A Moving Story for Spouses

Those roles determine the mutually recognized right or authority to exercise power within the relationship, say Denise and William Bielby, sociologists who recently studied the couple dynamic in move-for-work decisions. A man with traditional gender-role beliefs sees himself as primary provider and decision-maker--and would likely refuse to let his spouse's job or children's lives interfere with his own job advancement, say the Bielby. And a woman with traditional beliefs of herself as homemaker/wife would likely sacrifice job advancement if it means asking her husband to leave a job or uprooting her kids.

Here's the sticking point: Even though more women have infiltrated management and the executive office suite, they are still likely to subscribe to traditional beliefs about the male provider role. In fact, they go out of their way to support that role--they may take on half the business work, but they take on all the housework as well.

In The Second Shift, her now-classic study of the division of labor in the household, sociologist Arlie Hochschild found that many people ideologically support the idea of egalitarian roles, yet in carrying out those roles the principles get trampled. There are great contradictions between what people say they believe about marital roles and what they seem to feel about them. Many couples who moved for the husband's work were "outwardly egalitarian" but couldn't override the traditional gender roles ingrained within them. And their behaviors reflected this traditionalism; women would rather pass up a career opportunity than upset their deep-seated, culturally programmed gender roles.

Awkward Sex-Role Reversal

Following their wives for work, men would be challenging those same culturally prescribed roles. The assumed head of the household would have to take the passenger seat, forfeiting the power and control traditional roles bequeath him. And such men may be worse off as trailing spouses than women have been because they are charting new territory, with no cultural means of support.

Regardless of their psychological fortitude, couples must endure formidable external pressures individually and together. Not all couples can withstand these societal constraints. They often pay a high price in the negative response from others. Reactions of family and friends may well be the most trying part of the upheaval. Listen to this trailing husband:

"Their first reaction was to assume that my own career must be falling apart, when in reality it was going quite well. But I was confident that I could do this job anywhere. I knew I could get another job, and did. But sometimes I was embarrassed about it. I hated telling people why I moved because I never knew how they would respond."

Another male spouse-trailer, a former high-school teacher, said that he had always earned less money than his corporately employed wife, so moving for the spouse with the higher earnings seemed to make good family economic sense Yet it did not stop co-workers and extended-family members from questioning why he would move to further his spouse's career: "It has never bothered me on a personal level that she makes more money than I do. But the reactions we have gotten are beginning to bother me. They act as if I am lazy or incompetent."

Women who uproot their husbands for their careers have their own social repercussions to contend with. Even though countless men have done it before them, suddenly, moving the family for work is "cold" and "calculating." It seems that the rules for corporate relocation have changed--the new version confirms the stereotype of the cold and aggressive successful woman.

Take Nina Webster. When she was offered a new and "terrific" position in Arizona, her husband, Rob, supported her desire to pursue the job. For her the pressures imposed by family and friends were "incredible." Nina recalls: "Feelings of guilt were being imposed upon us from all sides."

Some couples would sooner try commuter marriage arrangements to cope with dual career demands that draw them in differing geographical locations. But they too pay a price. "My mother thinks I am being selfish," says one woman of her derision to move for her own job--and leave her husband behind. "After he was transferred to California, I had been warned that the job market was not good for my area. But I followed him again anyway because I didn't feel that I could refuse. So we built a great house on the coast and we all settled in. Unfortunately, I couldn't find a job.