A Diplomat's* Guide: What Your Spouse Is Really Trying To Say to You & Why It Makes Sense To Listen

Your spouse rehearsed this conversation for weeks. They were not complaining about money or their financial dependency. They were telling you they felt powerless in their own life and scared for their own future. And you just told them (or they read it in your eyes) that they were rocking the boat and being ungrateful.

What is really happening to them

Let’s start with the basics. When your spouse followed you to your posting, they lost their professional identity, earning power, autonomy, and career trajectory while their colleagues advanced. They lost their future security while your pension kept growing. Their sense of agency got reduced to deciding the family dinner menu, while almost everything else required your approval.

In brief: your mobility requires their immobility. Your financial security is built on their financial vulnerability.

They are not trying to annoy you or rock the boat. They are trying to communicate their experience to their partner, the one who used to hear and understand them. But something is not working now, and it pains them even more.

Why conversations keep failing

Your spouse gathers the courage to talk to you about their financial situation, or maybe they have an idea on how to feel more financially secure. You get stressed and respond with: “I am giving you everything”, or “Let’s talk about it later.” What you mean: “Why do you not trust me? I am doing my best.” What they hear: “You shouldn’t complain. You are making it all up.” So they stop, retreat, and the gap grows.

Neither of you is trying to hurt the other. You are just speaking different languages about fundamentally different experiences of the same marriage. You think you are having a conversation about money, and they are being demanding. They are having a conversation about safety, identity, power and whether they matter, and they think you are being dismissive.

What happens when you do not see them

If you keep dismissing these conversations, defending the status quo or waiting for your spouse to just be okay with it, here is what may start happening:

Your spouse may stop trying and hoping you will understand. They may stop believing in your partnership and start waiting to get back home, to never put themselves in this situation again. And start building their safety without you. You both lose.

Your spouse may break. The arithmetic may become unbearable, and the powerlessness intolerable. They may leave, often when you least expect it, because from your perspective, everything seemed fine. You both lose.

Your spouse may stay, but shut down emotionally. They may resign themselves to financial dependency. Your marriage may look functional from the outside, but feel hollow from the inside. You still both lose.

What is really the problem (and why is it so hard for both of you)?

You are both trapped in a system that was never designed to be fair. Diplomatic life still assumes one person will give up their career, their earning power, and their future security, and be grateful for the privilege. 

The system gives you all the financial power while making you feel guilty for having it. It asks your spouse to give up everything while expecting them to have no feelings about it. Then it expects you both to navigate this massive imbalance without resentment, conflict, or help.

The system really wants you to be the two saints, but neither of you is. You are just two people trying to make an unfair system work. Them - trying to talk to you about their situation over and over again (and often starting with the blame), and you - hoping it will pass, waiting for your spouse to “just be okay with it”. But this is not a strategy. It is a countdown to one of those three endings.

It is not your fault, but you can help fix it

You did not design the diplomatic system. You did not create visa restrictions or pension rules that leave your spouse with nothing. You did not know how bad it would be for your spouse. But you are the person with the power and resources right now. You are the one who can decide whether this marriage survives diplomatic life intact or becomes another casualty of a system that assumes someone will sacrifice everything and be grateful for it.

Your spouse needs you to hear them, actually hear them, without defending yourself or explaining why they should not feel this way. They need validation: “I can see this is really hard for you. You are right, the system is unfair.” That is all. Validation does not mean you caused the problem or even understand them fully (how can you if you are on the other side of this road?) But it means you see them, and they are not alone.

They need concrete steps that create genuine security: Money in their name that arrives automatically every month (not pocket money but actual transfers). Pension contributions matching yours, in their name. Knowledge of all accounts, balances, and passwords. A support system in terms of a will, maybe a contract stipulating your financial agreement, investments, emergency fund in their name. Regular, scheduled conversations about finances where you both look at the full picture together. And the possibility to re-negotiate your arrangement because this life is not linear.

Most importantly, they need you to act without being asked fifteen times. You have the power. You can use it to build a structure that protects your partner within this system, not just makes you feel less guilty. Not waiting for them to gather courage again. Saying: “I have been thinking about your pension situation and looking at options, let’s talk” or “Let us review our complete financial picture together this weekend” and actually do it.

Here is what I know from working with diplomatic couples: the ones whose marriages survive and strengthen through this life are the ones where the diplomat saw the problem clearly and chose to be part of the solution.

The couple who boarded that plane to their first posting, full of hope, excitement, and partnership, are still in there somewhere. But they will not survive if one person keeps losing ground while the other keeps doing nothing about it, and you both pretend that it is fine.

You get to save and grow your partnership. Why wait?

*This piece is going to be useful for UN officials and expats abroad.

Photo by Etienne Boulanger on Unsplash