Deputy Chief Brenda Lee Johnson, a.k.a., The Closer, is in the running to become Police Chief in Los Angeles, the first woman to hold the position. The men in her life—her husband, FBI Agent Fritz Howard, and her former lover, Assistant Police Chief Will Pope, who is not on the department’s short list for the job—are not happy. Brenda, herself, is also uncomfortable with her possible promotion, even though she knows in her heart she is the best person for the job.
The Closer is fiction, a drama on TNT. Golden Globe winner Kyra Sedgwick won an Emmy August 29 for her portrayal of Brenda. Jon Tenney plays Fritz and J.K. Simmons plays Pope. Yet we wondered how many women find themselves in Brenda’s position, outdistancing the men in their lives careerwise, thus throwing their personal lives off balance. We asked Michal Tziyon, a licensed clinical social worker and psychotherapst, who writes for Woman Around Town, to answer our questions.
Are you seeing more couples in situations similar to the one Brenda and Fritz find themselves in?
Yes, certainly. One case immediately comes to mind: two doctors who met in med school when they trained together and completed similar areas of specialization. I am seeing the man in the couple, lets call him Ray. He came in for severe depression after almost a year in which his fiancée had a high paying prestigious job compared to his lower status—and lower paying—job. She was always more ambitious than he, more dedicated and idealist, while he was a little lost, less focused (this is an aspect of a bigger, underlying issue—his difficulty in identifying and embracing his own wants and desires). This ultimately manifested in their work lives. This torments him; his envy is, at times, unbearable. While he loves his fiancée, he wonders if he can stay in the relationship.
I see many women who out-earn their partners. In one case, Mike the teacher and Mary the film/TV producer, Mary is the higher earner. Their relationship is very loving and they are devoted to each other and their family life. Mike happens to take his share of the weight in childcare and housework. (I think more and more women and men recognize the need for equality in housework, and live by shared feminist values. The problem often becomes the standards/quality of the housework). Yet Mary struggles with her own fantasies of being taken care of, as her mother was, and coming to terms, over and over again, with accepting that this fantasy is not her chosen reality. She very much wanted a strong career, yet this ingrained social value of woman-dependent-at-home, is not something that went away, even with her strong drive and real world success.
This imbalance also affects women’s fantasies of their man’s masculinity. What makes a man sexy and appealing? Strength and power is often the answer, and money is often equated with these. Many women privately struggle with their experience of their partners’ “masculinity.” While we need to work on our ideas of what it means to be a woman, it also changes our ideas of what it means to be a man. Mary struggled with feelings of looking down on her husband, of experiencing him as weak and feeling embarrassed by him. She didn’t want to have these feelings but she did.
On the other hand, one day a girlfriend was over and my husband was doing the dishes. She said: “Ah, a man who does the dishes. What a turn on!”
Couples need to strive for a balanced experience of themselves and their partners, a balance of attributes that are typically considered feminine and masculine. Men and women both can be sexy and desirable when they are powerful and tender, nurturing and strong.
How does it happen that a woman ends up earning more than her husband? Is the recession causing some men to lose their jobs while women can still find employment? Or are women just becoming more aggressive and successful in the workplace?
Certainly the recession has an effect, many high powered, and/or typically masculine fields are suffering, from lawyers and finance to construction. Jack comes to mind: when he lost his job in finance, the status quo of his relationship was seriously disrupted. His wife, who has a stable job as a nurse, had a very hard time with his vulnerability and dependence on her. He has since returned to work, but this is an ongoing issue: he wishes he could be more vulnerable and open in their relationship.
But it’s a larger trend in society. Women enjoy the benefits of the social struggles of previous generations and almost take them for granted. We can ‘have it all,” and many of us won’t take any less than that. So, yes, we are more ambitious, we want a lot, and maybe it is the juxtaposition of the choices our mothers had compared to our choices that is a powerful drive.
How does it tip the balance at home? Are men willing to pitch in more or less?
This very much depends on the individual couple, their social/ethnic backgrounds and personal life histories. Many men are ideologically enlightened but when faced with the reality of equality in the home have a hard time with it. But so do women. Often women complain, but I find that many women have a hard time giving up their control and their standards of how a home should by run: what constitutes a proper dinner, for example, or what a clean bathroom actually looks like. There is compromise involved, a lot of letting go, of accepting our partners’ ways of doing things. There is a real process of communicating about it (as opposed to attacking the notion of pb&j sandwiches as a proper dinner), exploring possibilities for change, mutual learning and compromise, and finally accepting what each person brings to the table (i.e., maybe I should be the one cleaning the bathroom, because he’s really great at sitting with the kids for hours playing Legos. I don’t have the patience for that). This is a constant process.
Hmm. Sex is affected by many things, mostly by how open we are to our partners, how our lives together enable an ability to be playful and vulnerable with each other. This imbalance would affect sex to the degree that couples are able to find ways of managing their lives in which both parties are comfortable and appreciated in their roles
Who has a harder time with this situation, the woman who suddenly finds herself wearing the pants, or the man who no longer feels like the family breadwinner?
This depends on mutual appreciation and comfort level. And to reach this state of appreciation and comfort can take a lot of work. It can mean really challenging deep core beliefs and a sense of oneself. It can represent a true identity crisis for everyone involved, and challenge fundamental values and ideas about femininity and masculinity. It helps to think of a life together as a shared endeavor. Remember “behind every great man there is a great woman?” It may not be fair to think of our successes as women in a vacuum. Many men’s and women’s successes are supported by their partners. But maybe we don’t have to stand behind each other, but side by side.
How are the children affected?
Children are affected if there is conflict and parents struggle finding common ground. If the father feels emasculated, not so good. If the mother is a tyrant or feels overburdened or victimized by her role, not so good. It’s good for kids to see communication, cooperation and flexibility between parents.
Do women feel guilty when they outdistance their husband in earning power? Why? (In The Closer, Brenda is constantly apologizing to hr husband and boss, even telling her boss that she didn’t want the chief’s job and should just drop out. Why? He wouldn’t drop out if the situation were reversed).
How does Brenda feel about having power? Not just money, but status, position, authority. What are her fears? Many women have a hard time with power. Many of us have a hard time with aggression, not in the destructive or negative sense, but in the sense of being forceful, of harnessing our energy for creativity and industriousness in the real world. I think a lot of it is about getting comfortable with our own aggression.
It is also about our internalized sense of ourselves, and the defenses we set up to avoid difficult feelings. Is Brenda feeling guilty and self-deprecating because she doesn’t want to be furious at her husband for not being able to deal with her success? Is she defending against her fear of power?
Women often feel guilty when they are not home with their children as much, even if their husbands are supportive. This is the internal struggle between our constant process of inventing ourselves and the lives we want and those things we’ve internalized from our families and society. Those internalized parts are very much parts of us. Our job is to work out our internal struggles and listen to those parts of us we create and want to strengthen.
How do relatives, friends, and neighbors react? Is that hard for a couple to handle?
This depends on the social environment of the couple. Brenda is surrounded by a very masculine, macho institutional culture. Some men may envy the man who is relieved of the burden of the breadwinner role. I have spoken to many men who wish they had more choices about how to live their lives. And of course it depends on the couple’s comfort level. If someone cracks a chauvinistic or emasculating joke in a social environment where this is not accepted, the couple may be uncomfortable. But if they are beyond traditional roles it won’t be hard on the couple.
A study released recently found that when a woman out earns her husband, he is more likely to have an affair. True?
It isn’t the earning power that causes the affair, it is the various levels of what goes on between couples, how they manage their life together and how they stay connected that matters. Sometimes it is the woman who has the affair. The dissatisfaction is not just about the money. A female patient comes to mind, a lawyer. Early in their marriage her husband was the breadwinner, and then they agreed she would take a high-powered corporate job while he pursued a career as an artist. He achieved some success, but sank into depression and alcoholism while she felt utterly helpless, despite her six-digit income. She ended up having an affair, experimenting with whether she could find true intimacy with another man. The affair ended and she stayed married. She preferred the marriage to a divorce (they have a child) and figured out how to survive in the marriage. She was very emotionally dependent on him even though she was the breadwinner.
Can you give some tips for those in this situation?
Talk, talk, talk. Don’t attack each other. Get help with communicating if you need it. Recognize what you bring into the equation, your own internalized conflicts. Have your feelings. It takes real courage to challenge fundamental beliefs. It’s not easy.
Michal Tziyon is a licensed clinical social worker and psychotherapist in private practice. Her website is www.nypsychotherapy-mtziyon.com. E-mail her at michal.tziyon@gmail.com
