Does Marriage Cost Woman Her Vocation?

To be held by a master outside oneself is to not hold self-mastery.

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Many a marriage is fraught with the tension of displaced ambition brewing in a woman who has yet to claim the passion wanting to drive her. Heterosexual couples come to me for help and ninety-nine percent of the time the work is located in her, not him.

Sister to three siblings, I have two brothers and one sister. Being the eldest, I’ve always felt a duty of care toward them as children and as adults. But the girl in me often felt selfish in her desire to have a room of her own, some time to herself, and space all alone. I still feel badly for insisting my brother ride the bus one morning when I was allowed to drive our family car to school — I didn’t want him in the car with me! I don’t think I will ever truly forgive the girl in me for that decision. But I can also understand now that to have the car and the license to drive on a road all alone in newly discovered autonomy was a sublime moment in that girl’s life. It just came at a cost. I often wonder if my brother remembers this the way I do, especially in light of the fact that when he got his pilot’s license he was happy to fly me to the sky for the first time! Why wasn’t I so generous with him?