A Memo for a New Diplomatic Couple: Go Without Disconnecting (Part 2)
Last week's memo asked the two heavy questions: why you are really going to your first diplomatic posting, and what it will cost each of you. This week we go into specifics, because last week's answers protect no one until they become arrangements you can hold each other to. They are more practical and a lot less romantic, and yet they will let you enjoy this life rather than endure it.
Divide the work, and buy back the village you are leaving
Even back home the split is rarely even. In the EU, unpaid care and housework are still unevenly shared, with women far more likely than men to carry the daily domestic tasks and the bulk of childcare and long-term care. A posting drags even the most egalitarian couple toward that default. The male diplomat gives everything to the job and leaves the home and family to their partner, even if things were fairer back home. The female diplomat keeps a demanding job and carries the house on top of it, afraid to ask for more from her partner. So deliberately dividing who carries what before the posting decides for you is a good start.
Then account for what you are leaving behind, the village. The grandparents or a trusted babysitter, the friends who took the children for an afternoon, your friend who is always there to pick you up when things go south, your siblings, you name it. They will not travel with you, and the diplomat's job will not leave room to replace them either. The couple has to rebuild that support on purpose and pay for it where money can. Ask the accompanying partner what they need to carry their share. Agree on funding it now rather than turning each later request into a tough negotiation. In my experience, this helps stop resentment building up and burnout collapsing the couple.
Protect the person and the couple
Name what each of you needs in order to stay a whole person here. A posting absorbs the parts of you that have nothing to do with the role: your hobbies and interests, time with friends, or even the evening that is just yours. Those go first, because nothing on the official schedule defends them and the posting expands to fill whatever space you leave open. And in the case of the accompanying spouse, time is consumed by the never-ending needs of supporting the diplomat. So each of you may need to think of the non-negotiables around one question: what do I need so I don’t disappear here?
Keep the answers simple and small. One thing in the day that is yours and doesn’t get cancelled to serve someone else's schedule. One evening a week with nothing official on it. The training run or the language class. The project you started before the posting or are launching upon arrival.
And then, your couple. We know that a diplomatic couple can run a posting with great competence and feel nothing for each other by the end of it. You divide the labour, cover the events and the household functions, and somewhere in the efficiency you forget why you fell in love with each other. So think of the same simple and small things that will keep your couple alive. A date night that is not a work event and not a logistics meeting. Something you liked to do together before you became a serious diplomatic couple and parents of these wonderful children.
Agree your warning signs before you need them
A first posting is a heavy thing to live through. It often changes a lot for the accompanying spouse and redraws the couple's dynamic. So it’s only natural that this much change, carried under this much pressure, builds stress, and that stress left alone turns into burnout, resentment and a slow disconnect from each other. Everyone feels it, which is exactly why it’s worth agreeing in advance how you will talk about it.
Decide how you will know when one of you is not okay, because it usually arrives without announcement. Loneliness and disconnection show up as more scrolling or irritability, another reception accepted instead of an evening at home, a flatness with no single event to pin it on. Agree what your own early signs look like and how you want the other to respond when they show. One of you may need to say: "If I start saying I don't care about anything here, do not let it pass," and the other: "If I say I am struggling, believe me and ask me to tell you more."
Have the harder version too, the one most couples avoid until it detonates. Sometimes, halfway through the first posting (or after the second or the third), one partner says they are done with this life. Arriving on its own, it lands like a bomb under the couple; talked through in advance, calmly, it becomes a plan. How long would you give yourselves to look properly before anyone decided anything? Who would you need to bring in to help you facilitate this talk? Knowing you have already thought about it together is what makes it safe to say out loud on the day it becomes your reality.
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I know you may be busy with boxes and visas, or maybe you are physically moving on a posting in a few weeks. I want you to try and have these discussions before you go, and if you miss that chance, to have them as early as possible upon arrival. I have seen too many couples who left it to sort itself out. And it was not pretty, not just for one person, but for both.
I am here, if you need help navigating this period. I really want you to succeed.
Photo by Micah & Sammie Chaffin on Unsplash
