How Much Ambition Can One Relationship Take?
My father was a doctor, my mother a nurse – both brilliantly talented: he a medal winner, she an assistant matron by her mid-twenties. Then they had me. He went on to be a world leader in his field: saved lives, published books, won prizes.
She went on to be a mother of five: frustrated, resentful, with a sphere so small it felt sour to her; always telling me not to make her mistake. She was less the power behind the throne than an insurgent forever threatening rebellion. She would divorce him, she would abort the next baby, we would wake up one morning to find her gone.
I’m crying as I write this because these are hard truths. I loved my mother, I felt for her and I feared what she might do. I identified with her rage, but I decided to be my father, so work has always been how I defined myself. Unsurprisingly, I have found myself attracted to men who feel the same: driven, with interesting jobs, putting their ambition before all else.
At times, this has led to the uncomfortable question: how much ambition can one relationship take? And, more specifically, which one of us is going to yield and handle the domestic stuff, the emotional stuff, and be what would once have been called ‘the wife’?
Relationships in which both members of a couple maintain alpha status are rare. There are the bankers I talk to who take it in turns to prioritise their careers, so one takes a job somewhere in the world and the other follows for three years, then it is the first one’s turn to look after their children.
However, the reason this feels remarkable is because it is (and being as rich as Croesus is a help). A friend tells me that she and her husband – both famous in their respective spheres – are ‘like rivals, rather than partners’. She adds, ‘It feels like an exercise in world domination, with us on opposing sides. Our ambition was exhilarating at 28. Now it feels like a war.
The stereotype used to be that men left an ‘equal’ partner for an ‘easier’, less career-minded ‘trophy wife’… cue eye-rolling all around. And one does not have to look far to find examples: I give you the friend who left a fellow lawyer for a succession of student girlfriends.
But, I also know a good many women who are sick of high-flying husbands and slinging their respective hooks. ‘I’d been doing it on my own for years,’ says one thirtysomething divorcee I interview. ‘Why not formalise the situation? Then, one day, I might meet someone at least prepared to have dinner with me occasionally.’
The most successful executive of my acquaintances maintains ‘a happy loafer’ of a husband. He walks the dog, picks up the dry cleaning and has ‘a job so part-time it’s virtually non-existent’.
She refers to him as her ‘sanity saviour’, in the way that former UK and Australian prime ministers Theresa May and Julia Gillard are said to think of their ‘civilian’ spouses. Film star Julia Roberts found happiness when she ditched fellow celebrities in favour of a camera operator happy to let her take the limelight.
In my own case, if my parents’ relationship taught me to be wary of love as a vocation vanquisher, then so did my romantic forays.
Throughout my life, I have adored men – as friends, as lovers, as what I optimistically referred to as ‘partners’ – but, in myriad ways, said partners have stood in the way of my ambition. However alluring my drive, the moment I became romantically entangled with them, men have put their objectives first and mine very much second.
My Oxford University boyfriend paid lip service to respecting my goals, yet there was definitely a sense that his career was the more pressing.
I remember explaining to his mother that academia could take me anywhere: Dundee, say, or Chicago. ‘But, you’ll have to follow his work,’ she exclaimed, mystified that I could interpret matters any other way, despite my better degree and prospects that, at the time, seemed rosier.
Worse was to come when I was a young newspaper writer, in the form of a City boy who began by declaring himself in love with my intellect only to become threatened by it. Our relationship quickly became a power struggle. ‘You’re so clever,’ he would say, adoringly. But then another time, embittered: ’You think you’re so clever.’
Our romance ended not long after he demanded, ‘Why wouldn’t you want to give up your job to bring up my children? What makes you think you’re too good for that role?’ Afterwards, he called to inform me that I needed to help him forge a political career. Even once things were over, I was expected to play cheerleader.
And, yet, when I had a boyfriend who declared himself unambitious, people told us we didn’t match. He told me we didn’t match. And so I embarked on a course in which my erotic and professional lives were kept as separate as church and state. I was interested in my lovers’ professions, just as they were interested in mine, but at arm’s length. They were lovers, not partners. Partnership didn’t work.
When I was 43, and he 4O, I met Terence, a management consultant with whom I am compatible in all things. A partner, at last. My lone life became a shared life. And, while this brought many positives, it also meant I was entering the danger zone: could our mutual aspirations coexist, a balance be achieved?
Ten months in, he took a sabbatical in Cambridge. People shocked me by asking whether I would be moving, too. It hadn’t even crossed my mind. My job was in London. My job was what mattered.
A year ago, we moved in together, my time eaten into by an endless round of chores he didn’t see the need for. Sociologists have identified the ‘mental load’ that women take on in heterosexual relationships: the planning, the organising, the emotional labour. I felt quashed by all this, and more. And we didn’t even have children.
I'm self-employed, while Terence balances several jobs, plus studying on the side. Our schedules were frequently incompatible – he getting up at 6am to work, me slogging into the night – meaning we often failed to cross paths. At weekends, one of us would be working, while the other was left to do things on their own. At times we felt like mere flatmates; at others, actual impediments to one another’s progress.
Enter Dr Jennifer Petriglieri, associate professor at the renowned business school INSEAD, near Paris, and the author of Couples That Work, a book designed to change the conversation around the aligning of personal and professional ambition. As someone who grew up convinced that the personal must never be allowed the same status as the professional, it is no exaggeration to say that Petriglieri changed my life.
Inspired by Facebook executive Sheryl Sandberg’s declaration, ‘The most important career choice you’ll make is who you marry,’ Petriglieri spent five years interviewing more than 100 couples to find out what makes their work work.
This was a revolutionary approach. As she notes, ‘The tendency has been to treat careers as if we’re all flying solo, no strings attached. It’s all about you as an individual, as if you don’t have a partner. Or it’s been about work-life balance – nothing about how careers can interact. The emotional component didn’t seem to exist.’
Couples tend to start out mutually supportive of each other’s ambitions,’ Petriglieri continues. ‘But then something happens (for example, sharing a home or having children) to tip the balance in favour of one of them (often, but not always, the man). It’s important to recognise that ambition is not a zero-sum game: there’s no inevitable winner and loser. You can have a lot of ambition in a couple.’
Petriglieri found that the key is full and frank discussion, enabling the building of what she terms a ‘couple contract’. ‘Oh, god!’ I wail. ‘I’m too English to acknowledge my ambitions, let alone have a conversation about them.’
‘OK,’ replies Petriglieri, ‘let’s reframe it as desire. What do you want out of life? What is meaningful to you? What would make this a good life? Don’t think, This is my career versus your career. Instead think, This is our life.’
‘Isn’t that codependence?’ I worry. ‘No, it’s interdependence, and the two are very different,’ argues Petriglieri.
‘Making us fear interdependence is the biggest mistake feminism made. We’re not designed to survive independently. Interdependent is what human society is. You’ve probably got a circle of close friends – I bet you’re interdependent with them. Feminism meant we started to see our partner as an adversary, which becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. Tit for tat is the path to hell. Couples who are willing to build interdependence do really well.’
As simple as this may sound, this advice has had a radical effect on my life. And by this, finally, I mean both our lives – mine and Terence’s. The impact was as instant as it was seismic. Both of us became massively happier after merely acknowledging that this was something that needed to be addressed.
Each of us has been repeating the phrase, ‘I’ve done X because we’re a team,’ not satirically, but meaning it. I am supporting his aspirations, and he mine. Now, it feels as though we’re becoming not rivals, but allies. So, how much ambition can one relationship take? The answer – brilliantly – feels like a f*ck of a lot.
Like this article? Sign up to our newsletter to get more articles like this delivered straight to your inbox. SIGN UP
In need of more inspiration, thoughtful journalism and at-home beauty tips? Subscribe to ELLE's print magazine now and pay just £6 for 6 issues. SUBSCRIBE HERE
You Might Also Like
