In this short video, I explain why the man who followed often carries the move most quietly, and how our video sessions help you say what it cost.
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Online therapy for men as trailing partners helps men who moved abroad for their partner’s job and now feel sidelined, restless or unsure what they are worth. We meet one to one by video, in English, for 1-hour sessions with 50 minutes of therapy, booked at a time that fits your time zone in the country the posting took you to.
I help you put words to what you gave up, face the resentment and the doubt honestly, and build work, friendships and a role abroad that belong to you. This page sits under online therapy for expat men, within online psychotherapy for men. Trailing spouse psychotherapy, living abroad is for accompanying partners of any gender, while this page is about what the role does to a man.
To take a next step, request a free 30-minute call, book a session, read my client policy or contact me.
Online therapy for men as trailing partners is for men who moved to another country because their partner was offered the role. You agreed for sound reasons and you love your family, yet you never expected to feel this lost. You want to understand it and find solid ground that is yours.
Some situations sit close to this one but need a different starting point. If one of these fits better, the link will serve you better.
You can also send me an email
These reviews describe clients’ experiences of working with me. They come from my wider practice and do not all relate to online sessions. Each person’s experience is their own, and a review does not promise a particular outcome.
“In my clinical experience, the men who followed a partner abroad are among the most silent about the price. Because they said yes, they feel they gave up the right to mind. Beneath the silence I hear ‘Am I still someone you can lean on?’ and, right beside it, ‘Let me sort my own situation out.’ Some also carry ‘I want you near, and I cannot bear you seeing me like this.’ I believe the resentment is not the danger. The silence is. A man who swallows what he gave up does not turn generous. He turns distant, and the cost turns up later in another form. Once he can name the loss without blaming anyone, he usually finds his feet sooner than he feared.”
Mark Colclough, MA, psychotherapist and EFT couples therapist
I am Mark Colclough, MA. I have practised since 2004 and offer online psychotherapy and couples therapy in English.
My training brings together your emotions, your thoughts and your relationships. My deep passion is the moment when what happens between you finally makes sense, to each of you and to each other. I have lived and worked in nine countries, so I know something of life across languages, cultures and borders.
Read about my background, or explore online psychotherapy and online couples therapy.
I meet regularly with experienced psychotherapists to reflect on my work, question my understanding and develop my skills. Supervision is part of the professional care I bring to individual and couples work, including online sessions.
My focus is thoughtful practice, integrity and responsibility.
You are welcome to ask about the kind of support you need.
Tell me where you are based and your time zone. We can then consider whether online sessions together are suitable.
Chris is 39, a secondary school teacher from Leeds. When his wife was offered a senior post at a bank in Singapore, they agreed it was too good to refuse. A year and a half later he does the school run, takes Mandarin classes twice a week and applies for teaching jobs that want local qualifications. At her leaving party he joked about becoming a kept man. At home he goes quiet when she talks about work, and she says she cannot reach him.
I would start with the private bargain Chris struck when he said yes, because it has never been spoken. In a first video session he would probably see that grief for the teacher he was sits under the irritation, and that he can say so without accusing his wife.
I have presented this clinical example as a compound of 22 years of clinical practice.
You have kept the household running and kept your word about the move, and you have lost track of yourself along the way.
No crisis, diagnosis or perfect explanation is required before we meet. If you feel sidelined, restless or less like yourself since the move, or if the same tension with your partner keeps coming back, that is enough. Over 22 years of practice I have seen how often a man’s struggle in this role goes unnoticed, by others and by himself.
My view is that your situation deserves as much attention as your partner’s career. Together we work out what is going on and what has to shift. The 6 questions below can help you judge whether the moment is now.
If so, that matters. Without work to go to, many men fill the hours with errands, training and job sites, and still reach the evening feeling they did nothing. You may catch yourself waiting for your partner to come home so the day can begin to count.
I would ask how many months it has been like this and what once made a day feel full. That tells us whether this is the usual dip after a move or a pattern settling in. If it sounds like you, book a session with me and we will start from how your week really goes.
Many men who followed a partner feel both, since each feeling speaks for a different part of them. One part admires your partner and wants the posting to work. Another mourns the career and standing you left behind. When your partner walks in buzzing about the day, you feel both, and then guilty about the resentment.
I do not treat the resentment as ugly or the pride as the only decent feeling. Each one carries information. I help you understand what each protects, so you can speak about both openly instead of letting one leak out sideways.
Many men in this role do, though few will admit it. You notice how much of the dinner talk is about colleagues you have never met. Small things start to look like evidence that you matter less, and you cannot rest until you feel needed again.
Wanting to stay important to the person you love is not weakness, and I will not shame it. We work on settling that alarm before it becomes sulking, testing or a row, and on asking your partner straight out for the closeness you want.
That swing is common in this role. You look forward to your partner coming home, and when they reach for you, you are cool or sarcastic. You want comfort, and taking it feels like proof that you are now the one being looked after.
I help you slow the moment down and see what turns longing into distance, often pride or a feeling of having shrunk. Your self-protection makes sense to me, and I will still ask you to mend things when the coldness lands on someone who is on your team.
Many men in your position deal with it alone. When your partner asks how you are, you talk about the plumber, the visa forms and the homework. It feels like sparing the family your mood. Over time you each know less and less about the other’s inner life.
Needing room to sort yourself out is fair. I help you see what the silence protects you from, often a fear of becoming a burden, and find a way to stay connected without handing everything over. You learn to say ‘Not a good day, I will tell you more tonight’, and then you do.
A man’s job often held up far more of his self-respect than he ever noticed. Take it away and the question at every party becomes a small humiliation. In “Fire in the Belly”, Sam Keen describes how a man’s identity gets fastened to work and achievement, and the fuller manhood that has room for feeling, friendship and care.
We sort out which parts of you were really the job title, and which parts were simply you. I will push you when you belittle yourself, but I will not decide who you should be. The aim is a sense of worth that does not hang on a title, and a plan for work and life abroad that you choose.
If these questions hit home, ask for a free call to see whether I am the right fit, or book a session and begin.
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Tell me briefly what kind of support you are looking for.
Include your country and time zone so we can discuss whether online work together is possible and find a suitable time.
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Understanding your resentment is useful, and it only counts once it changes what you say at the kitchen table.
Working with me will help you understand what has happened to you since the move, see the patterns that keep you stuck and make changes your partner will notice. Insight that never reaches the conversation at home does not move much.
I am an active therapist. I will say what I see, suggest things to try and question the stories that keep you small. Men’s work has been part of my study since 2010, and it adds to and deepens what I do as a psychotherapist. These 6 questions describe what we work towards.
Related reading: Why do I feel stuck in the life I chose abroad? and Why don’t I feel like myself since moving abroad?.
I help you tell the situation apart from what it has exposed. The sharp words, the drinking and the restless days are real, but they often point to something else: grief for a professional self, lost standing, an old fear of depending on anyone, or an unspoken agreement that the sacrifice will be repaid one day.
I tell you what I think is going on and what needs attention first, and I will challenge stories like ‘Once I find a job, it will all be fine’. To start pulling the threads apart, book a session with me.
You can learn to spot it early. Resentment rarely arrives as a speech. It turns up as a sigh when your partner mentions another work trip, a joke with an edge at dinner, or a sudden urge to go out the minute they get home. Knowing your early tells gives you the option of saying it out loud.
On our calls we follow the feeling back to what triggers it and what it wants. Then we practise saying it simply, and you try that at home within days, which is where the real shift happens.
Steadying yourself is not pretending all is well. It is staying present enough to understand what you feel and choose what to do with it. What feels like uselessness is often mourning for a working life.
I help you notice the slump or the irritation sooner and find ways to settle it that suit you: a shape to the day, movement, time with other men. I will be clear that practice between sessions matters, because the hardest hours are the empty ones at home.
First you have to know your need and accept that it belongs to you. Many men in this role never voice it. Instead they carry a silent bargain: my career was the price, so you are in my debt. In “No More Mr. Nice Guy”, Robert Glover calls these covert contracts, and they rarely work, because the other person never signed.
I help you swap the hidden deal for honest, specific requests. I will challenge you when you stay quiet to be the good guy, and when you expect your partner to guess. We try out the actual conversation on screen, so you can stay calm when you say it and listen to the reply.
Clarity comes when you separate guilt, pride and the fear of what people think from what you actually want. Some men hold out for the ideal job and lose a year. Others grab anything just to have an answer at parties.
I help you weigh real options: retraining, freelance or remote work, a step down to get started, a new field, or time at home with the children by choice. You get my opinion, and I will call out avoidance. The decision stays yours, made together with your partner.
It means change you can see: a structure to your week, work or a project that is yours, friends abroad who know you apart from your partner, and an honest arrangement at home about who carries what.
We work out together which parts of your life need to change and which are fine. Being the flexible one who looks after the family is a strength, and I will treat it as one. The aim is that you stay, or leave, as a man who chose it.
You can also send me an email
You need no neat story and no diagnosis. We begin with your days abroad as they are now.
When you begin, I listen, help you name what is hardest and set a clear direction early. Many men start by saying they should not complain, and that is exactly where we begin.
What we do is a focused form of online psychotherapy, one to one, on your inner life and your relationships. If the strain lives mostly between you and your partner and both of you are willing, online couples therapy offers long-term relational development and healing. When you expect a series of sessions, therapy discounts and bundles give you savings and a structured plan.
I ask how the posting came about, what you left behind, what an ordinary day looks like now and what you would like to be different. You do not need to cover everything at once.
At the end I give you my first understanding and suggest a direction, and you decide whether it feels useful. A free 30-minute call is there if you would rather talk before booking.
Working alone with me suits you when the subject is you: your worth, how you feel about the move, your past and the way you cope with swapped roles. You can look at the relationship in depth without your partner on the call.
Week to week I give you continuity and honest challenge. For how I work with adults more generally, online psychotherapy describes my individual practice as a whole.
Couples therapy is the better choice when the relationship itself needs ongoing attention: the same row about the move keeps returning, intimacy has faded, or one of you feels unseen by the other.
Together on the call, you both learn to spot the pattern, own your share and build a fairer and warmer life as a couple abroad. Couples therapy for people living abroad is long-term relational development and healing.
How often we meet comes down to the weight you are carrying and the continuity the work calls for. Because your days may have less structure than your partner’s, a regular appointment can also anchor your week.
I usually recommend weekly sessions to begin with. If the gaps are too wide for anything to build, I will say so, and I will also tell you when we can ease off.
A bundle is a good idea when you expect several sessions and want continuity without weighing each one against the household budget, which can feel delicate when you are not the one earning.
You save money with a bundle and get a firm plan, and I can help you decide if it makes sense. The choices are on therapy discounts and bundles.
The work is finished when you feel like yourself again abroad, can talk with your partner about the move without a hidden score, and have something in your week that is yours.
I review progress openly and do not encourage dependency. Sessions can space out, pause or stop. Should another posting or a return home bring you back, what we did before has not been lost.
Not sure this is your starting point? See how it compares with the 3 pages nearest to it.
| Option | Choose it when | Pace |
|---|---|---|
| Online therapy for men as trailing partners (this page) | You followed your partner’s career abroad and lost your own work, standing or footing. | Weekly 1-hour video sessions to begin |
| Online therapy for expat men | You moved abroad for your own reasons, and life there has become heavy. | Weekly or fortnightly by video |
| Trailing spouse psychotherapy, living abroad | You are an accompanying partner and want help without a focus on being a man. | 1-hour video sessions at your pace |
| Online therapy for men after job loss or retirement | Losing work, not the move, is the heart of what you are dealing with. | A focused course of video sessions |
It is individual psychotherapy by video, in English, for men who moved abroad for their partner’s career and are struggling with the loss of work, standing, friends or confidence that came with it.
I work in depth with the whole person, including the beliefs about men and work you grew up with, and I keep the work practical. It is part of my online therapy for expat men, with the focus on the man who followed rather than led the move.
Come when the low days have stretched into months, when you are snapping at your partner or children, or when you no longer recognise yourself. A job may help, but on its own it will not settle what the move stirred up.
In 22 years of practice I have learned to watch whether the strain is easing or hardening, and what it is doing to the relationship. If the same argument comes back every few weeks, it is time.
Yes. No therapist can hand you a job, yet our work can change how you live through the waiting, how you come across and what you apply for. I cannot promise outcomes, only honest and focused work.
In my clinical experience, men in this role often apply from a place of shame, and it shows in interviews and in how they describe themselves. Once the shame gets attention, the job hunt tends to become calmer and more focused.
No. The aim is the reverse: to name what you feel without turning it into a list of charges. Resentment that stays unspoken tends to come out as blame. Resentment that is spoken can become a conversation.
We sort out what belongs to your partner, what belongs to you and what was simply part of the deal of moving. If the relationship needs joint work, I will say so, and couples therapy may follow.
Because accepting support can feel like confirming you are now the one who needs looking after. One side of you wants to be held, and another side stands guard over your pride. So the same partner gets a warm welcome on Monday and a cold shoulder on Tuesday. It is protection, not a flaw in your character.
I help you notice when each part takes over and what it costs you both. Then we practise accepting help without feeling smaller, and asking for it before the pride gets in first.
We start with your life abroad now: your days, your relationship, what you miss and what you hope for. I also want to hear where you come from and what your work used to mean to you. Before we stop, I tell you what I have noticed and where I suggest we focus.
You do not need to prepare. Whenever the time feels right, choose a first session or open with a free discovery call.
Plan a first stretch of a few months, usually weekly at the start. That is often enough to name what the move has cost, ease the strain at home and draw up a plan for your own work and life.
With 22 years of practice behind me, I prefer a clear first stretch with an honest review to sessions without direction. Then we take stock, and you decide the next step with me.
Begin on your own if what hurts most is your own loss and your sense of worth. Many men need room to say what they are not yet ready to say in front of their partner. When the relationship is the core problem and both of you want to work on it, joint sessions are often more useful.
Video gives you privacy at home during the hours your partner is at work, and it keeps going if the posting moves you on. Use a room with a closed door and headphones. If you are unsure which format fits, we can decide on a free call.
Each online session lasts an hour and holds 50 minutes of therapy, and my prices page gives today’s fee in US dollars.
If you expect a series of sessions, a therapy bundle saves 10 per cent and gives you a structured plan that is easy to agree as a household. Details sit on therapy discounts and bundles.
You can book your first session straight away, or ask for a free 30-minute call to talk it over beforehand. The calendar shows every time in your local time zone.
If no time works, or things feel acute, send me a message. I keep some room for acute cases, usually a time within days, and acute psychotherapy for people living abroad explains that help. Choose a time, and we start.
You can also send me an email
I want therapy to help you understand your experience and make choices you can use in everyday life. We pay attention to feelings, needs and the responses that happen before you have time to think.
Our online room should offer enough trust and honesty to explore what is difficult. I bring attention and professional judgement. You bring your experience, questions and the right to say when something does not fit.
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P.S. I’ll call you in a bit!
