I'm very surprised you feel that way. It's actually the other way around in my experience. I personally am and know many 30 something couples where one partner has a steady mid to high income job and the other partner is going for a moonshot starting up. It you can afford to support your partner taking a shot like that, why wouldn't you?

But this is about marriages or similar commitment, not "before being broken up with", and also not "unconditional", you need to think it's good for your partner too.

By the way, he had more support - started the game in 2011, published it to greenlight on Sep 2012, got a publisher in 2013... (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stardew_Valley#Development)

2. Great book and I can wholeheartedly recommend it; on one hand it's stories on video game industry and its characters - on the other hand it's a primer on complex project management as well.

Money is probably a prerequisite to being able to do that at all, but it’s not the entire deal.

Concerning the financial side of this, I think "must have" is a bit of an overstatement. A family with one or more children is often supported by a single income (and, from my recollection of reading "Blood, Sweat and Pixels", I don't think it mentions them having children, though I could be wrong).

Not at all trying to diminish what she did, however!

"Eric’s duties as partner had slipped drastically behind his personal ambition to perfect the game. He guiltily recognizes Amber felt lonelier and lonelier as he pushed on, but he did little to address it—he still worked 12 hours a day on the game, often going straight from his desk to the theater for an evening shift."

This is an entirely different level than a stay at home spouse. The article mentions he worked part time during this period, and that his girlfriend is currently attending college. So this is not a situation of a sole income earner, but rather a man so obsessively dedicated to a project that it consumed nearly all aspects of his life.

You will support your spouse directly via alimony, usually for a period half the length of your marriage, but if you were married 10 years or longer, this does not apply and there may be no set end to alimony. Mine was $1800 per month for 4 years.

I have 40% shared custody of my kids (they actually spend more non-school hours with me, but I digress) and still have to pay $1700 per month in child support, because (at least in CA) you are required to maintain the same standard of living as the children had during the marriage.

It may not be about income and finances during the marriage, but if it goes wrong, and you are the one that has been providing the support, prepare to swallow some very bitter pills.

> four-and-a-half-year journey from a college graduate being supported by his girlfriend to a sudden multi-millionaire

Yeah. Just like the real victims of war are women and children. /s

forgive me, but gender norms have changed even in eastern europe. Is america that left behind?

Labor force participation rate for women, by country:

US 56%, Lithuania 56%, Estonia 56%, Germany 55%, Finland 55%, Latvia 55%, Austria 55%, Portugal 53%, Ireland 53%, Spain 52%, Luxembourg 52%, Slovenia 52%, Czech 52%, Slovakia 52%, Armenia 51%, France 51%, Hungary 48%, Bulgaria 48%, Belgium 48%, Albania 47%, Ukraine 47%, Serbia 46%, Greece 46%, Croatia 45%, Romania 44%, Macedonia 42%, Italy 40%, Moldova 39%, Bosnia 35%, Turkey 32%

Iceland 73%, Norway 61%, Sweden 61%, Denmark 59%, Netherlands 58%, Belarus 58%, Russia 57%, United Kingdom 57%

http://hdr.undp.org/en/content/labour-force-participation-ra...

In most developed countries the rate is slowly but surely reaching equal levels.