On Getting Older: A Series: The Romantic, Adventurous, Important Life of a Trailing Spouse

The other day I wondered if anybody ever really saw themselves as a trailing spouse one day. The cliché question of “what do you want to be when you grow up?”, and would anybody had answered that they dream of marrying a person who gets assigned to different places and come along – a trailing spouse.

In my case, this didn’t come to mind when asked such aspiring questions of the future, since it wasn’t really something that I was aware of. But children of a moving family perhaps would be familiar of such a life and consider it to be a satisfactory tract in adulthood? My point is, I think generally being a trailing spouse isn’t something common as a life track, not until you actually find yourself becoming one.

Wedding Day 

The term itself I only got used to late in being one, there are some I believe who resent such a moniker, believing it to be subordinate, maybe because they think “trailing” sounds too much like a pet trained to follow its human around. To this I have no problem, because concentrating on how a term figuratively entails, is thinking too much into it, rather than what it actually says, which is technically true. We do in a sense follow and trail, our partners are posted and we tag along. “Tag-along spouse” doesn’t quite have a ring to it, some prefer “Travel/posting/assignment Companion” which to me sounds too formal.

I used to go by Diplomat’s Wife, or a cuter shortened version, Diplowife. The word diplomat attached to a wife can sound so romantic, adventurous, important. But as the years have gone, I realized that while that is in fact the profession that has carried our marriage into this nomadic life, while it has the potential to be all the things it seems to sound, a Diplomat’s life can also be so much mundane, tedious, I dare say bureaucratic as well. Plus, being a diplomat is just one part of JG, and I am more than just a diplomat’s wife.

Diplowife Mode

So, over the years, I have found comfort in the term “trailing spouse”, as someone who indeed follows logistically, her spouse. I am a partner, companion, one-person support system, of this guy whom she adores, who just happens to be a diplomat.

With the celebration of our decade long marital status, also marks my tenth-year anniversary of becoming a trailing spouse. That is of course if you count actually becoming one when you marry someone who moves around as a profession, or when you actually move around yourself because your partner does so. Anyway, ten years have now passed since JG and I started into this life, and while I am still the crazy 24-year-old who is perpetually clueless, who is trying to just work things out as we go along, certain things I feel I have learned along the way.

And these lessons I feel are what makes this life rather romantic, adventurous, and important, more than being the Diplomat’s wife. This blog is of course still called Diplomatic Baggage, I kept it mainly for sentimental reasons, also I kind of lean towards the “Baggage” now as the operative word in the tandemic (sic) title of all the things I have accumulated along the way.

Being a trailing spouse is romantic because it is nostalgic, a decade is nothing compared to many who have been in this life for longer. But every picture, every person met, every place you go is a memory. Sometimes you confuse them into one big blur, but it is memorable just the same. It’s romantic because it is spontaneous, one place is a different experience from the next, but the international connections and similarities that you discover is like finding a small insignificant treasure on the street, a pleasant surprise. It is romantic because you get to experience all of it, even the cringe-worthy frustrations and set-backs with your significant other.  It is romantic because it brings all sorts of emotions, #thefeels.

Jane Austen wrote in one of her novels something like, “…if a girl does not find adventure in her village, she must go abroad.” Someone once asked me what’s the best thing about this life we have chosen, and of course I always say that it’s the travel. We both will forever be grateful for the opportunity to see this fascinating world of ours, and while there are some things that never really worked out, (I mean who doesn’t, right?) for me the deal is somewhat fair. There are certain stages in life that JG and I will probably never get to experience, but what we don’t gain through unfortunate circumstances, we get back in time and resources to go places, try out different things, learn as much as we can. For JG setting out into the world is an homage to his favorite characters like Bilbo Baggins and Usagi Yojimbo, grouchy introverts, who are forced out of their comfort zones, unchanging to the core, but has this unique way of exploring things that makes them fascinating points of perspectives. And in this adventure, I am the Samweiss and the Tamoe Ame who they share their views with and cares for, I am the sidekick.

The traveller and his Sidekick

Which brings me to why being a trailing spouse is important. Another favorite author of mine explains that sidekicks (and villains actually) are as important as the hero because “they are essential in defining that main character”. But what she points out more is that “protagonist needs the sidekick more than the sidekick needs the protagonist.” For example, Robin was created so that Batman didn’t always look like a crazy person talking to himself all the time. The concept of the trailing spouse was constructed out of the need for professions that require constant movement from one place to the next. But since life on the road is lonely as everybody wants to go home or at least have someone to go home to; added enticement for such jobs was the benefit of bringing home with you. Thus in a minuscule way, I am important to my husband. For some the need to also gain individual purpose while being a trailing spouse is in itself important. Something I truly commend, it can be a sideline, or a full-time endeavor, they make it work because they feel that their skills is worth not being set aside for the partnership. For me this is a case of as needed, or when the opportunity arises, but since neither is the case, I am happy and contented with the free time it gives me.     

I cannot say that the views I have written here will be the same in the next ten years. Who knows, maybe by then, advances in artificial intelligence will have gained momentum that you can one day purchase your very own custom-made “tag-along partner”? But until then I remain one of them, companions, sidekicks, portable, home to a diplomat and the likes, a trailing spouse.   

This sort of ends this series on getting older. I had some more topics in mind but I think I'll save that to when I turn 40 or something, maybe... until then this is me at  35-ish.