Monday, May 24, 2010

The Delights of Being a Trailing Spouse

I have an intense love-hate relationship with my husband's work. I love the passion & commitment of those who work for the organisation. I love the NGO's values & I love what they do & am very impressed by their work. It is full of professional, intelligent & committed people. I hate the hours he works though. The organisation also has a very hard working work ethic, it even has an unofficial nickname amongst its employees, relating to this ethic. My husband's perfectionist personality also means that, in my view, he works far TOO Hard. I hate the fact that because of an audit, meetings in Georgia & a course in Italy, he can't take a family holiday during the summer holidays at all. It does tend to dominate our life, but then he is a CEO so the buck stops with him.

Last week 28 visitors from my husband's organisation were visiting, so there were meetings before meetings, meetings after the meetings, & meetings over breakfast, coffee, dinner & even more meetings about future meetings. When these people have come from all over the world, for a big regional conference, & when little old Albania has a chance for face to face talks with the 'high ups', as the national director calls them, you grab it.

I had to go along to a few of the dinners too, to meet the new boss etc. Bit of a culture shock after my usual social circle of mums, missionaries, my cleaner & 14 yr old students. By the end of the week, my husband was exhausted & even further behind with work because of all this. His emails have reached a record 200 unread ones, he has missed about 3 important deadlines, & as a result of one meeting, has heard that even though he spent the whole of his 1st yr undoing the damage of his predecessor, a corrupt local, & getting staff back onside, the accounts in order, recruiting good staff & growing the programme; the 2nd year involved legal & financial separation from the umbrella NGO, a huge task, which as anyone knows in a developing country is also a time consuming and bureaucratically nightmarish job, & now hoping to have a yr when he could concentrate on consolidation & growth, he has been told Albania is to merge with the Kosovo operation & he needs to plan the strategy for that & then implement it.

Oh & by the way, “neither you nor the CEO in Kosovo will be running it”

So we have also learned that, although they like my husband & will 'find him a job' within the organisation, he can't stay put. He has also been told his boss has 'a role in mind for him' - an advisor job, which, when you have run and managed a company on your own, is not much cop. He was also told that he won't be moved till next summer 2011, as the boss knows what it is like with children. Great, so he grants us 6 mths grace so kids can finish the school year. It still means we will have moved 3 times in 5 ½ years. At one of these dinners, in conversation, I noticed that many of them had spent 6 yrs here, 7 yrs there, 9 yrs there. They didn't seem to move every 2-3 years. Why do we have to, & will it always be like this I wonder? I feel like a pawn. Pretty powerless.

My husband says he wished he hadn't told me because he knows I will worry away at it. I can't help it. I never wanted to be an embassy or military wife. I (naively it turns out) assumed if we lived abroad it would MAINLY be in one place. Always said I just couldn't keep moving countries every few years. But then I 'always said' quite a few things. I keep having to readjust my parameters, or rather extend them to encompass more & more conditions, or so it seems.

It's EXHAUSTING, moving countries, learning the ropes, possibly a language, adapting to a new culture, environment, climate, way of life, settling the kids in school, finding a house, finding a car, getting all those residence permits driving licences etc. again. I think I'm too old for this.

And besides which, normal developing country exigencies notwithstanding, I like it here! The children are happy, the climate is great, we love where we live, I have a job, it's only 3 hrs from the UK etc. I even quite like the chaos & unpredictability. I think I might have been ruined permanently for life in the UK. I might even find it a bit boring now.......

It's also possible that we would move back to the UK, IF my husband took one of these airy fairy nondescript advisor jobs which he really doesn't want. As he says, being an advisor all you can do is 'make suggestions' no one has to take any notice. It's a fairly toothless role. I'm not actually ready to move back to the UK. Am under no illusions about it. The traffic, the expense, the weather, the class sizes (my children are in a tiny family ish school with 10 in a class) My sister has been back 10 yrs now from Canada & still struggles with life in the UK. My brother has been back from New Zealand for 2 yrs, still no permanent job, still utterly miserable. I don't want to be the third sibling to do that!

And as I said love-hate. For all his hard work & long hours, my husband LOVES his job & loves what he does. And I am so pleased he has finally found his niche in micro-finance. It has taken him 20 yrs to get there after a lot of blind alleys & wrong turnings, unemployment, risk taking, lowly jobs & starting again at the bottom in Development. I hope he doesn't lose that.



8 comments:

nappy valley girl said...

It IS unsettling having to move and not knowing what the future holds, so I can definitely sympathise. The nature of my husband's job so far has always been to move every 2-3 years (you do in Medicine until you are a consultant) so it has always been difficult to plan ahead. But like yours, he loves what he does, and that is worth so much.

By the way I finished reading Third Culture Kids - thank you for recommending it. A really fascinating read.

Potty Mummy said...

I can see you must be totally gutted. And pretty frustrated that after his hard work so far (and yours too, let's not forget that) is being disregarded like this. Am quite cross on your behalf, actually. Not that that helps, I'm sure...

Expat mum said...

I have a lot of friends who are TCK families (so to speak) and have moved all over the world. I don't know how you all do it. I would be exhausted too - and probably more than a bit pissed off.

Iota said...

So did you get to the bottom of why the others move every 7 - 9 years, and you, every 2?

I suppose it partly boils down to whether you see your needs as being equally important as your husband's needs. I was discussing this very thing with my counsellor this morning... Marriage is a dance - sometimes one leads, sometimes the other. Doesn't work so well if it's always one and never the other.

That feeling of lack of control is horrible.

Nappy Valley Housewife said...

I can only imagine how tough this must be for you and I really admire you for 'standing by your man' so to speak. Your support is the reason why he is able to reach his dreams and be in a position to love what he does. That support can never be minimized or underestimated and I'm sure he must appreciate your personal sacrifices.

For me, I think it would be the uncertainty, of knowing that you'll be moved but not where and not being able to plan ahead or get your head wrapped around your life in the next location. As Iota said, that feeling of a lack of control really is horrible. Sorry I couldn't be more helpful...

Mwa said...

What a tough time! Maybe you'll end up somewhere you love even more. (Hopeful thinking?)

I have found "settling back in" quite hard, too. I suppose it may be easier if you don't expect to go back to anything like what you had before - treat it more like a new foreign country.

baresytapas said...

I have visited this blog by accident, but I found it quite interesting. You're doing a good job (and most importantly it's free). A greeting.

Janet said...

I found your blog quite by accident - and I love it! We lived out of the UK for 10 years in various developing countries and loved every minute. We came back for medical reasons but would totally go back out again. It is a great environment to raise children. Your husband is right - I did the advisor roles for a while and it's really dull! Also although I have enjoyed being back in UK/Ireland - the culture is kind of harsh especially for girls. So, enjoy where you are for the moment, although its definitely unsettling not knowing what the future holds. I hope it works out for you all.