Partners who choose to follow their other halves abroad usually quickly develop a set of skills they did not even imagine to have. Still, reading other accompanying partners’ experiences can sometime ease the emotional burden of a “trailing life”. Here is a short list of books for accompanying partners to start with.
Unpack: A guide to life as an expat spouse, by Lana Wimmer and Tanya Arler
Written by two seasoned expat wives, this book shares the common experience of being the invisible presence whose actions in the first days in the country need to be highly visible. Lana Wimmer and Tanya Arler face the contradictions of being an accompanying partner and try to provide answers to the most common dilemmas they are faced with in this beautiful but challenging experience.
A portable identity: a woman’s guide to maintaining a sense of self while moving overseas, by Debra R. Bryson and Charise M. Hoge
Written with deep empathy and compassion, this practical guide for accompanying partners focuses on the changes and shifts in the identity of those who relocate for their partners’ careers. Authors Debra R. Bryson and Charise M. Hoge have been expat spouses, and start from their direct experience to provide reflection, solidarity, but also exercises and practical activity to gain clarity about how our identities absorb and integrate the experience when we relocate.
Followives by Irene Perali
Also available in its Italian edition, this book by Irene Perali takes the form of a novel, while telling about five accompanying partners who face the usual ups and downs of relocating without a professional collocation in the new country. Followives explores different aspects of the immigration flow of mostly male engineers from Italy to California in the 2010s, and the sentiments of the accompanying partners who gave up their careers to follow their husbands’ dream.
A moveable marriage: relocate your relationship without breaking it, by Robin Pascoe
This book by expat life pioneer Robin Pascoe is a must. It was written in 2003 but it is absolutely modern in its analysis of what can happen to a marriage when the couple relocates and has different roles in the new country. Among the books for accompanying partners, this is the oldest, wisest and one of the most inspirational we have ever read. Robin Pascoe has written extensively on a variety of topics linked to international life, and we recommend you take a look also at her other books.
The Expat Partner’s Survival Guide: A light-hearted but authoritative manual for anyone accompanying their partner on an overseas assignment, by Clara Wiggins
This is a complete survival guide compiled with experiences of 70 accompanying partners, and covering a wide breadth of topics. Author Clara Wiggins, a “trailing daughter”, manages to keep a light-hearted tone even on the heaviest topics. You might want to have a look at the book’s website: https://expatpartnersurvival.com/
Holding the Fort Abroad: Beyond Surviving – living and parenting abroad with a partner who works away from home, by Rhoda Bargenter
Among the books for accompanying partners, this is the only one we found that focuses on an important aspect of relocating as an accompanying spouse: staying in the new country with the children when the partner leaves for work. We had talked about it on Expatclic (in an article in Italian, here) and we consider it a sometime difficult situation. Rhoda dives into her personal experience as accompanying partner often alone with her children, to provide wise pieces of advice.
Just a diplomatic pouse. A true story of life, by Alexandra Paucescu
Romanian Alexandra Paucescu married a diplomat and followed him abroad. In this honest tale, she explains how diplomatic life, with its undeniable privileges and beauty, can also bring feelings of loneliness, confusion and isolation. Plus she gives a practical guide of how to behave in a world you do not necessarily know when you embark on the adventure.
Diplomatic baggage: the adventures of a trailing spouse by Brigid Keenan
It might look like one of the usual books for accompanying partners, and in fact it does not say anything new about the experience of following one’s partner abroad, but what it makes it stand out is the humour and the irony the author uses in her way of expressing the feelings that fill the first days in a new country when one has no role nor social network. Highly recommended.