Returning to work after maternity leave isn't working out

Q. I am really struggling with going back to work after having my child. I am a university professor and took one year of maternity leave. Upon returning, I discovered I am really a stay-at-home mom stuck in a career woman's body. The first semester back was what I call the worst four months of my life. Full-on severe depressive symptoms.

Christmas break, counseling, and rejuggling courses and workload (and some unpaid leave on the horizon) have helped somewhat. But these are just temporary fixes, and every day I hate this bizarre (to me) game of leaving my child to be raised by others.

Complicating matters is that I am starting to feel my husband doesn't like the new me and just wishes I would be practical and do what's needed to get through the day. He is also nervous about my upcoming unpaid leave, which is my lifeline right now!

How can I just embrace working motherhood and day care and be the competent, juggling working mom my husband wants me to be, and that everyone else seems to be able to pull off?

Struggling

A. There is no "everyone else."

Isn't the beating heart of every social movement the demand to be treated as an individual, instead of locked into someone else's idea of who you are and how you should be treated based solely on the group you're identified with?

Forcing yourself out of the house because you're a "career woman" is, by that measure, just as perverse as it was for women to be limited to menial jobs just for being female or designated homemakers just for having husbands or kids.

If you need the money or benefits or job security or career traction, then that's a different story. But that's a story you and your husband can also revisit based on the new information your feelings have given you. Finances, standard of living and ambitions aren't fixed quantities, so you can adjust them as it makes sense to.

As for your husband, "I am starting to feel" where he stands is not the same thing as knowing where he stands.

So the sensible thing to embrace isn't one institution or another, but instead the genuine wants and needs of the genuine members of your family: you, spouse, child. Discuss it, own it, reconcile it, figure it out.

And, also know that now is really just for now, however you structure it; life with babies changes almost as fast as they do.

Q. I live alone in my house and we're planning for my amazing girlfriend to move in with me in a few months.

I have some serious worries though. She works from home, and there is an extra bedroom for that, but I love time alone at home. I'm a serious introvert, and I really need time alone at home.

I work outside the home, and when she moves in, I will literally never get time alone at home. I'm dreading this. Is there a way to fix it?

To Live Together or Not?

A. "Amazing" is of little value unless she's amazing for you.

What better way and time to learn whether she is than to say to her now what you fear, want, need? Exactly. No minced words. Good luck.

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