Editor’s Note: We’re excited to hear back from Aditi Patil — one of our first contributors, more than six years ago! — now with a new book that’s sure to be of great interest to our readers! (Bonus: Lie #7 comes from our founder, Nicole Neroulias Gupte.) You can find “I’m a Trailing Spouse and Other Lies I Told Myself” on Amazon, and learn more about Aditi through her author Q&A responses:
Q. Congratulations! What prompted you to write this book?
A. I wrote the book I wish someone had handed me when I first moved. When I followed my husband across countries, I kept running into rejection and loneliness. I had a career at Citibank and was in the middle of a pivot to executive coaching, and suddenly the first thing people asked was what my husband did. Over several international moves, I went through career resets and the sting of losing my professional identity. Later I launched a community for relocating spouses called We are Pistachio.
I was meeting with relocating spouses every week, and I kept hearing the same questions and the same lies repeatedly: “It’s too late to start.” “My career will never recover.” I realized these women weren’t struggling because something was wrong with them. We were all carrying the same invisible suitcase.
A book felt like a way to take the knowledge from my moves and several other inspiring women to hundreds, thousands, even millions of relocating spouses around the world, so no one has to figure it out alone.
Q: How did you decide which stories and narrators to feature?
A: I wanted voices that would make readers say, “That’s me,” even when their paths looked different from mine. The book blends my own story with the journeys of six relocating spouses who reclaimed their identities and careers. Each story is tied to one of the seven lies, so every lie is paired with a real woman who faced it and found a truth to replace it.
I also looked for women who give back to their communities, and that is the thread running through every story. Stepping away from your laptop and into your community is a big part of feeling like you belong in a new place. Many of these women were mentors in We Are Pistachio, and their stories had already resonated with our members.
Their experiences are also very different. One woman relocated at 23 and another at 40. One made a domestic move, and another secured a visa after seven years. I’m honest in the book that these stories mostly reflect women with certain educational and financial privileges. They are a true slice of the relocating journey, but not the whole picture.
Q: What do you hope readers will gain from reading it?
A: First, I hope they feel less alone, because isolation is the part nobody warns you about. Second, I hope they leave with a clear place to start. The book blends memoir with a practical framework, with reflection prompts, Action Stations to move you from thinking to doing, and even a Relocating Spouse Bingo card, because sometimes the best way to survive the chaos is to laugh at it.
Most of all, I hope readers reclaim their own narrative. Whether that’s a new job, a business or a creative pursuit, I want them to feel they can bloom wherever they’re planted.
Q: How has your life been different than where you expected to be at this point? In what ways is it better or worse than you had planned?
A: I grew up in India, married my soulmate and had zero plans to leave. Life was comfortable, family was close, and my career was established. If you had told me then that I’d be an author living in the U.S. and running a community for relocating spouses, I would have laughed.
It’s better in ways I never planned. I found a purpose I wouldn’t have found otherwise. We Are Pistachio has grown to more than 1,500 women, and I helped 25 of them land jobs. I’m also an organizational development leader at a Top 25 professional services firm, and I’m proud that I hired two relocating spouses onto my own team.
It was also harder than I planned, and I won’t pretend otherwise. There was loneliness, there were job rejections, and there were years of feeling like I’d lost the “me” people used to know. Those years hurt, but they are the reason I do the work I do now.
Q: What would you tell your pre-trailing self now, looking back?
A: First, I’d hug her and remind her that she is not alone. It will work out even better than she imagines, and it will also be harder than she thinks.
It’s not too late to start. Her career will not disappear, and she doesn’t have to wait until things settle down to begin again. Finally, I’d urge her to be kinder to herself, because starting over again and again takes real courage, and she’s doing better than she thinks.
📖 Order I’m a Trailing Spouse and Other Lies I Told Myself here.
