All eyes are on the First Lady as the world waits to see what's next. Photo / Getty Images
All eyes are on the First Lady as the world waits to see what's next. Photo / Getty Images
Melania Trump has been quiet over the past week as her adopted country decided if her family would remain in the White House for another four years.
Has she avoided the spotlight because of the outgoing US President's tantrums over the election result that saw Joe Biden become president-elect, or is she quietly plotting her next move, which could be very different to Donald Trump's?
Nobody could blame Melania for being relieved to say goodbye to her largely undefined, unpaid, high-pressure job as First Lady.
"I think Melania will probably be secretly relieved. This is not what she signed up for," said Kate Andersen Brower, a journalist and author of First Women, a book about the partners of presidents.
So what will be Melania's next move? Will she follow other first ladies and go on to write a tell-all book, take up worthy projects, help her husband navigate his new endeavours (which experts say is the least unlikely) or simply focus on her role as a devoted mum and live life as a lady of leisure?
She certainly has many options – particularly on where the family might relocate to and whether she will choose to live with son Barron separately to her husband.
Speculation surrounds whether Melania and Barron will go back to New York so he can return to his former private school in Manhattan, or stay in Washington while he finishes high school in Maryland, not far from the White House.
The fashionable First Lady is said to be weighing up her options. Photo / Getty Images
The Obamas stayed in Washington so their two daughters could finish up at their private school.
After January 21, Melania could return to the Trump Tower penthouse in New York City, the Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida, or head to the Seven Springs estate in Westchester and the Trump National Golf Course in Bedminster.
Experts say it could be Florida because she voted in person at Palm Beach County – registered as the Trumps' official residence.
Historian Katherine Jellison of Ohio University told USA Today she assumed Mrs Trump would go back to Florida.
"Or maybe she will be able to convince her husband to return to New York as their official residence – and continue the kind of life she led before the White House," she said.
Anita McBride, who runs the Legacies of America's First Ladies Initiative at American University and was former first lady Laura Bush's chief of staff, said she thought Melania would focus on her family and her son, helping him to manage the transition.
Many believe Melania is going to "return to that lady-who-lunches lifestyle". Photo / Getty Images
She said in the meantime she will be preparing for the family's final Christmas at the White House.
Ms McBride said losing the election comes with "a certain disappointment of not having this option (of being in the White House) again after working so hard towards it".
"You go through the stages of a loss because it is a loss," she told USA Today.
She doesn't predict any of the Trumps will stay in Washington.
Other experts don't believe Melania will actively pursue worthwhile initiatives because she was never much of an activist before.
They point out how her First Lady initiative, Be Best, which was aimed at "helping children" by fighting online bullying and opioid abuse, never really resonated with people anyway.
Andersen Brower believes Melania is going to "return to that lady-who-lunches lifestyle".
"Which is totally her right to do, but if she wrote a book she could make a lot of money," she said.
"If she wrote a no-holds-barred book, like Nancy Reagan's My Turn memoir, that would do very well. And she might, given the way she (sometimes) talks so candidly."
