Three Things That Will Help You Through Your First Posting (and second, and third)

You are about to move abroad, or you have just arrived. Everyone says it is an adventure. And it is. But it’s good to remember that it is a journey of a million gains and a million losses happening at once.

I work with diplomatic spouses every week. And what I have noticed is that the ones who have an easier transition tend to lean on three things: social connection, self-compassion, and hope.

Let me explain why each one matters.

Social connection: being seen and validated

One spouse told me he went three weeks without a real conversation. His partner came home exhausted from work. The embassy people treated him like furniture. Friends back home stopped asking how he was doing because they assumed he was fine in that paradise.

He was not fine. He was lonely in a way he had never experienced before.

Another spouse joined every group she could find. Book club, yoga, coffee mornings. She showed up, smiled, made small talk. But nobody asked her real questions. Nobody wanted to know what she left behind or how the adjustment was. Everyone was fine, or pretended to be. And her loneliness felt heavier.

Social connection is not just about having people around. It is about being seen and understood. About having someone validate what you are going through, and that you are not failing.

When you lose your autonomy and identity after the move, you need people who get it. Not people who tell you to be grateful. Not people who say, "But you are living the dream." People who say, "Yes, that is hard. I feel that too. Let’s find the way out together."

Without that kind of connection, it is really tough out there.

Self-compassion: being your own best friend while you rebuild

Here is what often happens when you move to a posting and feel lost: your brain starts attacking you.

You tell yourself you should be handling this better. That other spouses seem fine, so what is wrong with you? That you are ungrateful, weak, or simply not positive enough.

One spouse I worked with spent her first six months beating herself up. She could not find work. She could not make good friends fast. She felt like a burden on her partner. Her inner critic told her she was failing at everything. But it was not true.

Self-compassion is not about pretending everything is fine or bubble bathing yourself. But rather recognising a difficult situation and not pinning it on yourself as if it’s your fault. It is about talking to yourself the way you would to a friend who is going through a rough patch.

Being your own worst self-critic may seem like a good idea. But in practice, no flower has ever bloomed after being shouted at.

Hope: believing that change is possible

Another spouse told me he felt like he had lost everything. His career, his independence, his sense of purpose. He was 40 and thought it was too late to rebuild.

He was wrong. But he could not see it yet.

Hope is not about being optimistic or pretending everything will work out. It is about believing that you have agency. That you are capable of winning here, too. That this will not always be this hard.

Without hope, you stop trying. You stop applying for jobs because you assume nobody will hire you. You stop reaching out to people because you assume they will not understand. You accept the isolation, the dependency, the loss of identity as permanent.

But it is not permanent. The first year can be brutal. The first posting can be discombobulating. But everyone I know finds the way, the best way for them. Not because they are stronger or smarter than you. But because they kept going without beating themselves on the way.

So here is my question: if you were to start today, what is one small thing you could do to move on one of these three points? Try it today. And then tomorrow.

Photo by Hala Al-Asadi on Unsplash