When it comes to wearing the pants in the relationship, things aren’t so simple anymore. We aren’t all destined to be housewives and mothers to 2.4 children. We don’t have to have dinner and a back rub waiting for him the second he gets home and then stare adoringly into his eyes as he tells us about his day. We don’t have to bake cookies twice a week, serve on the PTA and keep our houses so immaculate you could eat off every gleaming surface.
We don’t have to be that woman—but we can if we want to be.
We can also be that total Type A woman who doesn’t take shit from anyone, especially him. While we’re out taking cracks at the glass ceiling, he’s the one waiting at home, for us. He’s asking to hear about our day, how we did at work, making us food and giving us our well deserved back rub. So that clearly means we’re wearing the pants in the relationship, right?
Gray is Beautiful
But the world, luckily for us, comes in more than just black and white. It comes in beautiful, multiple shades of gray and doesn’t demand we be a certain way. It simply demands we be ourselves, and find a zone in which we’re comfortable in.
As women with goals, I think it’s difficult for us to enter into a relationship and know what role to play. Because, as a woman we’re expected to click into one—effortlessly of course.
I’ll admit most men couldn’t handle me. I’m independent, brazen and outspoken. I go after what I want no matter what anyone else has to say about it. I garner a lot of attention from the male population, so much that his friends even love me. I’m passionate about my dreams and hardly take a rest from the ongoing battle of attempting to achieve them. There’s zero balance, rhyme or reason when it comes to my personal vs. professional life.
Dynamite comes in small packages and at 5’3, I’d say that’s pretty accurate.
Wearing The Pants In The Relationship: The Passing Of The Pants
At the end of the day, when I hang up my cape, shield and sword—I just want him to take over. I’m tired. I’ve fought the business battle, hammered at the glass in the ceiling, worn my serious shade of lipstick and spouted off the expert verbiage it takes to win.
He needs to kill the spiders. He needs to take out the trash. He needs to decide where we go to dinner because since I do it all day, I’m sick of making decisions (but let’s not get crazy, he knows which ones he needs to run by me.) He drives when we go places and he pays for dinner. He even opens doors. No, it doesn’t offend me when he opens doors; I actually showed him it was important to do.
Before we met I thought what I needed was to be a part of a power couple. I envisioned us both having these super important corporate-y, entrepreneur-ish type jobs and having iPhone/Blackberry battles at dinner. I pictured him whisking off to NYC while I zipped off to Chicago. I thought we’d spend more time G+ chatting than face-to-face chatting. I thought, I thought, I thought…but what the fuck did I know?
I had no idea my perfect man works with his hands and would rather do crunches than crunch numbers. He clocks out and when he’s home, he’s home, whereas I never clock out. I’m 100mph and he’s a Sunday morning brunch with a close friend, and yet somehow, it works.
I may be a career woman, but I’m still a woman, and I want to be treated as such. I know that I’m special and not only do I want to feel special; I want my man to feel like a man. Just because I can take care of myself doesn’t mean I can’t allow him to take care of me at times. I don’t think I necessarily wear the pants, I think we share the pants.
Somehow I was able to find that niche in my relationship where I can feel both powerful and taken care of. He lets me be me, I let him be who he is and we’re both better for it.
Who is wearing the pants in your relationship? How do you achieve your balance? Do you share the pants?
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