“I need to financially contribute to the family and be an equal…” “I feel guilty having a cleaner because I’m staying at home with the kids and not working so I should be doing all the house work….” “I want to make $5,000 monthly in my business so I can finally contribute to the family’s budget in an equal manner…” “I can’t really quit my job and have some time off to figure things out because when I meet a decent man he will think I’m lazy or dependent…” I hear this from smart, brilliant women all the time. Women who try to do it all: be the best wives, mothers, businesswomen, career women and all kinds of other women. They try to be Superwomen. (I wonder how she would be saving the world while being pregnant or nursing a baby… that’s a movie I want to see! ) If you’re also feeling this way the first thing you need to sit with is not “How to make it all work?” but “WHY do you feel this way?” Why do I measure my contribution to the family in terms of how much money I bring to the table? And why do I completely disregard the way I contribute to the family in SO MANY other ways? This is why having 50/50 relationship doesn’t work. Women self-sabotage themselves by using the same measuring stick to quantify and qualify their success as they would to men. Only they forget that men do not have to deal with monthly menstrual cycles, get pregnant and carry babies, birth life into the world, breastfeed children and then take care of the household in the same way we, women, want to. Men’s bodies, psyches, emotional and energetic build ups are not designed the same way. Is it the husbands who make you feel this way? “Surely he will think less of me if I don’t contribute to the family income…” Is it that your mother-in-law that makes you feel this way? “Surely she thinks I’m lazy and irresponsible if I choose to stay at home, especially because she is that superwoman who does it all at work and at home….” Is it that your peers and colleagues make you feel this way? (“Surely they’ve got it all figured out… motherhood, self-care, family life AND on top of their careers!”) Or it is you who, for the most part, are telling herself these things and putting yourself a position of disadvantage? No-one else can impose their expectations on you unless you have decided to embody and carry the burden of their expectations. You decide whether you’re open to adhere to other people’s expectations or not. Back in January 2017 I quit my well-paying big shot travel-all-over-the-world-and-work-from-home marketing job and was “finding my passion.” A huge part of my income was cut off. It didn’t hurt us as much as you’d think simply because my back then fiancee, now husband, was making pretty good money. But it still hurt because my additional income could afford us to do many many things: have a much better lifestyle save for the future invest in our next business etc And so, after three months of my “soul-searching” and not really coming to anything solid, we had to have THE CONVERSATION. The conversation was actually really simple and I suggest you adopt it as well if you get yourself into such a peculiar position with a man. You see, men are quite straightforward. When you tell them how things are, they understand. When you tell them how you feel, they also understand. Here was his thought process: We ‘lost’ 30% of our income. Hmmm… That’s not good. But she’s figuring things out so it’s okay. I hope it’s not going to take that long… Three months pass. I think it’s taking too long…. So let’s have the conversation… “Anna, what are you planning to do next?!” “String, I don’t know yet. Why are you asking?” “Hmmmm… well, it’s just that we lost 30% of our income…” “Yeah and…?” “Well, I thought we’d talk about the future and all…” “Alright, let’s talk about the future. How many children do you want, String?” (You don’t have to be as direct as blunt but find your way into such a conversation.) “Mhmhmh… I don’t know. Maybe 3…?” “Right… Great! I think we’re both on