Noodle Change: How to have a ‘wife’ in every port (and have hubby be ok with it)… and other expat essentials.

They say ‘it takes a village to raise a family’ and it’s a sentiment that I believe holds a lot of truth. So what happens when you find yourself living OS and your ‘village’ is somewhere else entirely, in a different time zone a literal world away? Well, you build one of course.

So from this blog I have already established that us ‘trailing spouses’ can be described as many things: polygamist and builder of villages just for starters.

Family ties are really important to me and having my kids feel like they are part of ‘something bigger’ is also high on my agenda. I am also a kinda quality over quantity person when it comes to friends. Looking back now that I am about to leave my 3rd ex-pat posting with the little people, I can see a pattern developing. It goes a little something like this:

Dating – You’re new in town you know NO ONE. Then there’s that moment you meet someone for the first time and realise you have something, anything in common with them. It might be that they are new as well, your kids are the same age, you’re from the same home town, or maybe they are just a bloody nice person and quite frankly you’d like to expedite this relationship to a higher level. It happens quickly in this world, you make friends, you bond over where to buy Australian broccoli, how to cross the road or when on earth you can find lamb for dinner without having to re-mortgage the house. So you ‘ask’ them on a date. Hey – person I just met – what are the chances you would like to meet me for a coffee after school drop off so I no longer feel like a loser sitting in the coffee shop on my own not knowing a single solitary soul? (all the while in your head saying please please please say yessss!). So if you’re successful and they do say yes, you meet the next day because you’re new, you know no one and you’re kinda desperate for a bit of company that doesn’t involve talking about Minecraft or fart jokes.
The follow up – Does this person like me back, could this person potentially be the first member of my new village ? The pressure is on and the stakes are high. No one wants to crash and burn when it comes to making friends in a city where you feel like a total Nigel no friends. You have a second coffee date, maybe even a third and then the relationship escalates to a whole new level!
The emergency contact – I am sure everyone who has ever re-located overseas has had that feeling of total utter isolation when you enrol your kids in a new school and THAT question comes up on the form. 'Please provide at least one emergency contact' (yeh, I know it’s a first world problem – so that quantified I will proceed). Are you SERIOUS? AT LEAST ONE emergency contact? Have you just forgotten that I have left EVERYONE that I know behind in another country (or sometimes even countries – plural) to move here and although I am currently on a recruitment drive to fill ‘my village’ at this exact point in time, as in right here right now, I HAVE NO FRIENDS. I repeat NO FRIENDS! Let alone someone that my kid knows well enough to step in, in a said ‘emergency’. So, with nothing to lose and an emergency contact to gain, you text the friend you had coffee with two days ago and say ‘hey, how do you feel about me putting you down as my emergency contact on my kids school form?’. You then pray to God that this person you are ‘courting’ as your potential new ‘partner in crime’ is not saying to themselves in a very loud voice ‘PSYYYCCCOOO’!!! So when this in fact happened to me – imagine my relief and utter jubilation when the text message was returned to me saying ‘Sure – no problem, I have already listed you as my kids emergency contact’ GAME, SET, MATCH! That right there ladies and gentlemen is like going to third base! I am in – she likes me, things are getting serious, this relationship has a real future. It’s almost enough to make you do a happy dance!
The coffee turns to alcohol – So emergency contact aside, considering you have now been to the ex-pat equivalent of ‘third base’ with this person, you feel like you have some leverage to exercise preference over the nature of your ‘dates’. Coffee turns into wine, which turns into brunches, and BBQs and great afternoons all hanging out with the kids as one big happy extended family and before you know it – your village is taking shape.
The marriage – So some time has passed and now you have to think twice about the exact time difference between your current location and your home town, however you know exactly when it was that your ‘new wife’ text you back. You know when your next catch up is and maybe even what she is having for dinner. You talk every day, you physically see each other if not every day, then every second day and the question of ‘what are you doing today?’ turns into ‘what are WE doing today?’ Let’s face it, with the men folk travelling a lot for work there is a time when you realise that maybe, just maybe, there are days when you communicate with this new found friend, villager, spouse, more than your actual spouse. They know your kid had a fever the night before from an ear infection. They know you’re struggling a little at the moment because you’re missing home. They know your actual family by name and the names of all your BFFs at home. Then there is my favourite, your kids great them with a huge hug and smile when you all meet up … and vice versa. And eventually you get ‘Aunty’ as a prefix to your name. THAT is when you know you have just entered into the holy convent of ‘ex-pat wifehood’ (and there’s also the one where her actual husband refers to you as her ‘wifey’).

Honestly, I have been so, so blessed in all the places that I have lived with the people that I have met and I hold all of them very, very dear within my heart. If it was not for the close bonds that I have held with these women, I am sure my ability to survive and thrive would be greatly diminished.

We should never underestimate the value of beautiful, true, genuine friendships. Especially when your kids are young. I believe as mums this is a time when we are often the most vulnerable. We are entering a whole new world when it comes to our lives and coupling this with a literal whole new world by living in a foreign country can really rock us off our axis. Combine this with the pressure we often put on ourselves as parents, the lack of family support because of distance and often being solely responsible for the social life of the entire family – it’s a lot of extra pressure. To have these women in our lives to vent, and laugh, and cry and share personal things even after only knowing them for a relative short time is something I have grabbed with both hands.

You know how people rate dog years, i.e. seven dog years = one human year? I think that’s kinda the same for ex-pat years. I have found myself confiding in, sharing with and loving friends after just one year and it honestly feels like I have known then for much, much longer. This is one of the things I am truly grateful for in this nomadic lifestyle, the pure, genuine, rock solid friendships I have had the opportunity to foster and grow over the past few years. I have friends that LOVE my kids like aunts and grandparents and I in turn love theirs like my nieces and nephews. I have no doubt in my mind that my kids feel like they are part of something bigger and that they are loved and cherished outside of our nuclear family. I feel that the other kids in their lives have been like cousins, so familiar that they can be themselves, and so loving that small indiscretions are overlooked. And they are always always asking to spend time together.

When I look at my Singapore wife and her amazing kids it makes my heart literally swell to think of all the things we have done together. From nights by the pool, chucking all the kids in the car and heading off on Friday night adventures to having the privilege to be there as we welcomed OUR fourth child into the world (haha just joking – the bubba really isn’t ours, it’s totally hers and hubby’s). I simply cannot image my life now if our paths had not crossed. From day 1 when we first rocked up to school with our babes in prams and we said the ultimate pick up line – ‘Do you want to go and grab a coffee?’ So now, thousands of coffees later and almost three years on it will soon be time to say ‘see you soon’ to this marriage. The marriage that has been rock solid and fun and funny and spontaneous and so, so very genuine. Not sure at all how you do that, but I guess I better try and figure it out. I should be an expert by now but this is one thing that is not in any way easy.

I have done it before and I know I can do it again and I know for certain that it’s not goodbye it’s always ‘see ya soon’. I know it’s true as in a few weeks I will be re-uniting with an old (she’s actually not old – she’s younger than me) wife and ‘cousins’ of my kids, or should I just say villagers from our time in Hanoi. To say that I can’t wait is a TOTAL understatement.

PS: Men folk, please don’t underestimate the power of bonding over a coffee. Yes I know you think it’s just us chicks sitting around doing nothing except spending all your money but that humble little coffee date can and does lead to bigger and better things. It gives your kids playdates, it gives you access to a social life outside of the office and it gives us ‘trailing spouses’, who have left all behind to start again and again AND sometimes again, a soft place to land, a place to connect, to de-brief, to engage and without that … well the cost of the therapy would far outweigh the cost of coffee!

My Kiddos and some of their 'village cousins'