When success becomes a burden

Calvin Klein model, Jamie Dornan blames himself for the split between Hollywood actress Keira Knightly and himself. He admits that he couldn't take her fame and stardom well and felt "second rate."
Jamie is not the first man in this world to feel intimidated and insecure with his girlfriend or wife's success. However, he may be among the few who have accepted the fact that they are unable to shake off the age-old prejudices about gender roles.
While society and men may have come around to accepting a career oriented woman, they are still struggling with the idea of a woman doing better and earning more than her male partner. While on the face of it everyone seems progressive and supportive, yet the traditional notions about the man as the primary breadwinner and the woman as the homemaker or the secondary breadwinner refuse to die down.
This issue of professional competition between spouses was best showcased in India and probably for the first time, through the Jaya-Amitabh Bachchan starrer 'Abhimaan'. Amitabh is shown as withdrawing into a shell when he realises that his wife is doing better than him.
In a relationship, money brought with it authority, power, prestige and financial independence; privileges that men are used to enjoying and exercising. Thus even though the financial equation between men and women may have changed, men have been slow to accepting the change. They are not ready to give up their male privilege, entitlement and social power. Thus when women earn more, both partners are ambivalent about female power, not realizing that a relationship is not about power struggle.
When Kunti Devi, who was the president of Gulab Self-Help Group (SHG) in Jharkhand and mother of three children, was able to improve the condition of her community and actually get work done in their area, she was appreciated by all her female colleagues. Her husband however, could not accept the new-found role of his wife and started drinking out of frustration. It didn't help that the men in the community unhappy to see a woman taking charge, would constantly pester her husband. Rather than helping her, Kunti's husband in fact went ahead and spent the money she had saved for a small grocery shop.
"(Men) haven't been trained to share power," says Ronald Levant, Ed.D., a marriage and family therapist in Belmont, Massachusetts. So when they are faced with a successful spouse, instead of supporting and congratulating them, men start viewing them as opponents who need to be diminished. They manifest their own sense of inadequacy and insecurity by turning hostile, having affairs or in more subtle ways, like refusing to share household chores and child care responsibilities.
Any attempt to reassure them or placate them is taken badly as it is seen as a sign of pity and hurts their self esteem.
In India, while we do have examples of successful women who have been supported by their husbands in their career, most women however, like to downplay their own achievements when compared to their husbands.
So how are women supposed to handle men with such fragile egos? Do they leave their jobs or refuse promotion and salary hike just to keep them happy? Do they continue to shelter their partner from the reality and let them gloat in the false pride of being the more intelligent and superior being?
Women who do better than their husbands, instead of getting applauded, fear they'll lose the love of their husbands. Often when faced with such situations they have to not only confront rebellion and confusion from outside but also undergo a deep struggle within themselves.
Divya Sharma recounts how her friend, who was academically brilliant and professionally quite successful, would always strive to portray her average boyfriend later husband as the more intelligent of the two. If she did well in exams during college, she would attribute her success to his help, ignoring the fact that he himself hadn't done that well, reveals Divya.
Conditioned to believe that they have to play the second fiddle in a marital relationship, they worry how the new equation between their husbands and them will be viewed by all. Society is yet to fully accept the idea of women performing better than their husbands, though it is inching towards it. The men see themselves as losers in the eyes of the society and end up blaming their wives for it.
Taruna Reddy cites the example of her colleague and his wife. Both, she recounts, sat for a competitive exams and the lady scored much higher than her then fiancé. By rule, therefore she also gets quicker promotions and salary hikes. But this lady, Taurna says, is never seen to disobey her husband. Whether it is at home or in public, she never lets it show that she is senior to her husband and probably more intelligent than him and willingly plays the second fiddle.
A study by psychology researchers at the University of Michigan suggested that men think that women with more important jobs are likely to cheat on them. Dr. Stephanie Brown, the lead author of the study says that, "There are evolutionary pressures on males to take steps to minimize the risk of raising offspring that are not their own." And thus the reaction!
Apart from having to deal with such demeaning thoughts, women in such circumstances start feeling guilty for no crime committed. They then feel they should atone for it. As a result they start taking up a disproportionate share of domestic responsibilities, doing what sociologist Arlie Hochschild calls a, "second shift." They go to extreme lengths to downplay their salary and to reassure their husbands.
Desperate to please their husbands, these women readily accept the verbal abuse or the hostile behaviour of their husbands. Not wanting the relationship to break on account of their professional success, they, unlike the tough roles they play at work, bend backwards to accommodate their partner's demands.
Akaknsha Dev says, it's really sad how apologetic women are for their own success. Her own aunt, she reveals, who is a qualified doctor at par with her husband makes sure that her husband always feels like a king. She has internalized her secondary role to such an extent, that she proudly claims that her husband won't even drink a glass of water without her handing it over to him. So despite the fact that she returns tired and exhausted from work with her husband, she hands him a glass of water, while he relaxes. Though a professional success, she goes out of her way to make sure it never bruises her husband's ego.
But none of these are of much help if the men themselves don't change their attitude and welcome the redefinition of gender roles. They have to stop measuring themselves to the pay-packet they bring home. They have to see that they are valued by their wives or girlfriends for the person they are and not necessarily for their designation and salary?
However, this is not to say that women are always the angels and martyrs when it comes to these situations. They too, often take the failure of their partner to do better, badly. Once again working with a mind conditioned to believe that a husband should be more successful than his wife, they are unable to digest the fact that their husband is not good enough. They grow resentful of their husbands and start nagging and badgering them with taunts and insults.
This can be deadly for any relationship and is bound to end up in a bitter separation.
It is important that both partners don't see money and status as a means to wield more power. They have to understand the success of one is success for them as a couple. The increased inflow of money is going into their combined kitty, where it is going to be used for improving their life.
Both partners need to understand that they are contributing to a common pot in which they have an equal stake.