Trapped in a gilded cage?

[auberginefortea]

Not sure if this the right forum, as this crosses family, work, and lifestyle, but here goes.

DW and I have been together 10 years, and about 7 years ago, in our early 30s, we moved overseas for DW's work. She's on a career track which means that she may be expected to move internationally, from time to time (think 5 years, with time spent in company HQ in Europe. We have 2 young children.

First, we lived in Europe for 5 years, and then 2 years ago we moved to East Asia. I've worked in both locations remotely for an organisation.

I'm feeling that this is starting to get stale. This week, our kids are ill, and DW is away on a business trip, and I question if this is the life we want to live. We have domestic help, but we don't see family or long-term friends (we've made new friends / acquaintances here). Our home is nice, but it's not really our home, and my career isn't going anywhere.

What makes it harder is that my parents look at it and have also become (to me at least) vocal - why, with two young children are we living like this? And I find it hard to defend.

There are some benefits. We're reasonably financially secure with savings (and I know we're lucky to have that). We can pay for people to do a lot of the domestic tasks. We've experienced things and visited places that, I suppose, make us worldly. And our childcare is affordable (again, from reading MN, I know that's not always the case). But it feels like a bit of a gilded cage.

But when I read about what makes a happy life (I think family, friends, meaningful work), I lack those things.

The big problem is that if we were really to act on this, it would mean my DW giving up her career (which she's worked hard for) and I want to support her. And to be honest, I'm not sure she'd give up her career (as it is) for me (although there are other things she could do, surely).

One last complication is that DW and I are from different countries (UK, Sweden), so neither of us would ever be truly home - although close enough for us to have a home and at least we could visit family a few times a year.

To mix a few metaphors and cliches, it feels like a gilded cage, from which we've put ourselves in checkmate. What would you do?

would your wife consider a career change? Or a job change once the children are tweens?

personally in your shoes I’d grasp the opportunity to retrain in something that is meaningful to you as your present job sounds unfulfilling. If you opt not to retrain, are there other ways of creating meaning, be it voluntary work or Hobbies.

when relocating it can take a couple of years to settle. Meaningful relationships can develop in any location with a little effort, doesn’t necessarily need to be with family.

If you have a strong draw to a place or specific family members, it’s good to have a long term plan to relocate close by.

My point was not that men shouldn't have to look after children, but that it can be tough with two young children who are sick when your partner is away.
I am not putting the boot in, but this is not just a trailing spouse issue. In north london we were just one of many many families who are not local and don’t have family support. This is typically women’s lot everywhere, including women with careers when they aren’t as high paid as their husbands who travel for work. My point is, it’s crap. It’s a really tough stage. You feel really alone and the time is endless. You are one of many many people and I think you perhaps feel like this is more new and different and needs to have something done about it because you are a man and it is less common for men. From your wife’s perspective however she might expect from you the career support and toughing it out for these challenging stages that most men get to expect and that women expect of themselves in these scenarios. Please try and think about it and take this aspect out of those discussions about how long term this arrangement is, what are options, what do you want for your dc.

Being the "trailing spouse" is shit. I've been there.

No advice.

Once you side track your own career to support your spouse, my experience has been that you are unlikely to get it back.

It IS hard to parent sick kids when spouse is away on work travel. Lonely and hard.

Others don't get it and because you will be well off they don't want to get it.

If you ask your wife to move "home" you'll always feel guilty . If you stay following her round the world you will have sadness and resentment and depression. You can't won and it does put pressure on a relationship.

The lifestyle isn't sustainable once your dc start serious prep for exams, so by 13 you need to be somewhere that everyone is okay with for at least five years.
It does involve planning and some financial organizing to stop and localize somewhere.
You have to think about where dc are likely to want to go to Uni, the costs of not being a resident at that time.
The length of time that statuses like green cards for example take to obtain, or the three years of residency prior to Uni in the UK to be funded.
All of this can be worked out but you and your DW need to be talking about it.
Later on your dc will have strong opinions as well, that was a major reason for us ending up staying in the USA.

I agree with many of the PP that the trailing spouse is often the unhappy one in these scenarios.

What I would say (especially when the kids are young) is be careful what you wish for.

A new parent at my DC's school was in your position and pushed to return to the UK. They are now finding life incredibly hard because the help they had with the home and kids when in Asia is nowhere like the help they get here (& soooo much more expensive).

Family that were "desperate" for them to return home, still only see them a handful of times a year and are certainly no help in a practical, day-to-day way (not that they should have to be).

The main bread winner still travels for work and the "trailing spouse" has had to step into a much more pressured and time-demanding career role, just to be able to afford a much more basic standard of living than they were previously used to.

Plus in situations as you have now, where a child is sick, the "trailing spouse" has to juggle their burgeoning career with childcare alone and are struggling to do so.

They are now trapped in an un-gilded cage and are wishing they'd stayed overseas until the children were older.

That's not to say it would be the same for you, but something to consider.

It seems noone has suggested the most obvious thing to do in this type of situation , as well as in any other dissatisfied but relatively lucky life:

Start a gratitude journal OP and add to it everyday. You will quickly realize that it is better to focus on the good.

I was in the same situation - albeit without the help for most of the time as we were both trying to build our careers and didn't have the package/pay.

I called a halt to it when my eldest was 10, because it was clear that moving every couple of years (we were much more transient than you) wasn't going to work once he hit secondary school, and actually it has shown that the moving already caused some issues as he has no idea how to make long term friends (luckily the younger one was caught early enough/has a different personality anyway).

Doing that brought an end to our relationship (there were other issues, but this was the final nail in the coffin). My partner couldn't put the children first and couldn't fit into family life when not travelling - and I was frustrated because his increased travelling put everything on me and made me maintaining/growing my career extremely hard. (of course now I'm a single parent, so it's still hard, but at least I'm not doing it all while resenting him and doing his washing/tax returns)

Can you get a job yourself
Or study open universityor locally
Or volunteering

Seems like you just need something to do for you

I’d focus on it from a different angle, and that might help to focus your thinking about what you want to do next. I’d start thinking about what is going to be best for your kids. It’s a dilemma as old as time, I’m from a family and social circle of many who have moved abroad for work (I lived abroad for the first few years of my life), and by far the conclusion that most come to is to move back to the U.K when the children are older primary age. In my case my mother returned to the U.K., and my father still worked abroad, so he came back home for what was effectively holidays. He didn’t return often, but I know others, who worked in Europe instead of Asia, would come back home weekly. Is that something you’d consider? If your kids could have very normal teenage years where you are then it’s less of an issue, but that depends where you are, and if they can’t and you need to move, it focuses your options at least.

Well this is daft.

The most fortunate thing about being in a fortunate position, is the fact that there are choices available. They are not trapped there. They can afford to move countries if they jointly decide that is their priority. OP does not have to accept being an expat and learn to be grateful for it. He is entitled to say that he wants a different sort of life.

I know many who have been in this situation. What seems to happen is when the children get older one parent stays in one place with the children. It seems an incredible sacrifice. I also know of no one who is genuinely happy in this situation, and a few of my friends divorced. At the end of the day it's a discussion between your wife about whether this can persist long term and what is important to you and your family.

You need to have a serious discussion about the future,
your career and how your children will manage.

I had a relative who lived variously in UK, US, Far East. The multiple moves mucked up not only one partner's career but also the children's education.

They divorced and remarried but the children never recovered from the continual moving. None of them managed a satisfactory education or career and felt insecure.

Another not dissimilar situation with friends from Uni, had similar problems - marriage break up, 3 children with disrupted education - none of them were as successful as their parents had been education wise. Their parents were amazed that the children were not thrilled to return to UK - a place they had never seen before!

OP works full time.

What makes you think you will be happier at home? Will you like your job better? Will it be more meaningful? Why don't you have new friends on your postings?

You've trailed around prioritising someone else's ambitions for 10 years. You've now had children & the game has changed & it's time to re-assess as a family.

I agree with @JaxiiTaxii, your priorities have/are changing and that’s OK, you need to discuss your plans going forward.

As PO’s have said, there’ll come a time when moving every few years won’t work so well for your children’s education so it’s wise to come up with some long-term plans.

It sounds like your ideas of success don’t align. Success to me and DH is having a safe and stable home life near to family and friends. Success for me and DH wouldn’t involve working away from home at all.

You need to have a proper chat to your DW about what your best life would look like and how you are going to get there. You may want different things.

Be careful what you wish for. If you split up, perhaps your wife would prefer to carry on with her career and allow you more or less full custody of the children - that's what a lot of men do. If you don't like having a sick child for a couple of nights, how would you feel about being a single father back home?

Lots of good points. Going back to Europe or the UK won't on its own make things easier. We are fortunate enough to have a financial cushion and support. And, yes, sick young children are tough no matter where you are (I took our 3 year old to the doctor's yesterday as his high temperature and coughing has been going on for five nights now).

This cuts through somewhat "Success to me and DH is having a safe and stable home life near to family and friends." That's very much the kind of family I grew up in, and where for my parents, work was mainly work than ended when the day ended (7 hours 24 minutes per day - I remember the figure). DW's family is somewhat different - a mixed nationality marriage where her Mum was a SAHM who had moved to Sweden from India, and her father had a prestigious job that entailed long days and work at the weekend to catch up. Interestingly she has two siblings - one has very much followed the "safe and stable homelife", the other tried to live abroad with his wife and children for a few years, but his wife (who was a SAHM, trailing spouse) hated it, and they moved back home to their home city.

I certainly don't want to divorce my DW - I love her, I'm just not sure I love her employer. I just want to get on the same page about our future. I'd be fine with a few more years abroad if it would get us through the preschool phase, but longer term, I'd like to establish roots somewhere, and not always be making plans to move in a few years. I'd like colleagues and a social network that's stronger, and of course, being closer to family.

These things that you want aren't just things that you want though, they're things that your children need. They can't continue to move every few years, surely your wife knows that? Or was the idea that they'd go to boarding school? Didn't you discuss the incompatibility of her job with children, before you had them? The way you phrase "getting on the same page" makes it sound like she presumed you and the kids would be following her about. For what is a presumably an intelligent, education woman, that's a bit nieve. If she won't budge, some sort of change in your current circumstances is going to need to happen, as you and the kids do need to stay in one place. Maybe when faced with that reality, that following her wherever she goes is not an option, she'll change her tune?

This post is a nonsense and unduly harsh. I’m not normally one who goes in for this tired MN trope, but I suspect had the OP been a woman, this post would be different. Very different.

My ex’s job would have meant a life like this. I was quite excited for it but now in hindsight I’d have hated giving up my career for his, and children don’t like moving around. He went ahead and did it anyway and left me to manage the kids here in the U.K., and he’s now living with the consequences of that.

When your children are older they might want more stability. Is there a sideways move your wife can make into a different line of work?

I think it’s fair enough not to like this lifestyle when your own needs and feelings change. It is different as the kids get older. My DB had a similar life and they made the decision to move back to their home country just before their DC was of school age for all the obvious reasons.

Yes, I think you need to have a serious chat about what will happen when the DC reach school age, which is not that far off. I have stayed put, even though I would love to move house, because my house is near DC school and that helps me manage work and home (single parent), and it is a good school where they are settled with friends. You and your wife need to have a chat about what is important in DC schooling and how that will be organised.

i would also have liked to move jobs at some point, but my job provides stability and I can do it whilst looking after DC (albeit with some level of chaos due to lack of time). So the other part of the equation you need to scope out is what other jobs are available, do they pay the same or sufficient salary etc. and would they be any more manageable? At the moment, you just have an idea that things could be organised differently.

I don’t think it is unreasonable to want to move to be closer to family support but I would be wary of succumbing to parental pressure. It is not really up to your parents how you and your wife organise your lives. I also inwardly eye-roll whenever people make a fuss about ‘solo-parenting’ (this is a concept a colleague of mine loudly uses whenever her husband is away) their own children. The thing about ‘solo-parenting’ while a spouse is travelling for work is that they are also looking after the DC because they are providing financially. I get that you did not use the phrase, but you drew attention to the fact that you were looking after the children yourself, whilst they were unwell, with little sleep. That is life with young children.

That said, it can easily cause resentment if the balance of domestic/childcare stuff is not equal and as you say, this is an issue women have had for years but are expected to deal with. Being a single parent is just the extreme end of it. So is the childcare fair when your wife is there? if so, the issue is mainly what you want the future to look like in terms of DC education, work and social connections etc, I wouldn’t get diverted down the track of ‘I had to look after my own DC for five days’. It sounds ridiculous, even though looking after a six month old and a three year old on your own when they are unwell is hard - I hope they are better now.

@Hayliebells there are many families who live this life and to no detriment of their children. There are many excellent expat schools around the world.