I am not a Trailing Spouse, I am a Tag Team Partner

KEYS to the Etymology of Equality

Yesterday, I decided to post (note: okay advertise) this blog on a Facebook group frequented by people serving in one of the varying U.S. foreign services and their spouses, children, and, for all I know, secret other families. I don’t really know why it took so long for me to think of it. It’s a natural constituency for a blog like this, and I’ve been a member of the group for more than a decade. The fact that I only thought to do so after desperately—and a little sadly—reaching out to friends with substantial internet followings completely and totally unrelated to the content of this blog, makes little to no sense. After all, who is more likely to want to read a blog about expatriate life? People who follow a dirty joke riddled blog for skeptics? Fans of beautiful and uplifting music? Or people who are exhausted from schlepping their snot-nosed kids, wormy cats, and tired spouses all over the damn world? (Note: I am not talking about you. You have beautiful children, handsome cats, and a loving spouse.) The result was astonishing. In the first 12 hours, I got 41 new subscribers, easily my best single day on substack.

To you new subscribers, I say welcome. Bienvenue. Wilkommen. Consider getting a paid subscription if you like what you read (note: you don’t get any extra content, but you do get a handsome email where I not that you are smart, well-read, and good-looking), and please share this blog with others. I will put buttons here to make it easy.

See? Pretty red buttons, and as you learn in A-100 (note: diplomacy school) always press pretty red buttons.

But now on to the actual blogging.

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My launch to the diplomatic diaspora was not without controversy. In my initial post, I used a common term in foreign service parlance to describe myself—a “trailing spouse.” Indeed, the Facebook group where I posted includes the word “trailing” in its name. I used that expression knowing that it is a term that has fallen into disfavor with many people in the expat game, and with reason—it can easily be seen as degrading or disrespectful to the person accompanying the diplomat on assignment. One thoughtful reader noted that “No one trails, no one depends, it’s 2024.” I think the reader raises a fair and thoughtful point, so I want to address it.

I have a general policy of being nice. If a word hurts someone, my general policy is not to use it rather than to dig deep into my magic bag of “well, actually” and come up with an etymological reason that the word is fine. I could do that if I wanted to—I’m very good with words—but I am more interested in not being a jerk.

Yes, we have constant shifting of what is and is not acceptable language these days, which can be aggravating, but that’s the cost of living in society; people are wonderful, but they are also very annoying. Provided the person I’m talking with is not belligerent, I try to respect their preferences, and if they are belligerent then I really try to respect their preferences (note: but obviously with a seething resentment and hurt beneath my respect). I did not find this commenter belligerent in the least, so respect it is. (Note: In some ways, my use of “they” in the above paragraph is a perfect example of what I’m talking about. I was trained on noun-verb agreement, and I enjoy being a pedantic stickler—an Irish friend once told be “You put the “Dan” in pedantic”—but the linguistic powers that be now say that “they” may be used for a singular person or unspecified gender rather than “he or she.” Language changes, and I must, slowly, grudgingly change with it.)

The commenter further argued that “blankies or animals trail, children depend, etc… people accompany.” On the one hand, this is the sort of etymological argument I try to avoid. On the other hand—don’t be a jerk. But honestly, “accompany” doesn’t really feel that much better to me. I can’t help but think of some wrestling valet and a ring announcer declaring “Accompanied to the ring by…” or a celebrity on the red carpet, “accompanied by her husband who is not famous.”

That said, I realize that, as a man, I am able to approach this with a certain wry detachment that women might be disinclined to take, what with the tens of thousands of years of oppression, misogyny, and so on. When my Swiss debit card notes, in elevated type, that the account belongs to my wife, and I merely have access to it, it’s comical. When the genders are reversed, it’s regressive, anti-feminist, and downright archaic. She has the job, but it’s OUR money. (Note: As long standing readers of this blog know, I spend an enormous amount of time thinking about and discussing how, even as a stay-at-home parent, being a man gets me credit and acclaim that women making the exact same choice seldom get. When I took my six-month-old daughter to a bar in DC, women literally bought me drinks for being such a great dad— a woman takes her kid to a bar, she’s lucky if she doesn’t get social services called.)

I also am sufficiently enamored of the idea that we are all interconnected that I don’t even really mind the word “dependent” that much. I am absolutely my wife’s dependent. Of course, I like to think that, as we are a team, she is also dependent upon me. That said, I do not recommend trying to claim both spouses as dependents on your taxes. The IRS does not share my idea of an interdependent universe.

But trail…. Yeah, I get it. Trail sounds bad. It sounds like you have to walk 10 paces behind your spouse. It sounds like being left behind. Even worse, it sounds like being sent off alone, down a dark and forbidding trail. It even sounds like trail mix, which is really just chocolate polluted with a bunch of stuff you don’t actually want.

So here’s what I propose: Let’s come up with a better term.

I used to date a woman who’d studied foreign affairs, and we quipped that we didn’t have a relationship, but rather a detente. We thought this was very clever and funny, and it was… until the relationship became a stressful burden instead of a mutually supportive partnership. It is all fun and games calling your relationship a detente until you are actually in a detente, because no one wants their relationship to resemble the Kissinger era Cold War.

Since I live in the Francophonie, I thought perhaps I could use the French term for stay-at-home dad, père au foyer. Literally translated it means “man of the hearth,” which I find sort rugged and charming in a sooty sort of way. The problem, of course, is that “foyer” in English is not a hearth, but an entry hallway, and I do not at all like the idea that while my wife is off working, I have to sit in the hall because I cannot be trusted to maintain the house (note: even if this is an accurate characterization of my housekeeping.)

So here’s what I’m thinking. Embarking on a life overseas with one’s family is fundamentally a team activity. Everyone has a role, everyone needs to pull their weight in order to achieve shared goals or else things fall apart—so what about teammate? Am I my wife’s global public health teammate? Possibly. Could I be her tag team partner instead, because that is basically the same as teammate but with high fives and flashier costumes. Or course being a tag team partner suggests that we are interchangeable, that I could as easily tag into public health, as she could tag into full time child rearing, and that’s obviously absurd. She’s way too ambitious to stay home with the kids full time! (Note: Kidding…. But I’m not kidding that I couldn't do global public health. It is very difficult!) But really, there’s no need to stretch the metaphor. I could tag back into a government job and she could tag out to raising the kids.

We already have a tag team name “A Stab at Freedom”

Honestly, I think that “tag team partner” is a reasonable solution to the nomenclature problem. Yes, wrestling fans will tell you that in every tag team there is always a weak link, someone who, when the time comes for the team to split, will get thrown through a barber shop window—a Jannetty in wrestling parlance. But you know what? I’d do it for her. Not the window part, but the supportive partner part.

So to my new readers out there in diplomatic world, the next time you’re getting travel orders, cross out the part of the form where it says dependent, accompanying family member, sidekick, plus one, better half, lesser half, exactly equal half as halves are by definition the same, trailing spouse, or anything else and write in tag team partner. If I know anything about the U.S. Government, it should only delay your deployment by eight or nine months.

What do you think about the term “trailing spouse?” Do you have a better idea than tag team partner? Vote in the poll and join the conversation in the comments.