Q: I’m a successful woman, but can’t find a guy who doesn’t resent my success! What’s up? –Karen
A: Dear Karen,
Ah, yes, ambivalence! A man may love your success, but resent the dramatic social changes that allow you to ask new things of him. Like, that he be available on your terms (when women were once available on his); like that he handle half the home load (when housework and childcare were once “women’s work”); like, that he be as skilled at relationships as you are (when men never had to know squat about intimacy). Many men feel disenfranchised in a culture that once put them at the center of women’s world, and now puts them, they feel, on the periphery. The bottom line for you is this: He has every right to openly negotiate his part in your life; he doesn’t have a right to sabotage either your relationship or your success. If he makes you feel guilty, if he punishes you somehow, if he seems to resent the relationship (or you) without admitting it outright, I say, move on.