You've done a few rounds around the globe with your family and now you're wondering whether you are cut out for this life. It usually comes down to one of two things, and your adaptation skills aren't either of them.

You do the bedtime alone again while your partner is still at an official function. You love this life and yet it exhausts you, and you have started resenting the person who brought you here. Here is why a posting can turn you into a single parent who is not one, and what the two of you can do about it.

You rehearse every financial request. And even if they say yes without a second thought, you still feel ashamed and unseen. Here is why the money conversation goes wrong, and why it is still worth having.

You said you missed your old life, and it turned into an argument about whether the posting was a mistake. They feel accused, you feel unseen, and you are disconnected more than ever.

The first diplomatic posting takes your village and your spare evenings first. Three things to discuss and settle before you go, so it cannot take the couple too.

Every memo arrives before a posting except the one that matters. The two conversations to have with each other before the farewell drinks take over.

Learning to sit with the discomfort of not knowing may be the most useful skill a diplomatic spouse can learn, on a first posting, or on a fourth.

As you are preparing to move for your first (or second, or fifth) posting, or already living on one, please check on the state of your couple. How is it doing?

We rarely talk about female diplomats and their male spouses. There is more underneath that anyone admits.

Loneliness and disconnect are on most couples' tables at some point. Diplomatic couples get it with a special sauce.

He looks fine, makes the jokes and does the school run. And inside the posting, he may be the loneliest person in the room.

Why the diplomatic smile costs more than anyone tells you.

When a diplomatic spouse follows their partner on a first posting, they often receive logistical information and, in the same envelope, an annual subscription to loneliness.

Four years on a poting, it’s time to go. But what if she says she feels like home now and doesn’t want to leave?

Every diplomatic spouse keeps a mental list of what this life has cost them. Some ask how to stop counting. But is it the counting that is the problem?

Every diplomatic spouse performs at receptions. But if you are a foreign-born spouse, you have an extra act to play. What is it and what to do about it?

When your couple does not feel good but your partner refuses to go to couples therapy, you may think it is a dead end. But it is not. On his reasons to stall the process and where to find the way out.

She never complains. He always took that to mean she was fine. Until the morning she asked for one thing, and the posting said no.

Two people, a few months to go. Neither is saying a word. Neither is really protecting each other. The posting has not started, but distance did.

You can have a plan, a degree, and every intention of staying yourself. The posting life may have other ideas.