There's a phenomenon known as "the Oscars curse," and it doesn't refer to whatever befell Anne Hathaway and James Franco last Sunday night.
It's a reference to the fact that 63 percent of Best Actress Oscar winners have either divorced or ended serious relationships following their Oscar wins. The national divorce rate is about 50 percent.
So what's the correlation between a woman's professional success and her marital health?
It's easy to blame the men, right? A guy's wife starts getting promotions, making more money, winning awards. Maybe it's a shot to his ego. Maybe we're not past this point yet.
But maybe it's on her, too. Maybe she feels like he's not motivated enough, he can't keep up with her, he's not enough of a man. After all, we women want a man who will stay home with the kids and pay for dinner on Saturday night. And I'm not saying women are at fault, just that if we have to point fingers, they should go in both directions.
You know, to even try to say "women feel X" and "men feel Y" is a colossal breach of fairness. But the point here is to stir conversation, not to reach a politically correct conclusion.
Success, pointed out Dr. Raymond Brown, a couples therapist in Chattanooga, is only one ingredient of a relationship system, and while there's that old chestnut that men need to be needed and women need to be cherished, Brown said he feels like we all need something of everything there.
"It's important for each one to feel needed by the other," he said. "If a woman doesn't feel needed by her husband, she's not going to feel very connected to him ... If a lady becomes more successful, does that mean she needs her husband less, that he feels needed less? ... I think the strong relationship is one where we choose to need the other person."