Sandy Johnson was an unlikely expatriate when she moved to Singapore with her husband in the 1980s. With little prior experience abroad - save an occasional trip to Mexico and a whirlwind tour of Europe as a teenager - the Texas City, Texas, native found herself in a foreign country without a work permit or social network. What's more, her husband's oil-field services company, like many others, didn't provide expatriate spouses with job-hunting assistance.

Undeterred, Ms Johnson sought out volunteer opportunities. Soon, she was managing Singapore's American Women's Association, a not-for-profit organization with more than 1000 members. Through her new professional connections, she landed a job as a marketing manager with International SOS, a Singapore and London-based medical and emergency assistance company, and embarked on a 20-year career with the organization. "The opportunity presented itself to me because I had done the networking," says Ms. Johnson, now a senior executive with International SOS in Philadelphia.

Moving abroad can be tough on expatriate employees, but often it's just as hard - if not harder - on accompanying spouses or partners, who may have given up their careers to go overseas. 'Trailing' expatriate spouses may not be able to secure necessary permits to work in their new country or know how to develop a social network to create such opportunities. What's more, an expat spouse's unhappiness can impinge upon his or her partner's professional success.

Unravelling Assignments
Statistics tell a disheartening story about trailing expat spouses. In a recent study co-authored by Willamette University and Cendant Mobility, almost 60 percent of the 548 surveyed 'globally mobile' employees complained that lack of career opportunities for spouses and partners diminished their overall quality of life. And many relocation consultants say anecdotally that about half of all failed assignments are due to family problems.

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