Trailing spouse

A trailing spouse is someone who relocates to another country because their partner has taken a job or assignment there. The term is common in expatriate and corporate circles, though many people dislike it because it sounds passive. Alternatives include "accompanying partner" or "expat partner". Research such as Yvonne McNulty's suggests their needs are often overlooked.

What it means

The phrase describes a situation, not a type of person. Anyone can become a trailing spouse: a doctor who follows a partner's academic post, a teacher whose husband is transferred, a father who leaves his job when his wife is posted overseas.

What tends to define the experience is imbalance. One partner arrives with a role, colleagues and a reason to be there. The other arrives with a long list of practical tasks and, often, no clear place of their own.

Where the idea comes from

The term has been in use since at least the 1980s in business and relocation writing. Research soon showed why it mattered to employers. In 1989, J. Stewart Black and Gregory Stephens studied American expatriates in Pacific Rim countries and found that the spouse's adjustment was linked to the employee's own adjustment and intention to stay.

In 2012, Yvonne McNulty interviewed trailing spouses about the support they received from organisations. The title of her paper quoted one participant's experience of "being dumped in to sink or swim", capturing how often support focused on the employee alone.

What it can look like in everyday life

Imagine you were a project manager in Mumbai. Your husband is offered a three-year post in Munich, and it makes sense to go. Eight months later, you have unpacked, found a school, learnt the tram routes and sorted residence paperwork. You still don't have a friend you could call at 10pm.

Your work permit situation is unclear, your days are full of logistics, and when people ask "So what do you do?" you are not sure what to say.

Or imagine your family back home sees only the photos: the lake, the weekend trips, the nice flat. Your mother says how lucky you are. You agree, and then feel strangely hollow, because the person who used to run meetings now waits all day for one adult conversation.

In person-centred counselling

The trailing spouse experience often brings mixed feelings that are hard to voice. You may love your partner and resent the move. You may be grateful for the opportunity and grieving the version of yourself you left behind. Saying any of this out loud can feel disloyal.

Counselling offers a place where those feelings can sit side by side. It might touch on identity, loneliness, the balance of power in the relationship, or what you want for yourself in this chapter.

The trailing spouse topic page goes into this in more detail, the expat wellbeing check-in may help you take stock, and online therapy for expats explains how sessions work from abroad.

Related ideas

Being a trailing spouse often brings culture shock, but the two are not the same. Culture shock is about losing familiar cues in a new culture. The trailing spouse experience adds a loss of role and independence, which can unsettle your self-concept even in a country you like. It also tends to increase the mental load, as the partner at home becomes the default organiser of the whole move.