I’ve encountered a lot of couples where one person has left his or her job to support the career of the other.  Typically, one spouse is an accomplished entrepreneur, so the other pitches in to help grow the business – often in a subordinate role.

I’m wondering how many of you would do this if you had the chance.  It would never work for my husband and me.  We are both equally driven to succeed in our respective careers (he’s a tenure-track psychology professor at the University of Illinois and I’m well, you know), and in fact this mutual ambition was what initially attracted us to one another eleven years ago. Since we graduated from college, we’ve been perfectly happy to keep our personal and professional lives separate.  Stew didn’t fully understand what I did in my PR job until I was a VP, and I was lucky if I could rattle off a thirty-second elevator pitch describing his research.

Even if god forbid one of us felt unfulfilled, I think we would probably kill each other spending all day every day together, and having 100 percent of our lives intertwined.  I feel like I am able to appreciate him more because of the independence our dual careers allow, and I admire him because of the success he’s achieved in his own right.  Although, I do have to admit we’re a good team, just recently collaborating on one major project – the birth and care of our four month-old!