trailing spouse n. a husband or wife who follows a marriage partner who takes a new job in different city. (source: Double-Tongued Dictionary)
Further reading
An acclaimed poet’s tender poem about holding a newborn for the first time reflects a complex swirl of emotions. And: A caller finds that in her workplace, the expression out of pocket can mean very different things: either “being unavailable” or...
If you alternate alcoholic beverages with glasses of water over the course of an evening, you’re said to be zebra striping. This bit of slang was inspired by how the animal’s alternating black-and-white markings are like the contrast between the...
DO you think that finding 2 citations from the same paper in the 80’s (same author??) and 1 from current qualifies?
Yes. There are hundreds more to choose from in other papers and books, but as they add nothing new to the understanding of the term, it’s not necessary to include them here. I would have used just one citation from the Wall Street Journal, but I already had the second-oldest one when I found the oldest one, so I kept them both.
I added another citation to buck it up.
“Trailing spouse” is a very common term in the U.S. Foreign Service community.
See http://www.aafsw.org/articles/working/porter.htm.