Ambition and Relationships

You're a guy. Do you want a career woman or do you want a stay-at-home mom?

You're a woman. Do you want to be a stay-at-home mom, or do you want to be a career woman?

There's the third choice, a woman who combines motherhood with a career, and that's perhaps the hardest combination of all, and the one that takes a lot of help from her spouse or significant other or what have you.

(I'm not slighting stay-at-home dads, but they're still pretty much of a minority in today's day and age.)

Anyway, it's never too early to let a potential mate know what you want out of life. Some women want, or already have a career, that they don't want to give up, even if they make a commitment to or get married to a guy who has a pretty good career of his own.

Who sacrifices his career to help the other, if one's job involves being sent from city to city every few years? I'm thinking of military people, but there are other careers where that kind of mobility applies.

Many people can flourish in a long-distance relationship, where they each work on opposite sides of the state or even the country, and come together only a week or so every month, for example. Lots more relationships would be seriously jeopardized by this.

So when is the appropriate time to let the other person know about your hopes, dreams and ambitions and how utterly serious you hold them? I'd say from date #1. Or even the profile you fill out for your online dating service, such as FindTrueLove.com.

It's all a matter of honesty, and getting the most out of your life. If your ambition is to be a career woman, and you have to sacrifice it because your husband travels all the time and makes it impossible for you to pursue what you want... perhaps he isn't the husband for you.

And again, if you're a husband who expects his wife to work, and she is adamant about being a stay-at-home mom, perhaps she isn't the wife for you.

It's a cliche that once a woman marries a man, she will set out to "change" and "improve" him. Men also expect to change and improve the woman they marry, as well - depending on how much the wife is needed to advance his own career.

So again, honesty form the beginning, about one's hopes, dreams and aspirations, is essential.