Although many supporting partners could consider wandering their lives and moving abroad for the new job of their other half, there is only a small handful of who might empathize with Taylor Ward.
In the summer of 2023, the social media influenced, who was born and raised in Manchester, with news that her husband -then -Manchester City star Riyad Mahrez -had booked a lucrative move of £ 30 million to Saudi Pro League side Al -Ahli.
The bomb was delivered quickly and definitely, with Ward forced to confront the new reality of living in Jeddah for cameras during the first season of Amazon Prime's married to the competition, a reality show about women's life married to Premier League footballers.
“I feel that everyone will be everywhere, it will just be so difficult, life will be so different,” Ward told her sister Darby in tears.
The 27-year-old added: 'I have the feeling that it is so difficult, there are times when I can't do it, I just don't like it. I don't like it, I have no choice. '
Ward was in her rights to worry at the time – a report published by post online in 2024 claimed that women married players who had held their trade in the top division of the Gulf State, and was refused access to shops and restaurants because of how they were dressed.
But just like the women of a number of top stars of the competition, such as the partner of Cristiano Ronaldo Georgina Rodriguez, adapted to the move in the midst of the cultural conflict in the conservative absolute monarchy and their new home have made their own home.
Ward, who is married in the second series of the game with the game that will premiere on 8 April, admits that although she seemed to have struggled with the move from England, the reality is much more harmonious than the first time recorded on the camera.
“I actually love Saudi,” said Ward. 'I have people who visit me all the time. My friends fly from the UK and my mother and father live in Dubai, so they come by and that is really fun. '
Part of the adjustment is relaxed, Ward adds, by regular trips to England – where her jeweler brand Astalia is located – and Dubai, as well as other exotic locations Ward is filmed by private jet.
“We are here a bit, there and everywhere,” she continues. 'I'm still going back to England for work, so I'm not here for the longest time. Currently this is the longest I have actually been here. I have not been at home in England since the beginning of December.
“I just don't work out anymore. I have one case that I always stay packed with spare toiletries and fitting adapters and things like that because you just never know where you are going to be, things always change.
'But it's nice to be in the sun, the people here are so beautiful and I now have my bearings much more. I have the children in the nursery, I have found a very beautiful gym, just small things that make daily life a lot more fun and easier. '
Also adding Ward's new love for life in the kingdom are the extensive renovations that the influencer has performed on the house that she shares with Mahrez.
The mansion is a neutral fantasy of lush creams and purple sole marble, decorated by Ward herself and her mother, real housewives of Cheshire Star Dawn Ward.
“The house is great now,” adds Ward. “She did so well. It is such a big house, it took a long time to get it off, so we are still working on it today. '
Big is the surgical word – fans are treated to lush photos of countless living rooms, a huge birkin -cut stuffed wardrobe, an outdoor swimming pool and the most surprising, two kitchens: one for show, and one where Ward actually cooks, to 'get dirty'.
“I think that's just the culture here,” Ward suggested. 'I would probably have just had one large kitchen and everyone had in it – the more the happier. But the people here all have chefs and so every house we watched had two kitchens.
'Our biggest problem was finding a house small enough! The houses were so large, I and Riyad were walking around them as if we were in the Trafford Center.
“I had something like:” What are we going to do here? We're going to get lost! We will not even be able to find each other. “It sounds crazy, and it's an incredible house, don't get me wrong. It is huge and it is great, but this was actually one of the smallest we found.
Ward added: 'But also, we needed the bedroom room, and we needed the guest rooms, because we constantly have people to stay. Riyad's friends, my friends, my family. There are always a hundreds here, it is never empty, so it is used absolutely well. '
Despite the fact that the house saw the photo of a luxurious football player, Ward quickly insisted that her daily life in Saudi is so close to if possible.
“It is often just normal, and we do very normal things,” she went on. 'We are not always super glamorous. Usually I don't have any makeup in Saudi, I run the children around. It is not always these great journeys and huge weddings and whatever.
'We are also very normal, and we do very normal things. If you have ever seen me step on Manchester Airport steps after the night flight with three children, you know that!
“It has just been the school holidays and if I have all the children here, it's absolutely massacre,” Ward emphasized. 'Our house is an absolutely crazy house. I have not always sorted it out. It is pretty hectic and everywhere.
“We have some great times, I don't get wrong, and we are privileged, but we are also very normal, and it is not always glamorous as people think.”
Similarly not glamorous is the lack of stability that life in Jeddah entails, Ward adds. With constant journeys while you try to establish a basis in her new country, Ward and Mahrez do not know or (they) come or go. '
“It can be lonely,” she admits. 'I had to live away from my whole family and live on the other side of the world, in a country that is culturally very different.
'Much of my work is on hold as long as we are here. Riyad's career comes first, because that is our most important income.
'And the players also sacrifice a lot. Riyad's missed weddings of family members and all things like that. He can't just have a day off at the weekend because it is his friend's birthday and he wants to go.
“Don't get me wrong, he is in a position that most guys dream of, but it doesn't come without the sacrifice.”
In this way, more couples who move abroad can be related to the experience of Ward and Mahrez in Saudi than they would expect.
Married to the game is exclusively available on Prime Video on April 8.
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