Tag: job

Monday's Food for Thought

Monday’s Food for Thought: Trailing Spouse Syndrome

thegraduatewife3 Comments

new food for thought

Recently, a good friend of mine forwarded me an article about something called “Trailing Spouse Syndrome.” Upon reading the article, I googled it and was surprised at the amount of articles and blog essays on this phenomenon. I’ve been following my husband around for the last 9 years (both in the USA and the UK), and I can honestly say I’ve seen this, even though, at the time, I didn’t know it had a name or was a syndrome!

Indeed, most of us have moved to support our grads in school; and a lot of time that has most definitely raised issues on identity, marriage, relationships, dreams etc. for those of us in the supporting role. As interesting as it is, I have to say I really dislike the term ‘trailing spouse’. Most of the articles I’ve read are a bit negative, so when I stumbled across this article, I loved the author’s concept of using the time to sort of reinvent yourself, whether you move because of your husband’s job or place in school; or if you move to different state or country!

What do you think? Would you consider yourself a trailing spouse? Do you like or dislike that term? How do you deal with it?

Happy Monday,

~Mandy

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thegraduatewife1 Comment

Written by Nicole – a current graduate wife

I Got a Job!

In my last post for The Graduate Wife, I was really floundering with who I was and how to shoulder the weight of financial responsibility for our family despite the fact that I could. not. find. a. job. I filled out hundreds of applications and made innumerable phone calls and waited and cried and freaked out and felt, in general, very stressed. I thought the seemingly endless cycle of hope and disappointment with each rejection was going to be the death of me. How could I “fund the dream” without a job?

It has been, I feel, such a long road to this post, and I am so glad to share an encouraging part of my journey with you. When we moved to England last autumn, I was ready for a break from teaching. In fact, I didn’t think I would be able to apply for teaching jobs at all, seeing as how it takes so long to jump through all of the appropriate hoops. It turns out that I really needed nine whole months to get every last annoying, bureaucratic paper, stamp, and signature to work at this new school. And after a whole school year of wringing my hands and lamenting the ills of supply (substitute) teaching, I am ready to be in a place I can call my own.

You can read the details of how this came together perfectly on our blog here. Forgive me if toward the end I get a little “I’d like to thank the Academy…” on you. After scoring this job, I really did feel like I had won an Oscar.