Living the Dream, Missing Each Other

A diplomatic spouse: We’re “living the dream” on our posting. So why do we both feel so lonely?

From the outside, we have everything we wanted. He’s doing well at work, his boss likes him. We have a beautiful home, the kids are thriving, we travel around the region, it’s fascinating! But when we’re alone together, there’s this heaviness. We’re both tired in ways we can’t explain. We talk about practical things like schedules but we don't really talk like we used to. And when we try, it feels like we’re speaking different languages. We’re not fighting, nor in crisis, just...lonely. Both of us. Is this normal? Are we doing something wrong?

From the Therapist: You are not doing anything wrong. But…

…the problem is that success on paper and success in your relationship are not the same thing. You can have everything you planned for and everything they dreamed about, and still be losing connection with each other.

The structure of your life on posting has pulled you so far into separate realities that you have stopped being companions and started being co-managers. Efficient ones. But somewhere along the way, you stopped being the people who chose each other, who had fun together. And yes, it happens to people back home too. But on a posting, one of you ends up in business class while the other is in economy. Same destination, completely different journey.

He is lonely because work is relentless and when he comes home, he is supposed to be present, but he has nothing left. He sees you managing everything from kids, to house, to all the logistics, and he is grateful, but also guilty. Guilty that you are carrying so much. Guilty that he can’t fix it. Guilty that when you try to tell him you are struggling, he gets defensive because he is already doing everything he can.

You are lonely because you are running a complex operation with little to no backup. The kids are fine. The house runs smoothly. His colleagues see you as a perfect diplomatic couple. But where are you in all of this? You used to have your own life, your own purpose. Now you have tasks. And everyone else’s needs come before yours. And when you try to tell him how isolating or tiring this is, he reminds you of the good parts. The travel. The experiences. The life you are building for your kids.

But you are not building it together. You are building parallel lives that happen to share an address. Both of you are doing exactly what you think you are supposed to do. He is working hard and providing. You are holding everything else together. And you are both exhausted from performing your roles so well that you have forgotten you are supposed to be partners, friends, lovers, not colleagues.

And because everything looks fine from the outside, you don’t have language for what is wrong. How do you complain when you are living in a beautiful home? How do you say you are unhappy when your kids are thriving? How do you admit you are lonely when you are literally sharing a bed with someone every night? So you don’t say it. You just feel it. Both of you. Separately.

And here is the harder part: this won’t fix itself. The next posting won’t reset your connection. If unattended, every new place will add to the distance growing between the two of you. In fact, it makes it easier to ignore what is happening because if everything looks fine. Then what you are feeling must not be real or must not matter. Or must just be the price of diplomatic life.

But it is real. And it does matter. And the price is too high if it costs you each other.

You are asking if this is normal. It is common. A lot of diplomatic couples live like this: successful on paper, lonely in reality. But common doesn’t mean acceptable. And it definitely doesn’t mean sustainable.

You are also asking if you are doing something wrong. You are not. But you are avoiding something important: the conversation about what you both actually need to stay connected in this very complex diplomatic life, and whether you can figure out how to give each other that. Not whether you can tolerate it or keep managing it. But whether you can stay connected while living like this.

That is the conversation most couples avoid until someone says “I can’t do this anymore.” Until the loneliness has built so high that coming back feels impossible.

You don’t have to wait that long. But you do have to stop pretending that success on paper means your relationship is fine. You may need to sit down together and say: “We are lonely. Both of us. And we need to figure out how we lost the way to each other, and how to feel together again.”

That conversation is hard. But staying lonely in a couple is harder.

P.S. I work with diplomatic couples helping them navigate partnership on posting and back home. You know where to find me.

Photo by Elijah Grimm on Unsplash