Trailblazer to Trailing Spouse to Trailblazer
When I discovered the term “trailing spouse,” I quickly realized the concept needed a rebrand. Trailing spouse is typically used to describe a highly educated person who follows their partner abroad. The trailing spouse likely has their own career path, aspirations, and operates in their community independently from their partner. Most would see choosing to give up your life to follow your partner abroad as a detour from the path that you’ve already established for yourself – hence, the term “trailing spouse.” But really, it takes a great deal of tenacity, self-reliance, and creativity to pack up your shared life and be a present partner while moving your family abroad. This is why I think it’s time to retire the term “trailing spouse” and instead view those who choose to take this path as trailblazers.
CEOs and founders of companies. Personal brand builders. Artistic visionaries. It’s easy to look at folks who take up these kinds of work as trailblazers, people who use their talents and skills to forge their own paths. But the same skill set is found in spouses who follow their partner abroad. While your partner focuses on the job that brought you to your new home, you’re the one in charge of the logistics of moving, managing the family’s schedule, and modeling how to move through the transition at hand. The trailblazing partner is, effectively, the CEO of the home front as they set a course for their family’s future in their new country. And many of the trailblazers I’ve met on my own journey end up using the skills they’ve learned or honed as trailblazers to go on and become entrepreneurs.
When I followed my spouse to Oslo, it was hard for me to see how the skills I’d picked up working in tech, pastoring for my church community, and being a therapist were transferrable to the kinds of work I was offered as a stranger in a strange land. For the first few months, I couldn’t land a job (or even an interview) at a Norwegian company. Not wanting to stagnate in my job search, I began volunteering and taking any gig that would get me out of the house, into the culture, and help me learn the language. Without realizing it, I began something of a personal rebrand as I volunteered for youth groups, schools, and childcare centers. I began to remove my management experience from my resume and LinkedIn profile, “dumbing down” my professional persona in an effort to make hiring committees more comfortable with me. And still: no interviews. No job.
As you blaze your own trail abroad with your partner, you may feel like I did – as if you have to come up with an entirely new persona and personal brand just to fit in. Those months of rebranding myself made me feel like I’d lost part of me. I found myself working at a Norwegian day camp and realizing how caught up I’d been on the idea that I was “trailing” after my spouse as opposed to trailblazing. I stopped. I went back through my LinkedIn profile, my resume, and I put all my experience back on it. I rebranded myself as…myself. I committed to seeing how all the skills I’d picked up in my professional experience transferred to this new environment. Potential employers, neighbors, and colleagues in my new home would have to accept me for me. Not a trailing spouse, but a trailblazer.
Questions for Reflection
What kind of work did you do before moving abroad? Take some time to list out a few aspects of that career path will you incorporate into your personal brand as you make this transition.
What unique skills or qualities are you bringing with you as you move abroad?
If you had to sum up your personal brand in three words, what would they be?
