Alright, stupid redneck analogy:
In those old “spaghetti western” movies when the band of hostiles is coming over the hill to burn the cabin and otherwise spread carnage, the women in the scenes generally fall into two categories:
1) There is the dainty flower who’s only contribution is to cower in the corner and scream leaving her husband to single highhandedly fight off the entire hoard armed only with his trusty Henry rifle.
2) The woman who reloads the guys rifle for him.
I am very blessed with a woman who will not only reload for me, if she happened to be the one by the window at the time she would have no hesitation in grabbing the rifle and I would have no problem taking the role of ammo guy.
Have I ever questioned how she would react if the chips were down. Alas, yes. It happened the first time I became unexpectedly self-employed (read had my job outsourced to a guy half way around the world who’s name had more syllables than we have characters in our alphabet)
I was, as one might expect, deeply concerned about my ability to continue supporting my family and about her feelings towards me when the safety net dried up. I was bemoaning those concerns (I’m sure for the gabillionth time) when she finally had enough and absolutely let me have it. The summarized version of what she said:
… How can you possibly believe that money is the reason I stick around. You certainly didn’t have any when I married you and if you think I am going to up and leave because of a minor bump in the road you aren’t as smart as I thought you were…
It was both one of the most humbling and enriching moments of my life.