YOU'RE AN EXPAT SPOUSE WITH FULL RIGHTS, NOT A JUNIOR PARTNER

That’s what I understood a few years into my marriage.

When I married my husband, I made a decision to become an expat wife. I left my family and friends, my well-paid corporate job and the tiny, but my own, apartment back in Poland.

I remember a male colleague, who knew me for my bold, feminist statements, remark on how “unfeminist” my move to Brussels was. But I was in love and decided to follow my husband.

After just a few months in Brussels we moved because of my husband’s new job assignment in Paris, where our two daughters were born. My husband worked long hours and traveled a lot, so it was clear that I would take care of our kids.

A few years later we moved back to Brussels, again because of my husband’s work. Our kids were 2 and 4. A perfect time for me to go back to work, right? Not only was I busy handling kids, I was looking for a job on the side.

Eventually I got a job with the European Union, but it wasn’t my dream job. After much soul-searching, I realized that what I really wanted to do was help other women as a life coach.

Telling my husband about my idea, which entailed a year of schooling that included weekend classes, was tough. I knew he’d be skeptical. The coaching course wasn’t cheap, he wasn’t familiar with coaching, and a return on our investment wasn’t certain.

But my husband understood as well as I did that a marriage is a partnership. Becoming a coach was something important to me. So we talked through the issues like partners and agreed on a path forward.

Three years later, I have a thriving coaching business. Looking back on that difficult time when I was deciding whether to become a coach and sell the idea to my husband, I think about what I, today, would tell myself back then if I could. There are a few lessons I’d offer my younger self.

So I wrote down those lessons as a sort of how-to guide. That guide is now my Partner Pitch, which helps women sell their spouse on a business plan just as I did with my husband.

Download the Partner Pitch and get ready to get your spouse on board.

XOXO Kasia