer in the private system in the UK). In terms of trusting him alone abroad, well yes I've seen it all, but I'm not spending my life guarding a man, I need to live my life too. I want to give my husband the opportunity to move into more well paid contract work but I'm feeling that in my 40s I have limited time left to do what I really want in life.