Expat: You May Be an Orphan Spouse (and Not Even Know It)

Orphan spouse* is what happens when you’re in a relationship… but live separate lives.
orphan spouse
I hear you saying: “Why would you do that?” Generally because of your work, your partner’s work or both!
For days, weeks or months in a row, you’re on your own.

The family is divided: on one side, one spouse (generally the mother) with the children, on the other side, hundreds or thousands of kilometers away, the remaining partner (usually the father).
The distance makes it impossible for you to take care of each other in the reality of the daily life.

This separation for several days – weeks – months in a row, year in year out, is not harmless.

How does it affect expatriates?

Let’s have a look at two examples.

A woman’s story:

You’ve accepted to follow your partner in this new country because you think it’s good for his career. It’ll also benefit the entire family: gaining international exposure, learning a new language, opening up your horizon. Consciously or unconsciously, you may even have felt relieved to have some time off. The treadmill back home left you with a bitter taste: rush and stress. No time to enjoy the family life. You felt guilty. The kids are growing up, so quickly… This proposal, after all, came at the right moment.

Then you had to deal with the move, followed by the early stages of culture shock. All family members are struggling to find their landmarks. You work hard to support the children and put in place a routine to bring structure and reassurance in your daily life. You do your best to unload your husband from the household chores. He’s quite stressed by a demanding job.

But after the excitement of the first months, what you didn’t expect is this new project your partner is now in charge of. It’s supposed to be THE future of the company: leading a multinational team based… on 3 continents. Frequent traveling is required. Several weeks in a row.

From that moment, you’ve both become… orphan spouses.

A man’s story:

For her, nothing changed. She’s still in the cozy home, with the same job and the same children. However since you accepted this “short-term” assignment overseas, your life is not the same. You can’t share meals together anymore. You miss the moments of complicity with your wife after the kids are in bed. You can’t hear the laughter and the fights when the children are playing in the corridor, rushing down the stairs. You’re alone instead, in an anonymous hotel room. It doesn’t really matter whether you’re in Brussels, Paris, New-York or Singapore. The atmosphere in those international hotels is so impersonal. Everything is standardized. They’ve all got the same kind of mini-bar, fitness room, pool and sauna.

To trick loneliness, you turn on the television as a source of false comfort.

Often, when you wake up in the morning, you startle because you’re not sure where you are: at home? at work? in Europe? in Asia?

The most difficult time of the day comes with dinner. The colleagues are all gone back home, reunited with their own families. You’re on your own. It’s not fun to eat alone. So you drink, sometimes a bit more than you should. The silly thing is that with the time zone difference, you can’t even call your family. When you’ve finished your day at work (if that still makes sense in a 24/7 connected world!), they’re already sleeping. And when you wake up, the kids are at school and your wife in the office. Not the best place for an intimate conversation.

She’s telling you she’s afraid at night. She realizes how comforting your presence was. You feel a twinge. Now, you can’t be there for her anymore and she can’t be there for you either. You’ve both become orphans. Orphan spouses.

The company mentioned that the project was “only” for 8 months. For such a short period of time, you didn’t even question the possibility of a move as a family. You come back home twice a month. You’re the expat now…
And what seemed to be a temporary disruption triggers a much deeper change.

Whatever situation you’re in, what used to be family time together is no longer the same.

For split-families (as named by leading relocation company Cartus), weekends and school holidays feel awkward: on both sides. So much time to spend without each other. Going to a museum? Visiting friends? Up for a bush walk?

For the one remaining home, you feel like a widow or a divorced parent.

As French poet Lamartine asserts: “You only miss one single person and it feels like the whole world is empty” (Un seul être vous manque et tout est dépeuplé) Click to tweet

You’re seen attending school events, supporting soccer matches, organizing birthday parties… alone.
You lose those shared family moments together but moreover, you lose the shared memories! For the children, this means memories without Dad.
Your possibilities become restricted for safety reasons or lack of confidence: actually going for a bush walk with the kids might feel a bit risky without a second adult. Sleeping under the tent, no thank you. You’re too scared.

At home, not only do you have to take care of all the the household chores (including putting the trash out) but you need to play dad’s role too. Managing discipline is often exhausting.

Even with friends, it’s not the same. There’s an imbalance in the couples… except if you organize something with other fellow orphan spouses!

Orphan spouse feels like having a broken leg and walking with crutches. You can still move forward but you’re limping.

On the other side, you’ve got the opposite picture:

You’re definitely and desperately alone: new places, restaurants, hotel rooms. At first, you might actually enjoy it. Unlimited freedom. No kids complaining every five minutes about feeling tired. No reluctant teenagers criticizing the food, the location, the music. No partner complaining because you’re watching your favorite sports program.

But after the enjoyment of the first weeks, you miss them all. Your mind wanders in the meeting room… Is this supposed to be your life? So far away from your loved ones?

Being an orphan spouse means that you have to deal with a loss but not just any loss. The most stressful, traumatic and unsettling kind of loss: ambiguous loss.

Pauline Boss, psychologist and professor emeritus at University of Minnesota, coined the term in 1999 with her book “Ambiguous loss”. She has been working for more than three decades on this topic. Ambiguous loss occurs when the person is physically absent but psychologically present (or vice-versa).

In our case, the expression itself “orphan spouse” beautifully sums up the ambiguity of the situation. An orphan is, by definition, a child deprived by death of one or usually both parents. A spouse is a person in a loving relationship.

The expression “orphan spouse” brings with it the ambivalence of this type of loss: the sadness, the bitterness, the anger, the frustration of missing a loved one and the hope, the warmth, the support generated by a loving relationship.

The next question you’re asking with impatience is how do you deal with ambiguous loss? Well, this will be the topic of our next article. Make sure you don’t miss it and subscribe here.

(As a bonus, you’ll also get my 7-part course on expatriate grief and a video on “7 Mistakes Families Make When Moving Abroad”)

Now, over to you. Do you feel you are an orphan spouse? And if so, how do you deal with it?

* Orphan spouse is an expression coined by my friend, Pamela Leach, Ph.D.

Credit image Wikimedia Commons, Credit music Piano Society

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