Being an Expat Husband

Well, talk about a difficult situation. It is not easy to be the wife of an expat but it is even harder to be the husband of an expat. I have a good friend in this situation and I know how things changed for him.


First it was the decision to give up advancing his career for an undetermined period of time to advance his wife's. They worked for the same company, in different departments, but the company could not find him a job overseas. Not only he had to give up his career, he also had to give up his role as bread-earner. It is harder than it seems to make a decision like this. The first difficult decision lead him to become a stay at home dad. 


This leads us to the second difficult decision, which was to become a hands on dad. It was a huge change for him, going from being the fun dad to becoming the disciplinary one. He had to learn how to organize the children's lives and routines. Not an easy task. And adding to this, take care of the house. And be the driver. Do the grocery shopping. Schedule play dates. This list goes on and on.


The third difficulty was to make friends. The easiest place to make friends is at the kids school, but if you're the only guy hanging out there it is not easy. Lots of people will look down on you and wonder what kind of man you are. There were so many people asking questions about my friend, that it was ridiculous. People were easy to judge without knowing the whole story. They assumed he was a sugar daddy, which couldn't be further from the truth. People assumed lots of other things. It took a year for people to understand what was going on and embrace the situation.


The fourth challenge was to start making friends with other woman. Your wife can, may, will get jealous. And so will the friends' husbands. It did not happen in our case because we were part of a big group. Six couples, to be precise. The great thing about our group was that all the husbands and all the wives were friends. And so were the kids. And since we were so close we all knew that there was nothing going on, that some lines would not -and did not - get crossed. This was key. But it is so hard to happen this way.


My husband says he would love for me to get an expat job so he could be a stay at home dad. He says it would be a great thing to take a sabbatical. We have another friend who thinks it is emasculating. I, personally, think it is very empowering to a man. Giving up control is no easy task, specially for men. So I think it takes a man with a great personality to do it. Kudos to all the guys out there in this situation. I have a great deal of respect for you.