The dilemma At 34, I’ve paid off my mortgage and have a couple of years’ salary in savings. I’ve recently been promoted, but am working very long hours, don’t have much time in the evenings and spend my weekends worrying about the work. I’m not sleeping well and partly due to Crohn’s disease have lost weight. I earn £46k, which is far more than I ever expected (or feel I deserve) to earn. My girlfriend of almost a year is 33 and the love of my life, and I hope we will have a baby in around three years’ time. I’ve been offered a public sector job with a wonderful work-life balance but reduced salary (£36k) and had decided to take this and spend the next three or so years doing all the things I/we want to before having children, as well as improving my health. During a conversation about this potential change, my girlfriend told me that she earns £45k. I am not in the slightest bit chauvinistic about earning more than her, but need to feel that the choice I’m making is not selfish. I worry about not contributing enough and riding on her coattails. Changing to a lower-paying job might suggest I am lacking ambition and also have a negative impact on our relationship.

Mariella replies How timely. You’ve offered up a refreshing view of the equal pay discussion by articulating the psychological side-effects and other potential impacts on the male psyche. There’s no point throwing our hands in the air and saying, “Who cares about men?” With all the gender-related issues of the past tumultuous 12 months, we really need to work together or it will all just have been noise. No social revolution has achieved its goals without the participation of both sexes. What makes men feel uncomfortable is entirely relevant; unaddressed, our relationships suffer and friction enters all our lives. I don’t blame all men for historical and continuing inequity between the sexes. Instead I’m increasingly convinced that to make the world a more equal place we really need to haul our mates from the opposite sex on to the bandwagon. That means listening as well as talking.

With the debate continuing to rage about equal pay for equal work, it’s interesting to receive this glimpse from the male side of the story. Not a missive from one of the self-proclaimed masters of the universe who deem themselves worth the extra bucks because they have different genitalia, but from a seemingly decent, well-meaning and emancipated man. You’ve certainly got it all mapped out, and impressively so. Paying off your mortgage by the age of 34 is for many an elusive goal and I daresay it involved personal sacrifices. Yet happily here you are only a decade into real adulthood having bought yourself the opportunity to make choices. There is nothing that reaps greater dividends. Your financial management has also brought the possibility of bringing children into the world with the security of a roof over their heads. What a fantastic place in which to start your life together. Yet despite all this blue sky thinking it took just a £1k differential to crush your dreams.

I can’t believe it’s the case, but you almost sound disappointed about your girlfriend’s healthy salary, as though it’s forced you to reconsider your life’s plans. How is it that we can we have both feet on the ground in this modern world and still act as though we’re floating in an entirely different universe? The only difference between you two is your sex, so why would it not to be possible to sustain a relationship where she was the bigger wage earner? The alternative is to admit that because you are male you need to occupy that territory or fail.

What we think and what we say about pay can seem far apart

Yet I do have some understanding of your fears. Women want equal pay, but they also sometimes want (and thanks to biology sometimes need) a man to take a leading fiscal role in their lives. Like sex, it’s an issue where what we think and what we feel can be far apart. You feel uncomfortable about taking on what you see as a less Alpha role because your sense of your masculinity has been built on it, and you suspect your girlfriend’s attraction to you may be influenced by it.

We can’t instantly wipe the residue of millennia of dependence on one sex by the other out of the human psyche just because we’ve called time on it. Wages need to be equalised and immediately so, but we have to be prepared to talk about how that alteration affects the way we interact with and attract each other. It’s so often in the overlooked corners of life that the real truth is to be found. That is certainly the case here with the small, honest voice you’ve brought into the conversation.

Truth is I don’t know if your girlfriend will find you less attractive if you’re down £9k a year. If she does, she may not be the woman for you. Financial stability in an equal world is an equal responsibility and for the many millions out there whose instincts don’t quite match their polemic, on both sides of the argument, it’s the perfect time to sit down and have a long, hard think.

A frank and honest discussion about the roles we now play, the challenges of our individual biology and how we deal with centuries of conditioning without fear of censure or the deafening chorus of online trolls, seems long overdue. Your house seems as good a place as any to kick it off! Good luck.

If you have a dilemma, send a brief email to mariella.frostrup@observer.co.uk. Follow her on Twitter @mariellaf1