I read the blog and decided to post a reply that is my opinion and nothing more. To start with I feel I have to explain what an expert is (and why so many of them are not worth a hill of beans). X is an unknown quantity. A spurt is a drip of water under pressure. So an expert is some unknown drip under pressure. Now that we have all finished laughing (come on I KNOW you had a small smirk) I would like to answer the questions posed.
I read the blog and the first thing I will comment on is the statement about marrying a career woman. The is a huge cultural difference between the US and the Ukraine. The myth is that here in the US many women seek positions of power and are not interested in having children. This is not true. It is more the fact that women get to a certain point in their career and they are forced to make a decision. Do I take a year off of my work to have a child and raise it, or do I go for the promotion and the corner office and all the perks and salary that it affords? Men do not have this problem. The sad truth is that many american businesses would not promote a woman who takes time off for having children. So many women work long hours and before they realize it they are past the age of having children. This leads to the problems associated with women and their unhappiness, too often (as it is with men who work too much) they look back on a life full of regrets and missed opportunities. An example is how many birthday's they missed of their children. How many school plays or sporting events of their children they missed. Or even something as simple yet as miraculous as the first words or their children's first step. Being successful does come at a high price.
As for men of success, they do not wish to have a wife in business and with the same ambition and goals. This is because the man would see her not as a woman but as a competitor for the same jobs. He would be always trying to one up her and would never let down his guard to her. Successful men usually have a trophy wife. A trophy wife is a status symbol for the man. It says to his peers that he has succeeded in making it to the top. His wife is sometimes young, very attractive and well bred. She is usually well educated and is there to look good. She spends a lot of money to look well and entertain well. Successful women do not have such a luxury. They do not get to have the young man at their side because they would be called some very ugly names by those around her. When she wants to be weak (everyone does at some point with someone) she can't because all the men she knows either are afraid of her or are her competitors. I know it is a double standard, but it is how society is. As for the successful woman, she has a hard time in a relationship. She is use to working long and hard and winds up with no one to share her success. And if perchance she finds someone it is often someone who wants to use her to climb in social status and not for true love. Society in the US has perpetuated the myth that the man is the bread winner. That without making all the money to support his family, that he has somehow failed.
Contrary to popular belief I can tell you that many men have a very fragile ego and it can be bruised and hurt easily. I have a story that my friend told me that will demonstrate what I have stated. My friend is a very successful woman. She went to the University of Toronto and then attended the Harvard Business school here in the US. She received her MBA (Masters of Business Administration) from Harvard. She owns an interior design company in Canada and in the US. She also does her own money investing. She married very well. And she divorced after a few years. She has a house in Canada and several here in the US. After her divorce she dated a man for a while. At first she did not let him know how successful she was. As they dated more and more he learned that she had a very good income and that is when HE started having troubles. When he had some financial troubles and could not pay to go out to dinner, she said that she would pay. He could not stand it. He felt like it was an insult to him that she was the person offering to pay for dinner. This led to more fights and confrontations over money. They broke up. After 2 years he came back and wanted to restart things. She said no because she could see eventually they would be back to fighting over money. I think the thing that I am trying to explain is that to have a good relationship it really doesn't matter who makes the most money as long as both the man and woman have an agreement over what is a path that they both want to follow. In other words, you both decide how to budget the income you have and make sure you both are happy with it. Or at least reach a compromise that both can live with.
I will agree with your assessment that many men view his identity and even his self worth through an external validation of how successful they are by the amount of money that they make. But here in lies the rub, is it more important to make a ton of money or to be happy? You can do both but in all practicality it isn't usually the case. It is more often the exception.
I would rather believe that it is not how much a man earns that makes him a man, rather it is the way he lives his life that demonstrates he is a man. I could be the man who makes the least amount of money in the world but as long as I live my life as a man should then I have no reason to hang my head in shame. Yes life may wear me down, but I can never be defeated. I will still have more dignity living and working hard, being honest, having principles, being responsible, courteous, kind, loving and supportive than any banker on Wallstreet will ever have. And if by chance my lady were to make more than me, all the better I say. In ending all I can say is that there is no such thing as a perfect relationship. It is that some relationships just seem that way because both partners decided that they deserve only the best in life and the most happiness and work to have it.