Purpose The purpose of this paper is to employ hope theory to explain the psychological process underlying the dual-career couple (DCC) family unit, during the full cycle of international relocation. Design/methodology/approach This qualitative study is based on in-depth interviews with 28 international dual-careerists. Hope theory is used to describe the evolution of their goals, pathways and agency thinking before, during, and after expatriation. Findings The study reveals that dual-career partners initially build goals, pathways, and agency to support family relocation to facilitate the expatriate’s career goals, but later the absence of self-career realization means hope can diminish and the partner’s career comes to drive the goals set for repatriation. Future assignments would be considered only if both partners can arrange relevant employment for themselves. Practical implications Companies should develop DCC support practices such as designing shorter assignments, ensuring that partners have work visas and support job seeking. Ideally, multinational corporations would employ the spouse in the DCC. Originality/value The study is one of the first to explore the evolution of the goals of DCCs during the entire expatriation process.

Combining the realities of dual‐career couples (DCCs) and the requirements of international careers can be difficult. In order to improve the understanding of the repatriation experiences of international DCCs, we conducted interviews with both partners in 14 DCCs. Contrary to expectations, the majority of the interviewed couples reported very successful repatriation experiences, and only a few adjustment challenges were raised. The interviews address the factors explaining such repatriation adjustment issues, and also elicit four key factors (active self‐management of the expatriation process, earlier experience of expatriation and repatriation, the successful integration of work life and family life, and the realization of dual‐career interests upon repatriation) connected with successful repatriation adjustment experiences.

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