Living abroad has made my marriage worse

[Claradiplomat]

I’m living abroad with my husband, he is working at an embassy as a diplomat. Unfortunately, since coming here our relationship has worsened significantly.

He is busy at work and stressed most of the time. He is out at events / drinking most evenings. We do have a part time nanny and housekeeper.

I am loaded down with childcare, poor health and loneliness. I am miserable here. I am trying but I’ve had enough. Enough of being someone’s wife, enough of going to events and standing there awkwardly making small talk. Drowning in emotional labour and homesickness. I have made a few friends here but nobody I can truly offload my feelings to.

I said I wasn’t going to an event today because of my endometriosis and other health conditions. I’m struggling right now. I’m exhausted. I’ve had enough. I’ve been doing everything all week as he’s not been here or has been too tired to parent.

His reaction was to get annoyed and to say it’s poor optics if I don’t go. People will notice. I can’t do xyz if I don’t go today. I cried and now he’s ignoring me. No hug. Nothing. And that he’s frustrated how I’m not coping here. And that he’s embarrassed telling people I’m unwell all the time, apparently people at events ask where I am. The same people who never reach out to me personally.

I can’t name the country but it’s weird here. Like properly weird. Like can’t talk freely or criticise the government and he says our apartment is bugged so can’t even talk freely at home. He has a whiteboard to communicate any thing important.

Ever since I’ve been diagnosed with autism he hasn’t cared. I sent him my report to read, he never read it. There is no emotional intelligence there. No recognition. Same with other diagnoses. Just shows no interest just an “oh okay.” I’m going to have a laparoscopy at some point and his main concern I would have it at a time where I wouldn’t have to miss major events, especially our country’s national day event here where I have to stand in line and shake 1000 hands.

I had a career of my own back home. Here, he doesn’t want me to work. Whenever a job at the embassy comes up he says I shouldn’t apply as it would be too weird working together.

We have had sex once in 8 months. He doesn’t cuddle or show much physical affection apart from at events when he’s all smiles and takes my arm.

Can you take the kids and go back to your home country?

Did you ever doscuss what your "role" would be? My husband once wanted to take on a role at work which involved me being a "visible wife". I said I couldn't do that and he dropped it. It sounds like you are both exhausted and he is ignoring your needs.

Im really sorry, it sounds awful,
how many more years does he need to stay? I believe as a diplomat the length is no more than 4 years?

Ergh guessing its russia china or similar.

Given the kids it becomes a lot more complex and you are likely going to need to "work with what you've got" for now at least.
Getting yourself worked up about his " wrongs" isnt going to help.

I'd start with the basics.

1.Get some routines and systems in place to make thongs easier eoth the kids

• i have 5-10 places we fgo regularly that are easy.
• I have a list of 20 things of easy games we can do at home
• i keep a cupboard of cheap items if i am desperate and need something novel (bubble guns, pull back cars etc)

2.Your physical health work on it

• sort your current issues as you see best talk to ypur H about how it will all be much better for everyone once you are better
• join a gym try a couple . Its good all round and good place to make friends

3.Get a hobby or use the embassy to make friends. My sibling is an ex pat...mostly african countries the us embassy was generally where it was at socially.
4.Get a therapist and specifically focus on coping strategies / things ypu can control and ways to improve your current situation / keep your sanity. Not slagging your dh off - that wont help.

5.Set up video calls with friends and family from home.intentionally make time and stay connected.
6.Get more help from the nanny housekeeper if possible.

1. Apply for embassy jobs. Sell it as you "need" it and you'll undrrstand his work better, support him better nothing is forever blah blah...and it might not be weird and if it is you can revisit (ie imply you'll quit. Once you have the job you do you) If nothing else at least you'll have your own cash again

I'll close by saying i feel for you and can hear your lonliness in your post. I'd counsel you dont do anything rash. Hang in there for now (surgery prob needs private health which is via his job and so he pays for it etc) try to improve things, take your time and look for/ create options.

I’d say that you need to go to your home country for medical attention, take the kids and don’t go back. Do it all with a smile and assurances you’ll be back.
Post home any important things that you wouldn’t be able to carry back in a suitcase.

This is may be an okay option depending on country, how much you think he'd fight you on custody, divorce terms in current country and how your finances / housing provison looks back in uk.

But without considering full information it could be a very very bad choice that you really regret in the long term.

You sound really miserable and the relationship sounds as if it is in deep trouble. I’m hoping you are posting in a bad moment and you do have better days, but with so many bad things going on it’s a weight to carry.

How much longer have you got in this posting? Would you really say that the bad times started with this posting, or did things start a lot longer ago than that? How old are your children?

I don’t know much about the Foreign Office but is there any support available - partners getting extremely fed up with the life must be a known phenomenon?

It does sound a bit as if your husband has checked out. It’s clearly a busy job and it is coming between you. Did you have any plans for the future, after this posting for example? Are you likely to get an easier country next time? Having your house bugged sounds horrific tbh.

Please be very, very careful about just moving the kids back to your country of origin. There is a very real chance the kids current home is classed as the country your husband is working in currently, and therefore moving the kids is international kidnapping.

That said, living abroad is a sure fire way to expose cracks in relationships, and it sounds like your husband is doing nothing to help you settle in and find networks for friendship and support.

Are there any groups or (non embassy) social events you can start going to? You need to find an "expat family" - the families who in some ways replace your blood family while you are all in the melting pot together. Yes, it's intimidating putting yourself out there, but people you come across who are also part of the expat cycle will totally get the feeling of being the newbie, and are generally incredibly inclusive and welcoming.

How much longer is this deployment? And would the expectation be you move home or to another location next? ,

Hi OP, also a diplomatic spouse here, although my husband is not in a high profile role so he doesn’t have the same entertaining pressures like your husband seems to have. Is there a person employed at the embassy who is in charge of supporting spouses, because there usually is, and they can often signpost you to relevant support in country or back in the UK (if you are from the UK?). It is really hard adapting to a new country as a “trailing spouse” and if you are not feeling supported by your husband then that makes it all a lot harder. There is also the DSFA, or whatever it has changed its name to now. You absolutely shouldn’t feel pressured to attend events if you are not well enough - fuck the “optics”, people who go to those events most likely couldn’t care less about whether a spouse is there or not, they only really want to hobnob with the VIPs at those events to network. Please don’t suffer alone and get the support that is out there.

As a former diplomat, married to a diplomat, I might be able to shed some light. Ultimately though, this boils down to significant miss communication between the two of you - because almost all of what you have said is bogstandard for a diplomatic life.

Events (including evening drinks):Are never just events or drinks. For many countries, they work late into the evening and ‘drinks’ are one of the strongest diplomatic tools we have. It’s a fantastic way to network and something actively encouraged. Events are non-negotiable and it is expected a spouse will join - particularly in Central/ Eastern Europe and the FSU. If your DH wants any sort of career, he has no choice but to go to them and it is expected spouses will attend as well. And interlocutors will not engage with you if you don’t attend big events - they almost certainly do not know the details of your health conditions and to them you are snubbing them. Your DH should have explained this to you.

Security: You should not have posted any of the bugging stuff online. You will have been briefed not to discuss it. I suggest you ask for that to be removed. I won’t even comment on the white board thing other than to say, if true (DH has been in some pretty interesting places and this absolutely is not a thing) your DH is a colossal fuck muppet if he thinks this is a good idea.

Jobs: 100% agree with your DH. Sorry. But couples working together at embassies is a bloody nightmare and takes up so much time because they have a tendency to gang up on other staff, back each other and take work home with them which escalates issues. It took up a huge amount of DH time resolving bully claims - involving couples against other staff - when he was DHM.

Ultimately, this is it, OP. This is what life as a travelling spouse is like. Your DH did a piss poor job of communicating it to you, and I’m sorry. But there is no improving this because whilst you can’t engage on the events etc, his resentment will build as he is right - your non-attendance at events does reflect poorly on him. It’s rotten, but it’s true.

Lots of diplomatic marriages don’t last a first posting. And the above reasons you’ve laid out are why. I am sorry though because there’s really only two choices; work on being a partnership and accept this is what it’s like, or go home.

How much longer does he have? What did you discuss before going- I donr move in circles like that but absokutely would imagine that my role would be as a dutiful, groomed, not very vocal arm piece to attend all function and utter pleasantarles . Unbearable.

What's the relationship been like before this. Is it his first role as diplomat, can you find a way to be an absenwidofe needto be home caring for others, or us that a stackable offence..

No words of comfort I'm afraid. It sounds an awful situation. Hope u can find a solution.

Thanks for your reply.
Just to clarify a couple of points you’ve assumed:

• I’m not UK-based
• I’m not new to this life
• And I’m not confused about how the system works

I’m simply choosing not to accept that “bog standard” automatically deserves my silence or obedience, especially when the emotional cost is high and the support is low.

There’s a difference between understanding a structure
and consenting to be quietly absorbed by it.

Some of us don’t confuse “how it is” with “how it has to be.”

And if you don’t want to be ‘absorbed’ then don’t. But almost all of what your DH has done is normal for a diplomat. If you’re not new to this life, you should know this - sorry if that sounds harsh, but once you know diplomatic life and have been on a posting there’s really no excuse not to know if it’s for you or not!

Thanks for your… perspective, but a few corrections, since you seem very confident about a life you’re not actually living here.

1. “This is just what diplomatic life is.”
2. Actually, no. Plenty of spouses don’t attend events — including at my own embassy. Several senior diplomats have spouses who don’t live in-country at all, and it hasn’t ended their careers. Optics seem to matter far more to you than they do in real life.
3. “Your non-attendance reflects badly on him.”
4. Only if we pretend this is the 1950s and wives are still ornamental attachments to a man’s job. Some postings — including this one — are now full of dual-career couples, single diplomats, and spouses who simply don’t play the Stepford circuit. Nobody’s career has imploded because their spouse didn’t eat another canapé under a flag.
5. “You should’ve been briefed.”
6. I was. I just didn’t agree to become free, unpaid labour. That wasn’t in my marriage vows or my husband’s contract.
7. “You have two choices: accept it or go home.”
8. There’s actually a third: stay married legally, disengage emotionally, and quietly build an exit plan, like many spouses do, but don’t admit. You’d be surprised how many share that in private.
9. “It’s rotten, but it’s true.”
10. No, it’s rotten because too many people repeat that line instead of questioning the system.
11. Some of us didn’t marry into the Foreign Service to be background furniture.

Some of us refuse to disappear politely.

Thanks for the concern, though. Truly.

Your autism is possibly why you’re not able to look at things objectively OP - and it’s going to do you no favours in a relationship such as PP has described where you need to be a partnership.

No one should be questioning a system that is about the country-region in question. Perhaps in Paris what @LandSharksAnonymous says wouldn’t fly, but in the sort of country you’ve describe it absolutely does and you cannot tell your husband not to act a certain way - and not respect the culture of the countries he’s working in - because you’re upset. Life doesn’t work like that.

You didn’t marry into the foreign service. You married a diplomat. It’s not the royal family!

As a MOD civil servant, I can tell you that what Landsharks has described is accurate. Diplomats with spouses overseas expect their spouses to be present. And, Landsharks is in the UK… her DH is overseas (she’s mentioned it on several other threads) so I imagine she knows rather well how it all works and presumably the desire not to attend events is why she doesn’t live with him!

I spent five years in Rome as a senior member of the embassy and DH is currently an ambassador and has done multiple tours. Including four back to back. I know how it works OP. Your idealism and principals don’t fit in the world you currently live in - just because others are allegedly doing it, doesn’t mean it works for your husband. And quite frankly, I am sure their hosts aren’t impressed with them.

As I’ve said before, you should ask for the security stuff to be deleted - if you had any self awareness you’d never have posted that and could get yourself into serious trouble. Your lack of regard for this is the most shocking thing. I’m genuinely surprised even a CB Spouse thinks posting what you did is acceptable.

And, as PP noted, I live in the UK - because I bloody hate social functions and people. But if I lived in the country DH does I would absolutely expect to attend events

Edit: to remove the ‘S’ of CB as you’re not actually staff, as you’ve pointed out above

Many people have said she can't kidnap the children from their domicile

If she lives in a country where you cannot criticise the regime and the homes are bugged, I would imagine a treaty does not exist that would require the children to be returned to that country.

Also the father isnt a national of that country. Their children wont be nationals of that country. They will have british consulate birth certificates (if they were born there) and british passports.

They won't be returned to their country of origin. If the op takes them back to the UK. Because it is not their country of origin nor their fathers. He is working there temporarily rather than a citizen.

She can arrange contact with the children whilst he remains there but he can come home to see them.

You can't demand children return to a country when it isn't their country of origin and actually they have no right to be there but for their father's job.

Go home for a holiday/to visit relatives and don't go back - make whatever excuse sounds plausible. Try and sort your life out back in the UK and deal with the fallout when he finishes his posting. It sounds as though you are on your way to a divorce anyway.

My parents split and we lived abroad on and off due to his work.

My mum came back to UK. Do you honestly think my dad could have demanded my return to Italy to live permanently when I held a UK passport and was never a national of Italy and he'd only lived there a year or two and did not hold an Italian passport.

Some people should think before they advise.

Nice of you to keep lecturing from the comfort of your armchair. A few facts to help you match your moral outrage to reality:

1. I do not live in the UK. I am not a British embassy spouse. Your repeated assumption otherwise is either lazy or deliberately patronising. Either way, it’s not useful.
2. I didn’t post specifics. I didn’t name a country, an embassy, a unit, or any classified detail. Speculation about “bugging” ≠ a security breach.
3. Security theatre ≠ security practice. Your insistence that my remark somehow puts people at risk reads like fear dressed up as authority. If you actually worked in operations you’d know vague, non-actionable comments are not how leaks happen. What you’re doing is signalling: “Look at me, I care about protocol,” while enjoying the power trip of policing someone else.
4. Hypocrisy, served cold. You say you live in the UK and would “absolutely expect” spouses to attend events — yet earlier you lectured as though everyone everywhere must conform to the same tired script. Funny how expectations only seem to matter when they suit a particular image of diplomacy. Plenty of senior staff have partners who don’t live at post and nobody’s career implodes. Optics are selectively enforced by people who like control, not consistency.
5. I’m not staff. Thanks for the correction in your edit — you finally acknowledged the distinction you lectured me about three paragraphs earlier. Consistency is cute when you can remember to apply it.

If your position is “this is the way things have always been,” that’s fine — someone has to defend the status quo. If your position is “women should consent to being invisible,” please stop posing as moral authority. I’m choosing something else: dignity, boundaries, and the right not to perform on demand.

Also — on the alleged “security breach” you seem fixated on:

Every spy novel, every TV series, every Cold War memoir, every Le Carré adaptation, every Netflix thriller ever made contains bugged embassies, bugged hotel rooms, and the line “we assume every room is compromised.” It’s not a revelation — it’s a genre trope.

If casually acknowledging the same thing that’s on BBC dramas, Amazon Prime series, and in Waterstones bestsellers is now a punishable offence, then someone should probably go arrest John le Carré’s ghost, half of MI5’s retired workforce, and the entire writing staff of The Diplomat, Slow Horses, The Night Manager, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, The Americans, Killing Eve, Bodyguard, and literally every film about Russia ever made.

If the “big secret” is something every middle-aged man in a beige cardigan already knows from Netflix, then it isn’t a secret. It’s a cliché.

But please — do continue performing Official Guardian of the Realm on a parenting forum. The theatre of it is spectacular.

Warmest regards (and do try to enjoy your social functions while the rest of us quietly rewrite the rules).

Depending on how old you are, yes, absolutely.

It doesn’t matter what passport you hold, it matters where you are habitually resident. If you’d been living there a few months, you can be considered habitually resident.

Your mum was lucky.

I read your message.
Noted the tone.
Filed it under “people who mistake obedience for intelligence.”

Let me make something clear:

My autism is not a flaw in my thinking.
It’s the reason I don’t swallow nonsense just because everyone else agreed to pretend it tastes like champagne.

You seem very confident telling me how diplomacy works from a country you don’t even have to live this life in.
That’s the luxury of distance — you get to moralise without consequence.

Meanwhile, I’m the one actually inside the system you’re lecturing about, watching it run on:

• unpaid spouses
• unspoken mental health crises
• optics over humanity
• and women quietly disappearing under the weight of “expectation.”

But yes — surely the problem is my brain wiring, not the fact that the whole structure falls apart the second a woman stops nodding.

Here’s the truth you don’t want to say out loud:

The diplomatic machine only works if the wives stay silent, smiling, and grateful to exist in the margins.

The moment one of us stops playing along, the room gets nervous.

You’re not warning me for my safety.
You’re warning me because I’m not behaving.

And that tells me everything I need to know.

Beaten down by childcare and responsibilities she says when she's got a nanny and a housekeeper.

Leave and come home - youll have none of that and all the responsibilities and no husband or paid staff.

I had help and family support at home as well as a familiar culture, my own career, friends, a support network, independence, and the ability to move freely.

Here, I have a nanny — but no family, no community, no autonomy, no emotional partnership, no professional identity, and no way to leave when it gets unbearable.

A nanny can wash dishes and play with a child.
She cannot replace:

• a functioning marriage
• a sense of belonging
• basic mental health support
• the right to say “no” without consequences
• or a life of my own

Help with housework is not the same as help with life.