My Girl Back Home

The dames of France are fond and free,
And Flemish lips are willing;
And soft the maids of Italy,
And Spanish eyes are thrilling;
Still, though I bask beneath their smile,
Their charms fail to bind me.
And my heart goes back to Erin's Isle,
To the girl I left behind me.

—Irish folksong

In cultures with a tradition of adventuring, there is often a yearly tragedy in which families are temporarily split up because some of the men have to be away trading, or fighting or bringing animals to market or the like. This brings in the character known as My Girl Back Home. She is almost Always Female (hence the title), though a child or an old man would work. The male version of Girls Back Home waiting for female adventurers are only a recent storytelling innovation, as adventuring was mostly masculine work in most cultures and time periods and stories reflected that.

Girls Back Home tend to be spouses or lovers though anyone with whom The Hero has a close relationship will do. Expect a Girl Back Home to be The Woobie, though she will likely hide her emotions under a shell of stoicism, at least until she is alone. In the meantime, The Hero will always worry about her and feel guilty for leaving. That never persuades him to stay home, of course, because after all he is The Hero. Another trait of Girls Back Home is that they often occupy only a small part of the story except in the thoughts of The Hero.

Also, no matter what happens, if you have a girl back home, DON'T show a photo of her to anyone!

Related to I Will Wait for You and Long-Distance Relationship (although that one is a bit more gender neutral in who gets left behind). You may have to return abruptly for You Have Waited Long Enough. She will often be a Yamato Nadeshiko too, personality wise.

Examples of My Girl Back Home include:

Anime and Manga

Winry in Fullmetal Alchemist can sometimes be this.
- Gracia was this for Hughes during the war, he unfortunately never heeded the warnings regarding the Fatal Family Photo.
Ange Ushiromiya from Umineko no Naku Koro ni starts out as one of these. She takes a few levels of badass as the series goes on.
Kaya from One Piece could be considered this.
Cattleya from Rave Master is this. Especially when Haru quotes her every time he has the chance.

Film

In Midway (starring Henry Fonda), when the ships return from battle, a crowd of civilians is gathered at the navy yard. This includes the girlfriends of two of the main characters.
Jack Ryan's wife and daughter in The Hunt for Red October.
Colonel Moore's wife Julie in We Were Soldiers. Others have girls back home too, but the positively regal way she keeps the home fires burning for the whole base, makes her the best representative of this in the movie.
Male example, George Putnam in Amelia.

Literature

Penelope in The Odyssey: Ur Example. She waited twenty years for her husband to return.
Both of the wives of Horatio Hornblower.
The Gaffer and Rosie in The Lord of the Rings.
- Both Eowyn and Faramir are this while in the Houses of Healing as well.
  - Interestingly, it is implied that the strain of being the girl/boy back home for their respective friends is what drew them together in the first place. They wound up happily married by the end of the series.
- Arwen is this for Aragorn
The father and sister of Sostratos in Over the Wine Dark Sea.
Male version: Roland in Wintersmith.
In Captains Courageous, there is a poignant scene in which the Gloucester fishing families gather at a church to listen to the yearly casualty report and several newly widowed women burst out in tears.
The Aubrey-Maturin novel series, being a story of British Navy men, naturally has these for the lead characters - Jack Aubrey, of course, has his wife Sophie, and Stephen Maturin has Diana Villiers and, after Diana's death, Christine Wood.
In Memory Sorrow and Thorn, the diminutive troll Binabik is betrothed to the daughter of the King and Queen of his people, but is forced by his oaths to his master and to the League of the Scroll to embark on long missions in the lands of the big people. Sisqi is not pleased to be kept waiting, but when, upon returning home, he is condemned to death for his apparent betrayal of his duties, she aids in rescuing him and later joins him as an emissary of their people.

Live-Action TV

Theme song for the western Rawhide: Rawhide's contemplatin', his true love will be waitin', be waitin', at the end of the line.
Mrs Onedin in The Onedin Line. Also James Onedin's sister.

Music

"The Girl I left behind me" in numerous John Wayne films
"Lily Marlene"
- Lili Marlene was the big hit of World War II for both sides and was something of a theme song for the North African Campaign. Erwin Rommel himself liked it so much that he made a personal request for Radio Belgrade to sign off with Lili Marlene.
  - Vera Lynn's version of Lili Marlene is available from Amazon Digital Music.
A large portion of war songs are about this. How many probably cannot be ascertained but certainly a substantial proportion.

Theater

The song "My Girl Back Home" in South Pacific. Possible Trope Namer.
- The song was cut from the original production, but has been reinstated for the 2008 revival.
- Ironically the hero was singing that to rationalize cheating on his girl back home.

Real Life

In his memoir, Quartered Safe Out Here, George MacDonald Fraser tells how his aunt (I think it was his aunt, anyway she sounded like she was a tough old Apron Matron), on hearing the news of the outbreak of war simply said, "I guess the men will be going away again." Fraser lived in a part of Britain that had long provided soldiery and the people adjusted accordingly.
- This is in his McAuslan series of short stories, and it is his MacDonald grandmother. His other Granny is old enough to recall soldiers returning from the Crimean War.
  - It may have been there but I do remember them being in Quartered Safe Out Here
Common enough in Real Life for Mormon girls - most Mormon men, usually right after high school or college, go on two year missions. These missions can be in places as diverse as Iowa, Australia, the Czech Republic, or Argentina - but they are designed to keep the man far away from home. Even if he stays close, he is forbidden to see his girlfriend, so waiting for a missionary is a common event for LDS girls.
A very extreme version is found in CIA spouses. They are often parted for long times and the Girl or Boy back home often has no idea what is happening. Not to mention they have to give an extraordinary trust to someone who is after all a trained deceiver. It causes unusual strain on marriages, but in those cases where it actually does work, it can be an awesome example of The Power of Love.
- Please note: Most spouses of CIA agents and other espionage officers actually get to go with their spouse on missions abroad if the place they are posted to is relatively safe and (if they have kids) have relatively good schools. After all, "cover" basically means lying about your job, so as long as you do a good job of that, your family isn't at further risk of leak or of being killed (your spouse or Significant Other generally knows, and the kids will just assume, along with everyone else, that Dad/Mom is a diplomat or something). Agents going to riskier places (e.g. Afghanistan), however, are generally split up.
  - So CIA couples are a subversion? Badass Family that lie about their past and use cover stories about My Girl Back Home together is a family that spies together?
More than one Yamato Nadeshiko in old Japan ended up as this.