Hierarchy of needs and the Trailing Spouse - why it takes 6 months to get used to a new country9/27/2018 Somewhere along the line you have made a family decision to start an exciting journey living away from your home country. If you are not the one who will be arriving in the new country to paid employment then welcome to the ranks of the trailing spouse. This unusual status often provides the chance to experience a very privileged life, with help in the house, access to social functions and time to enjoy them, and seemingly unlimited opportunity for self fulfilment. However visa restrictions may make working difficult and strangely this lifestyle doesn’t always feel like a “bed of roses”? A better understanding of our needs as human beings may provide the key to making the most of our unusual lifestyle as a trailing spouse. Abraham Maslow proposed a framework to explain what motivated people and I think it lends itself to helping us understand our life as a newly arrived trailing spouse. The framework is based on a pyramid of human needs which are filled sequentially from the bottom. So someone living in a desert, for example, is most likely focusing on fulfilling their most basic physiological needs of hunger, thirst, and bodily comfort. Once we are in a situation where these physiological needs are largely taken care of we can move on to filling the safety needs, making sure our family is out of danger. Then we can search to satisfy the needs for belongingness, moving up to self-esteem and gaining respect from others. While these first four needs are unsatisfied we feel uneasy, anxious, tense and uncomfortable; although rationally we may not understand why. After satisfying each of the basic needs in the four lower layers we finally arrive at the chance for aiming at the pinnacle of self actualization – or reaching our potential and practicing self development in the areas we choose. This could be creating beautiful paintings, making music, relaxation through yoga, aiming for a hole in one on the golf course, spiritual development etc., whatever turns you on. Already you may be beginning to see the likely effect on our ability to enjoy the higher aims and objectives in life from choosing to live away from our home country. When we arrive in a new country we are faced with many unknowns. If we follow the hierarchy of needs we will start by addressing our physiological needs. Hopefully we quickly find a source of food so that our family can thrive. It may be difficult to find the family’s favourite pop tarts flavour, Vegemite or Hagis but most destinations have access to at least the basic raw ingredients, although the first couple of days can be stressful when we discover how hard it is to locate unsweetened low fat natural yoghurt. I can remember arriving in our first posting in Sri Lanka. Having worked abroad extensively, staying in hotels of course, I had assumed that bringing the family abroad would be a breeze and that within days we would be settled. After 3 days my husband asked me to source 0.4 pencil leads for his propelling pencil. I was speechless and burst into tears as I hadn’t even found out where to buy milk that our children were prepared to drink – never mind propelling pencil leads! Hopefully we soon find a source of a few precious reminders of home so we can move upwards in the hierarchy to consider our safety needs, which cover personal and financial security, our health and wellbeing and our safety net for accidents and emergencies. When we first arrive in a new country we are uncertain about the ways to behave and the precautions to take to keep ourselves and our family safe. Perhaps this is why advice about the medical facilities and public transport are often top of expat’s query lists on arrival. On top of all this uncertainty it is likely that our personal belongings are somewhere between our last destination and this, crammed into a metal box and floating on a boat somewhere. No wonder we are feeling insecure. Lets assume we have identified the nearest hospitals and emergency numbers, we have chosen to live in a relatively safe area, we have moved out of our temporary accommodation, we send our kids to safe schools and we have arranged for suitable family transportation and invested in insurance policies to cover all eventualities. Even the household goods have been delivered yeah! Things are definitely looking up. In this way we have broadly satisfied our safety needs and can move on to the next level in the hierarchy. Level 3 in the hierarchy is concerned with the need for love, affection and belongingness. This category covers our needs to be accepted and affiliated with others. Belongingness is certainly tricky at first, and although the isolation is alleviated by communication through skype, facebook, email, texting and other communication systems we cannot easily bring our network of friends to our new home or give them a hug. Often we don’t realise the importance of building relationships and networks to our wellbeing and it can take quite some time to make new friends and to develop a supportive network for those occasions when we need help. Groups like IEA can be a great starting point for building these relationships so start making friends – they will help answer the long list of questions, but much more than that they help to satisfy our needs for companionship and belongingness. There are some simple strategies to help us adjust to our new environment. We can make a schedule for the day with things to look forward to and, particularly important, make sure we create opportunities to meet people every day, even if this means finally going to the Gym on a regular basis or saying “yes” to the coffee morning invite or making time to draw comfort from spiritual activities that are meaningful to us and exploring our faith. Even if you are normally the most independent person this is an important time to engage with others and allow them the opportunity to provide support. Surely we are pretty settled now, having satisfied our physiological, safety and belongingness needs, but there is still one more level in the deficiency needs which represents the need for respect from others. This need is insidious, may not be recognised at all and therefore may be the hardest for the newly arrived trailing spouse. To feel comfortable we need to be accepted, approved of and valued by others. For the working spouse and school age children the requirement to fulfill belongingness and esteem needs are readily supported within the structure and environment of an office and a good international school. In a new country, and as a trailing spouse, we are always starting from a zero base in this area. It requires a considerable amount of energy and self esteem to engage ourselves in the new community, to develop activities that we can contribute to in a meaningful way, and to identify ourselves as a useful member of this new society so that we have a sense of acceptance and respect from our new community. Often we don’t realize the importance of taking on new roles at a time when we are really busy just getting settled. But building ourselves an identity is important to our wellbeing. So put up your hand and volunteer as your children’s class support, or make something tasty to share at a pot luck event, or volunteer to help organize a charity function. We need to create the opportunity to be recognized by our new community for our contributions to be able to flourish in our new environment. From the outside it may be difficult for onlookers to understand why the trailing spouse is not actively enjoying this privileged life. We seem to have great opportunities to fulfill our higher needs of self actualization, which sometimes the working partner feels they don’t have enough time for. But Maslow’s theory explains that we are unable to focus on these until we have satisfied the first four basic or deficiency needs. So first we must summon up the self motivation and energy to find the family’s favourite foods, find out about how to keep ourselves and our families safe in our new environment, to push ourselves into the community and create a network of friends, to volunteer or design activities so that we can achieve rewarding experiences and gain respect and all of this on top of buying curtains! Maybe Maslow has hit on something and we are bogged down trying to sort out safety, belongingness and self esteem before we can move on to the higher objectives and explore our potential. I have met many wonderful people who have lived abroad for some time and are creating beautiful paintings, making music, developing their self confidence and self awareness and having a rewarding life. But let’s not be too hard on ourselves; these sometime take a long time to become our focus. So let’s give ourselves a pat on the back and realize the steps we are achieving each day and look forward to the time when all our basic needs are satisfied and we can move on to really enjoying life and making the most of our potential. Maybe that is why it seems to take at least 6 months to settle in to a new country. What do you think? Does it make sense? Yvonne Parks IEA President of the Board |
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