The Husbands and the Relo

Have you put yourself on your husbands shoes? Of course this whole process is not easy on us, but it is not easy on them either.


First they have the thrill of being offered an oversea assignment, likely with a promotion. The salary increase, the benefits and the pride of having their bosses and companies trusting them to get a tough job done. Yes, overseas jobs are usually tough. But they will have to leave behind the comfort of their current jobs, pack their bags and up route their families. In their minds there is always the taught of "what if this doesn't work?". They know that someone will replace them once they're gone, so they can not tell the company: - "Oops, things didn't work out as I expected so I want to go back". To men this is a huge failure. Do you know any men who is ok with failing at anything? 


Plus, as the providers - even if you have a job you will likely have to quit to relocate - they feel a lot of pressure on making the new job work. And like us, they need to adapt to the new culture and learn the new language. They need to be able to communicate what they expect from their employees who can't speak english sometimes. And getting over the cultural differences is not easy.


In Brazil, for instance, people won't say "no" to you. No no's. They will tell you what they think is what you want to hear. You will only know the truth once things go wrong and no one can fix them. Same in Mexico. And the meetings will also drag on forever. People will arrive late to the meetings, then coffee is served, then water is served, then it is time to ask about how you spent the weekend or if you have plans for the following one, ask about the families and all, and then the meeting start. During the meetings everyone in there think that they need to say something about all the subjects and most time what they say is irrelevant. And there is always more people invited to the meetings who have no business being there. And the offices hours are different too. In Sao Paulo people tend to work late hours. If you ask my husbands it is due to inefficient use of time. But it is what it is.


So on top of that they have the pressure of keeping the family happy. This is not an easy task. 


During this relocation my husband had to be away from the family for a very long time and he had to take care of our dog. He would wake up at 5:30 am to walk the dog on the cold fall of Mexico City, then he would jog and leave to work before traffic got too bad at 7 am. Not an easy task. When he got back home he would have to walk the dog again. It was nice that he had some company but it was also hard work. On top of that he had to learn spanish, hire new people and come up with a plan to start turning profit for his company. Meanwhile, I was taking care of the cats and the kids, but at least on the weekends I could go to the pool with friends. He had nobody to hang out with. So we all had our hard times.


I remember a family who could not go thru all this. The husband was offered partnership at a company to go to Sao Paulo. The wife was constantly complaining. She never had anything nice to say about Sao Paulo at all. So the husband ended up having to go back home without becoming a partner. His career was jeopardized. Everything he worked so hard to get just slipped thru his fingers. 


So sometimes we just need to take a deep breath and not complain to them about all our problems. We just need to give them a nice kiss and tell them how much we appreciate what they are doing. In the end we all know we are doing this for our families. A happy marriage makes happy kids and happy families. And this is all that matters.