Anonymous wrote:I bet when you're married and wondering if you can afford a nanny or need to work to pay for one, you'll appreciate his ambition. A lot of women don't realize how expensive kids are - especially if you're having them back-to-back over a 5-7 year period.

Sure, being married to a narcissist is fine as long as it allows you to afford a nanny while you have babies!

I aspire to the C-suite and am overwhelmingly ambitious, but I am a woman of color so my expectations and ease of experience have been continually tempered by the reality of external forces. I think for a white guy with that level of success and ambition, you can realistically expect that he will continue on an upward trajectory and you will always come second to his career.

I seriously dated an exec who might have been called a workaholic, and also came from prep school/the Ivy League (and was tall and had blue eyes): while I wouldn’t say he was narcissistic, he became so used to being in charge and running the show that the vulnerability and intimacy necessary for successful relationships did not come naturally to him. If we had stayed together, my career and ambitions would for sure have been secondary to his.