After the first three months I was exhausted as every moment was spent finding a place to live, home schooling, settling the children in, dealing with a helper, finding friends, setting up a house, unpacking and the buying furniture we needed to live…I don’t think I had time to think about anything!.
The job of settling the family falls on the expat spouses shoulders, and he/she usually has to manage without a lot of support. The general feeling from my interview subjects was that becoming familiar with a new city, and being able to provide a standard of living that the family is used to, is tough. There is no doubt having someone to lean on at this time, would be a huge relief.
Finding your way around a new city trying not to get lost. In fact in the first few weeks, just finding food was a huge achievement.
Personal Challenges
“If we are growing, we are always going to be out of our comfort zone” – John Maxwell
As mentioned earlier, one of the expat spouse’s biggest challenges is feeling unrecognized and losing their own identity. In many countries it is difficult for an expat spouse to work, so they may have gone from a valued job, to all of a sudden being unemployed. Field data was collected in the Asia-Pacific region in 2007-2008. The research was funded by the Society for Human Resource Management. All 238 participants completed an online questionnaire regarding spousal assistance. The research findings indicate that spouses who had experienced an interruption or cessation of their employment had significantly lower adjustment to interacting with local people (a key component of cross cultural adjustment) than the spouses whose employment situation remained substantially the same. According to Nina Cole, Associate Professor of Human Resources Management, Ryerson University in Toronto,
every time an expatriate returns home before completing his or her assignment, their employer loses on average $1 million. The number one reason for expats to make a premature return home is “spouse and family adjustment issues.
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Maureen Morton
May 10, 2013 at 7:58 pm
Dear Karen
I found this article fascinating. I often wondered and marvelled at how you coped and were coping in those early years. To have remembered and written it down is so worth while and I hope it will go into the reading package of every new expat, wherever they are going.
I can also see a career blossoming for you, wherever you are, by introducing this concept, of providing a coach to expatriate spouses in the early days of their moves, to the Human resources manager of companies. You could certainly sell the idea on the basis of cost alone, when you think how much money they lose when an employee goes home early because the family cannot settle in a new country.
Thank you so much for sharing this with me. I really enjoyed reading it.
Nothing like the usual academic waffle
love and hugs
Maureen
Truth always
May 12, 2013 at 4:35 pm
Hey, Karen doesn’t mention here the really telling background story of how she came to be an expatriate, leaving her former policeman husband for her current one that’s a banker, with three kids under 10 at the time. Plenty of grey facts about whether it was adultry as well. Not sure I would recommend her services as a lifecoach. Amazing how some people re brand themselves so anyone needing marketing tips should follow her advice. Also one of her current family members seems to be leaving the positive notes. Karen as a lifecoach is the funniest thing I could ever imagine. Would be interesting to hear her guidance in ethics or family morals
e.curran
May 14, 2013 at 4:09 am
Truth always , isn’t it strange how people like you do not use their real name especially when they are leaving negative views, or just their side of a story.
vorameghana
May 30, 2013 at 2:55 am
Expatriate is very important, especially for those who travel to different countries for work purposes. Expatriate can be anyone which chooses to live in a country other than the motherland.http://www.whatisall.com/people/what-is-an-expatriate.html