An homage to the men who support their ambitious women

Cartoon by Hugh

When I was in my twenties I dated  – and almost married – a man who was super supportive of my career.

Right up until 5:00 p.m.

And then he wanted me to be home and have dinner on the table.

We met right out of college in training to be financial consultants with a regional brokerage firm. I was one of five women in the class of 30, and he told me very early on that one of the things that attracted him to me was my ambition.

Things got serious between us pretty quickly, and we ended up being together for about three years. I was in Boca Raton, FL, and he was in Tampa, on the other side of the state. Within a year I quit that job (I hated financial planning) and moved back in with my my mom and stepfather for a few months until I could decide what I was going to do. They live in Treasure Island, FL – about half an hour from where ex-boyfriend lived lives.

He freaked out.

He thought I’d quit my job and moved back to the Tampa area because of him and it freaked him out.

So I said fine and told him we didn’t have to see each other anymore.

That lasted about six seconds.

He got over it.

So anyway, I found a new job and we continued to date and we adjusted quickly to living in the same city. Soon we were practically living together. He wanted to – for real.

I did not.

In fact, I made a two-night-a-week rule. I got two nights a week to myself.

Meaning, not with him.

That was a continual struggle throughout our relationship because he wanted to be together 24/7, but I needed some space to breathe. Stay sane. Etc.

Anyway.

In my new job my goal was to be promoted to regional director within five years. 13 months later, I was promoted to regional director.

The regional office was here in Atlanta (which is ultimately how I ended up living here but I’ll save that story for another day) and I covered fourteen states. I also spent a lot of time in NYC at the company’s headquarters, and in other cities around the country at conferences, speaking, doing training and development, etc.

Ex-boyfriend was super excited about my promotion.

Until he learned that I’d be traveling.

A lot.

That didn’t go well.

My position at the time was somewhat high profile and I was getting a lot of attention. I was the first female regional director in the company (it was a 150 year-old company) and I was the company’s first-ever Regional Director of Recruiting. There were a lot of eyes on me and a lot of people wanted my help.

And, I mean. Come on. I was 25 years old. How is that not super-exciting to a 25-year-old.

Anyway, because the position was newly-created and my boss was basically the best boss I have ever had in my entire career I got to do whatever I wanted.

I was free to dream, create, build, implement, travel, and make things happen.

I was loving. life.

I honestly don’t know that I’ve ever had so much fun in any job since then.

Anyway.

So you can probably see where this is going.

Ex-boyfriend had said that one of the reasons he fell in love with me was my ambition, and then when my ambition resulted in an exciting promotion and a fantastic job that I was incredibly energized about, all of a sudden he didn’t like my ambition so much.

I’ll give him credit. He really did try to tolerate the travel and long hours, but it is what I believe ultimately led me to realize that we were not right for each other.

He wanted and needed something that I just couldn’t give him at the time.

I always felt torn and guilty – if I was working/traveling I knew he was unhappy – and when I was with him I felt guilty that I wasn’t working. And I know that for the last year we were together – and I was gone so much – even though he wouldn’t admit it – I know he wasn’t really happy.

He wanted me there all the time.

Home by 5:00 with dinner on the table.

Seriously.

Do I seem like the home-by-5:00-with-dinner-on-the-table-kind-of-girl to you??

Well, sometimes I am.

But not seven days a week.

I started thinking about all of this when I came across this blog post today on BitchBuzz about Why We Love Men Who Support Ambitious Women. “…while it’s not unusual to have the support of your pals and mom when you start up your business, in a relationship, a woman who is the workaholic and is staying up all hours on her Blackberry isn’t the social norm.

We’ve all grown up hearing the stories of men being intimidated by successful women. We’ve even seen it modern day TV with Berger and Carrie, and while that dynamic still exists, I would like to praise those men out there who are simply doing what they consider to be the right thing by supporting the woman in their life’s ambitions.

Men have a really bad reputation when it comes to dealing with fiery women.

And, unfortunately,  we’ve all probably dated people who don’t appreciate our wild dreams and big business ideas. We’ve had a husband who doesn’t think we should try to got back to school to get our masters at 38. A boyfriend who thinks you should be a Barista for the rest of your life instead of trying to write the next great American novel.

And then, when you find one of those fine, fine men who helps you fill out the application forms for the masters program or the brainstorm ideas for the title of your book – you realize how precious these creatures are.

Again, this isn’t about being dependent on a man. It’s about being supported in a relationship. If you know what it’s like to not have any support and given nothing but negative reasons for why you shouldn’t chase your dreams, you can appreciate how fantastic it that there are men out there who simply don’t do that.“

Click here to read the post in its entirety. <— Highly recommended.

So, my question for you is…are there really men out there who are truly supportive of their women in their chosen endeavors?

And I mean really, actually, truly, whole-heartedly, honest-to-God supportive. Not the ones who are all yeah I totally love it that you are so smart / ambitious / driven / successful and why isn’t my shirt ironed / dinner on the table / the house clean / the dog bathed / the laundry done.

I mean, I just told you that my dream job is to hang out with the love of my life in our PJs all day and earn enough money to support our rock star life by blogging.

And, while that may sound like a walk in the park…getting there is not.

Any blogger knows this.

So, I want to know. Does he exist?

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