The one where I'm not trailing anyone

Life update episode 25

I first heard the term “trailing spouse” a few weeks after moving my entire family to Nigeria for my husband’s work assignment. At first, I assumed it was a bad joke or maybe someone fumbling for the right word to describe my role in our new lifestyle. But, as it turns out, it’s a real label that’s commonly used for expats and military families who relocate for one partner’s career.

Fast forward to last week, when I was preparing for a Substack interview with another creator and she said it. The dreaded label. I couldn’t help but launch into my explanation of why I hate that term. As someone who has also moved abroad, she gets it. But does everyone else?

To be clear, there was nothing trailing about my decision to come to Nigeria. I have a master’s degree and spent 12-years building a career that I was passionate about. I walked away from a six-figure salary because my husband and I made a deliberate, strategic choice. We did the math, debated trade-offs, and weighed every pro and con - both tangible and intangible

Houston, Texas, 2023 getting ready to board our flight to Atlanta and onto Nigeria

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This wasn’t me trailing, this was us moving forward, together.

The moment our family began packing our bags and entire house for a new life in Lagos, I accepted an agency and ownership in my husband’s job that I’d never felt before. I may not be the one walking into the office every day, but I’m the one making it possible for our family to live here, so that he can walk into that office every day.

Our family living in Nigeria is in every way a team effort.

Here are a few examples of what I do to support our family here:

• Keep our house in working order. The house we live in is 40 years old, and like most things in this country, has minimal maintenance done, preventative or otherwise. The result is things break often. The air condition is a common one, but leaks, water supply issues and general appliances breaking are often challenges I deal with.

• Grocery shopping. Grocery shopping in Nigeria requires trips to multiple different stores, depending on the item, and hours of sitting in traffic each week. The supply chain is unpredictable at best. Just because I found my 4-year-old’s favorite yogurt in the grocery store today doesn’t mean it’ll be there tomorrow. The grocery situation here has taught me two things: 1) how to hoard and 2) how to pivot.

• Cooking. Cooking meals is far more time consuming here than it was in America. For example, I’ve never been able to stomach the local ground beef. I’m not exactly sure what’s inside it, or what the government requirements are (or aren’t), but it tastes gamey. So, if I want to use ground beef, a common ingredient in kid-friendly meals, I purchase imported meat from South Africa and then grind it myself. There are also limited pre-made items here, so if I want pizza dough or biscuits, I make those from scratch just like Martha Stewert, minus the insider trading, and also, the talent.

• Plan and manage travel. I realize this may come off as a privileged problem, but I don’t take our ability to travel for granted, rather, I’m incredibly grateful for it. Travel and getting breaks are a big part of our ability to stay in Lagos over the long haul. My husband’s company recognizes the need for breaks by offering extra leave time and partial funds for our travel. Coordinating those trips, navigating flights, visas, and hotels can be fun, but it’s also very time consuming and tedious.

• Work. I know this is confusing, because I’ve established that I’m not the “working spouse,” but I do still work. Remember the career I mentioned earlier? It turns out that the international school that my kids attend needed someone with my exact background, so last year, I accepted a part time job. It’s been nice to be a resource for the school, and I’ve welcomed the ability to keep my profession going, at least in a small way.

• Be a “bus mom.” Every parent in our compound takes turns helping chaperone the kids’ daily commute to school by riding the bus to school with the kids. We are typically assigned a “bus mom (or bus dad) role,” a few days per week, although it varies each month. This is not your average school drop-off. An average “bus mom,” shift is probably 1.5-2.5 hours total. But it can take longer. Just last week, our elementary school bus took 10 hours to get home because a major road flooded. Twenty kids, ages 3–10, left school at 2:30 PM and arrived back at camp at 12:30 AM. Thankfully this is the only time something this extreme has happened, but these are the realities of living here. Don’t worry, after a few hours the bus was able to divert to a hotel for some of that time, so the kids did get dinner and potty breaks, and they now think this was the coolest experience.

• Do something fun. I know this list is about how I support my family, but let’s be honest, supporting my own sanity helps everyone. And I want to be transparent: it’s not all work. I try to take a weekly Pilates class, grab lunch with friends, or when I’m really living on the edge, I’ll book a facial at 10 AM on a weekday. These are things I never would’ve imagined doing back when I was working 40–50 hours a week in America, so I don’t take them for granted. My husband’s company also helps keep camp life lively with holiday parties and events like “back to school” celebrations. I’m even on a few party planning committees (like in the show The Office, but without the pettiness). When I get to do these little fun things, I’m grateful. They’re lovely reminders to pause and recharge, even if they don’t represent the bulk of my day-to-day life.

Where did the “trailing” term come from?

The term “trailing spouse” first appeared in a 1981 Wall Street Journal article by Mary Bralove titled, “Problems of Two-Career Families Start Forcing Businesses to Adapt.” I couldn’t find the original piece to read, but I’ll give Mary some grace because this was decades before you could ask ChatGPT for alternative names for a person who moves for a partner’s job and instantly get 15 suggestions neatly organized in 3 different categories (yes, of course, I did this.)

Before her article, the term “tied mover,” was used by economists to describe such a position. “Tied mover,” has major hostage undertones, so I suppose at that time the term “trailing spouse,” was a generous upgrade.

But here we are, 44 years later. Since then, the Berlin Wall has fallen, the iPod has come and gone, and we’ve lived through an entire global pandemic. We’ve even begun paying closer attention to people’s preferred pronouns, because words matter. They shape how we see ourselves and each other. And as long as we keep using a label like “trailing spouse,” we’re complicit in minimizing the contributions, sacrifices, and agency of those who make these global moves possible.

No one who uproots their life, carries the logistics of a family across borders, and rebuilds in an unfamiliar culture is trailing. We’re also leading, just in a different capacity.

So, what should we be called instead? If we’re honest, we should be called, “the spouse that holds all the things together,” but that’s wordy. I prefer something simple like, “supporting spouse.” In this article the author proposes the term “trailblazing spouse,” which is clever.

Drop your nominations in the comments, I’d love to hear your thoughts!

Camp News!

Hey, hey, it’s been a while! Here’s what we’ve been up to:

NID celebration, 2025, Lagos, Nigeria

• The 65th Nigerian Independence Day was October 1st. We celebrated on camp with a big party which included dancing, live music, food and palm wine. Palm wine is a traditional Nigerian drink that at first sip tastes similar to a mix of lemonade and sprite but, that’s not all, after you swallow it hits you with a sour milk after-taste which I simply couldn’t handle. Regardless, everyone had a great time celebrating our host country’s big day.

• We’ve survived another strike! This one didn’t impact the kids getting to school and was short lived which was a big relief. Strikes are common here and can escalate to dangerous situations quickly. You can read about our first local strike experience here in this newsletter.

• Rose house specific, but when this Newsletter goes out, we will be on our first vacation of the year! We’re doing a cruise from Spain to Italy and are so excited to see these gorgeous places and experience some good weather. We also plan to eat all the chocolate and churros, because, yum.