Female Supremacy Articles - Page 9

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But in many cases the role reversal is the work of market forces as much as force of personality; the husband's career is expected to take precedence, and initially it does, but it's overtaken by his wife's. "Maybe the guy's industry changed and he lost his job," says Ken Neumann, a psychologist and divorce mediator who has seen his share of depressed dads lately. "Or the wife steps into the right placesomething she couldn't fully have anticipated. The question is, how secure does the guy feel? When the woman earns more, we can't assume in our culture it's a nonevent.

It's not as if these women ever expected their husbands to support them completelyat least a lot of them didn't. It's just that it never occurred to them that they might be the ones doing all the heavy lifting. And as hip and open-minded as they like to think they are, they were, after all, raised on the same fairy tale as the rest of usthe one where Prince Charming comes to the rescue of Sleeping Beauty.

"I didn't really give a damn where the money came from," says Betsy, an attorney. "That's not the gift I expected a husband to give me. I wanted a romantic figure."

Among the reasons these women were originally attracted to their husbandssex appeal, sense of humor, charismaearning power may not have been high on the list. But that could be because it was a given. Unfortunately, the other qualities start to fade over time if the husband isn't adding something tangible to the equation.