Following your other half around the world and signing up as a ‘trailing spouse’ sounds like a lot of fun but in reality, at least at the start, it’s a tough job. Twenty-month DB resident Trisha Hughes reports.
Never underestimate a woman’s ability to nest. Like most of the women in DB, I’ve moved house several times in my married life and I like to think I’ve become very adept at it. But 20 months ago, I discovered that moving continents for your man is another thing entirely – the initial settling-in period can be more than a little overwhelming. While our spouses head off to work to start a new job and make new friends, we begin the daunting process of setting up house, settling our children into new schools, accessing and connecting to the internet, subscribing to Netflix and filling our spare time.
Being a trailing spouse is like stepping into the great unknown, full of uncertainties and ambiguities. Exciting and exhilarating on the one hand, it can be a mineshaft full of doubts on the other. Most of the time, we fly by the seat of our pants… hoping that we’re making the right decisions. How do I make new friends? Where do I shop? How do I get around?
Let’s face it, those first lonely trips to Mongkok Flower Market are as arduous as an Indiana Jones expedition, complete with map, water and provisions. Watching yet another outdated episode of CSI can sound considerably better than being squeezed and pushed up and down escalators, while looking for the B2 exit at Prince Edward. But as I stayed home alone or cocooned myself in Zara at the IFC, the big question I kept asking myself was where is that confident woman who could leap small buildings in a single bound?
I may have travelled but I’ve never trailed, I shouted to the rooftops. But even I could hear the doubt and uncertainty in my voice.
Obstacles to overcome
Our friends back home think we’re leading a glamorous, romantic expat life but they’re only seeing a very small part of the picture. What they don’t know is that with the excitement comes a great deal of stress brought on by having to adjust to all the changes. Stress manifests itself in so many ways and then morphs into anxiety. If there’s one thing I’ve learnt it’s that all trailing spouses struggle with the loss of their support system back home and without it, stress levels increase.
Long-term DB resident Kerri Gunthorpe, who is a relationship counsellor and family mediator at the Integrated Medicine Institute in DB and Central, gives us a little insight. “Most of us are too hard on ourselves,” she says. “We lose sight of the fact that we have overcome a huge obstacle by relocating to a different country, while battling a very different lifestyle.”
At the worst possible times, homesickness raises its ugly head to hinder our settling in process and empty our day of all happiness. No one told us that it could be so debilitating and no one told us it could blindside us on a daily basis.
Strangely, in our loneliness, the most reflexive thing most of us do is shut ourselves away. I am guilty of the very same practice and it’s the foremost unhealthiest thing we can possibly do. “Studies have shown that lack of social connection may present a greater risk to our well-being than obesity, smoking and high blood pressure,” Kerri says. “Additionally, there are many studies linking happiness to a greater immune function. Psychologists have repeatedly stressed that a sense of social connectedness is one of our fundamental human needs.”
One of the biggest things holding us back is fear. Fear of meeting people, fear of getting lost, fear of failure and the fear of generally messing up. Fights can spring up at home from the most mundane situations and finger- pointing just muddies the issue. As Kerri says: “We all process change in different ways. And adjusting doesn’t happen overnight. It takes time and some of us are more adaptable than others.”
DB support system
Without a doubt, we need friends to help us overcome the loneliness obstacle and to do that we need to build a support base in our new home. Beginning my expat life in DB, I realised almost immediately how lucky I was. Certainly I felt lost for a time but not to the same degree as I would have, had I found myself living in the city, in Mid- Levels or Happy Valley. The resort’s small scale means it’s relatively easy to start forging friendships. Open a conversation with a neighbour in the plaza, or on the ferry and chances are you’ll bump into her again within a couple of days – you won’t even need to pluck up the courage to text her and arrange to meet.
What’s more DB is at heart a transient society, which means many DB women have been in your shoes – these ‘settled’ trailing spouses have valuable and practical perspectives they are just itching to share. Make the most of this! Sometimes all you need is to talk to another person about the worry bouncing around in your mind and almost magically, by getting it out of your head, you start to wonder what you were so worried about in the first place.
Everyone tells us that a good way to meet people is to join clubs, and again DB has plenty on offer. In my first weeks here, I signed up for tennis lessons and swim class, and did indeed make some friends in the process. While the monthly DB Entrepreneurs Networking Breakfast seems a good bet for those looking to kick-start new careers, I found the At Home in DB workshops invaluable, and it’s a shame that they are no longer running. The Newcomers’ Coffee Morning was a relaxed way to meet other residents (old and new), make new friends and ask questions about community life.
If you want to spread your wings a bit further, there’s Meetup. This group’s mission is to ‘empower people to do what matters most to them with other people in real life’, and they don’t disappoint. After you sign up, you choose your own interests and Meetup does the rest by letting you know about upcoming meetings that best suit you. You can hike around Lantau, join a basketball club, shop galleries in SoHo, go on an Eat like a Local Tour, or simply meet for coffee with the extremely welcoming Girly Book Club. You can even add a venue or adventure of your own.
Added to which, DB is, of course, a hotbed of social media sites and forums, all set up with the precise aim of connecting people. As a newcomer, I found looking at the DB Matters, Healthy Living, DB Mums and DB Mothers & Friends Facebook pages a great way in. There’s no easier way to get a feel for the community’s passions, concerns, charities and pursuits. The Around DB Facebook page and website, it has to be said, is still my go-to for local news, events and activities.
Never forget that a lot of us are here in DB out of love for our partners, although it’s nothing like drinking a love potion in a Walt Disney fairytale after which everything becomes magically perfect. This love takes work but the end result far outweighs the hurdles along the way. Being an expat is an incredible experience.
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Illustration: Wikimedia
Photo: Andrew Spires
Tags: community, moving to DB, wellbeing
