Outside "owing to no one..."

Consider the individual who really doesn't have anything/anyone else that matters more than the immediate choice. They are intelligent, creative, resourceful, physically fit and agile, good looking, and (of course) confident (nearly to the point of arrogance). They are certain that there is no situation, in "normal" life that they would be unable to cope with effectively. When I say "normal" I am excluding war, kidnapping, assault, and the like which I would call "extraordinary"... they have, however, reasonably handled marriage which I would probably add to the "extraordinary" column. "Reasonably" because they have married someone who is their clone (of the opposite gender) so the marriage is actually an arrangement of interactive independence because they don't really "need" anything from each other in order to have their lives work. Sex is convenient, and safe ("safe" is real important in this scenario), but could be had without the marriage, and intimacy could be had in a superficial (and therefore less "messy") relationship or series of relationships so "sex" and "intimacy" aren't needed from the marriage. Are you getting the characterization here? Maybe this is what is meant by "metrosexual"... I don't have a personal experience or "picture" of what that word means. Anyway...

Suddenly, BOOM, pregnancy occurs. It isn't accidental (although you might suspect so from the characterizations above) but it there is all of the standard stupidity regarding the implications and magnitude that pregnancy involves for all rational people who leap into that cauldron. ("Pregnancy" would also be a word, with "marriage", that I would put into the "extraordinary" column with the word "war", being a survivor of all three.) There is few more insidious conditions than "pregnancy" (likewise "war" and "marriage") in terms of never being able to be prepared for the totality of the experience in terms of wear and tear on the physical, mental, and emotional states of the inflicted and those intimately linked with said inflicted; full-out and unlimited nuclear, biological, and chemical warfare... So into this "valley of the shadow of..." walks these two married metrosexuals...

Now uprooting (read "running") is not possible for the inflicted or the husband (we'll call him the "inflicter") without tremendous collateral consequences. Because the pregnancy was elected there is not going to be an abortion so there is no running for the inflicted. Because "competent" and "together" are important character descriptors of the inflicter and because he love her, there is no running for him. So the die is cast: dig in and endure for the next nine months. But what an ordeal - chemical and emotional changes occur that ravage the inflicted and run-ragged the inflicter. A deepening of the relationship occurs because it is truly these two against the unknown and uncontrollable situation and developing circumstances and dependency results from "need" rather than "choice". The inflicted is physically, at times, unable to take care of herself and the inflicter finds himself drawn, albeit voluntarily and willingly, into the role of defender and protector. The relationship grows together mightily and the inflicted grows more dependent and the inflicter begins to feel the insecurities of self-questioning "Am I enough for two over the long haul?"

Suddenly, BOOM, the baby is born. Both inflicted and inflicter are now number two and three, respectively, in this (now) "family" not in terms of relative, animal-world, terms of survival, but in terms of "need" and "vulnerability". Baby is totally defenseless and dependent upon mom for food to stay alive. Mom is tied to the baby in terms of choices of activity, sleep, and physio-chemical balance. Dad gets to provide for total security in all of the physical realities as well as be the counter-balance and leveler of all the emotional hysterics that surround a hijacking of a metrosexual one-on-one marriage. Dad also begins to have nigglings of "How am I going to teach the baby, raise the baby, protect the baby..." and on and on and on. Everything comes up for review; career, lifestyle, religion, politics, heritage, genetics...

Isn't it great that there are people these folks can turn to and find support in sorting things out?