IF YOU get a rush of adrenaline when you’re travelling on business, and view it as an antidote to humdrum routine, the chances are you’re either single or new to the experience of globe-trotting. If, on the other hand, the very thought of it induces sheer misery, you could be plagued with Intermittent Spouse Syndrome (ISS). Sufferers include not only the traveller but the partner who is left behind, says Farrol Khan, director of the Aviation Health Institute, who identified the affliction late last year. And if the divorce rate in the expat community is to reduce, big businesses need to devote a lot more time to understanding the problems of “trailing spouses”, who aren’t necessarily prepared to trade their career for their husband’s, or their personal happiness for an aromatherapy certificate.’They Only Laughed Later’ by Carol Allen and Richard Hill, Europublications, pounds 10.99, contact: kminke europublic .

Sadly, I think it’s unlikely we’ll see a change in companies’ attitudes to expat spouses , until more of them are men.”Until that time, the attitude remains that a man thinks “job then family”, and a woman thinks “family then job” – so many companies are still reluctant to post women with families abroad. But when they are the family, paradoxically, it’s okay.The rise in British expats is likely to continue growing as Europe’s boundaries become increasingly flexible. They’d rather be here – but it would have been worse to move them every three years”"The boarding schools of England were built on expatriation,” Chris Brewster elaborates. It’s no longer taken as read, though, that children will be neatly labelled and packed off to England at seven “Parent’s views have changed,” he agrees.

“Women don’t want to be abroad, jobless and childless as well. Because it is still the men who are generally posted – although women have proved better at international management. “They went to school where we lived when they were little,” Sibella explains. “Then we had to send them to boarding school because there was no senior education available. When I had Daniel, I was inundated with offers of help.”It was different when we went to Cyprus two years later, though. There are fewer young women with children there, and I used to long for just one friend I could talk to easily. Despite it being seen as a brilliant posting, Cyprus has never been enjoyable, for that reason.”A further problem is the growing children, and whether to dispatch them to boarding school or haul them through inadequate local schools.

Clare Lumsden, 27, moved to Osnabruck in Germany with her army officer husband, Peter, a week after marriage “My main worry was loneliness. But army life is incredibly sociable – and all the wives are in the same boat. Michelle Briere is married to the Marketing Director of Meridien Hotels, and has recently moved from Paris to London “The only thing I really miss is French food and our dog It’s not so different, though. I didn’t leave a career behind because I look after my children, and we brought them with us. I just need two or three months to get to know new ways, and then I can make friends somewhere else.”The career problem can often be worked around by adapting or deferring – and the moving becomes just a weary matter of tea-chests and newspaper every three years The worst problem for trailing spouses is isolation. And we both feel guilty about our choices, although we see each other every few weeks. I knew when I met him he was obsessive about work, and I’m very proud of him.

So in theory I’d move – but in practice, I’d be leaving friends, family, a job I love – and it’s hard to give all that up.”The decision to give things up is made easier when there are simple replacements at the other end. He is posted in Washington, while she’s in London with two-year-old Alex “He’d been away before for limited periods But then he was offered Washington, indefinitely My mother was very ill. Then I got a job and pregnant in a short space of time, and decided I couldn’t face being a ‘Washington Wife’. John’s bosses think I’m some mad feminist, because I don’t want to go and join a wives’ reading circle.”He and Alex miss each other terribly. “In ‘93, we were moved to Bratislava in Slovakia from Prague, where I’d just had our daughter by emergency caesarean – I could barely walk across the flat, never mind move house. Bratislava was an emerging economy, and there was no work for me, whereas in Prague I’d worked on a newspaper. Luckily, we’re a close couple, and I made friends – but there is a high divorce rate in the FO, like the army, because the partner often can’t fulfil their potential.