Our house has had a fresh lick of paint and the charity shop has benefited from a major decluttering session.Best of all, my relationship with my son has improved no end We are simply more at ease with each other. Most of them never got eaten.I keep weekends free of household chores so that we can go on outings as a family Now my husband gets a lie-in on Saturdays I spend one day a week visiting my elderly parents. When I worked all day, some repressed mothering instinct had me filling the late-night supermarket trolley with extra jars and tins of food, just in case. Only one of them had the nerve to say why: "You look 10 years younger." Bedtime is no longer 10.30pm. I've seen more films, plays and exhibitions and read more books in the last six months than in the last six years.I'm still having problems pronouncing "dinner party", but at least I've started cooking proper meals again and stopped shopping for World War III. My husband's new job would be very demanding, but at least we wouldn't both be in the same boat We could even afford to keep our nanny on part-time. Smug? No, I know how lucky I am."How does it feel not to work at all, what do you do all day?", people ask, mostly of the workaholic variety.

"How does it feel to be on Planet Tharg totally naked apart from a pair of rubber underpants on your head?" would be a less alien concept, judging by the look on their faces.In many ways it feels great Most of my former colleagues don't recognise me. My husband's Herculean efforts in front of the computer means that he is now well-paid enough to support all of us. I managed to negotiate a generous settlement from my employer. Not that it really mattered, "dinner party" was not part of my vocabulary.When the chance came to stop, I leapt at it Two things made it possible. "Shabby" was how one of my best friends described our house, and she was being tactful No wonder; it was suffering from total neglect. Like many other employees in the Nineties, in no matter what profession, my company was going through endless cutbacks and restructuring. My husband had given up his job to study for an MBA full time and spent more hours glued to the computer screen than I did, Sundays included.

I saw my son for about an hour a day during the week.Unless I was able to sleep in on Saturdays and excused any form of human contact until lunchtime, I would spend the weekend in a fug of tiredness until about 10pm on Sunday when I'd finally perk up, just in time for bed at 10.30pm.Sometimes I felt dizzy at work and had tingling pains in my arms The GP said I was hyperventilating I had two miscarriages in two years. I am typical of my generation in that I put off having children until my biological clock said 11.55pm. I may have got it all later than most but by the time I was 44, this summer, I definitely had it all: career, husband, child, house, dishwasher, the lot.So what went wrong? It wasn't just the 10-hour working days - that's the norm for plenty of us. Reader, these words are written by a woman who made her own marzipan this Christmas. Before I explain how it feels, let me explain why. I have been following the latest developments with particular interest, because I recently traded my full-time, highly paid executive job for full-time housewifery and motherhood. Or, as a sociologist might put it: "Gender, family and the workplace in a post-feminist era: discuss." Now Madonna has fanned the flames with her decision to stop working and spend more time with her daughter, hot on the heels of Suzanne Franks and her new book, Having None of It: Men, Women and the Future of Work.

Hardly a day goes by without fresh sparks flying in the debate about whose turn it is to get a seat on the board/put the rubbish out/tidy up the Duplo. Should I insist on hanging on, or should I go?Yours sincerely, BrianAnyone who has advice quoted will be sent a bouquet from. Send letters and dilemmas to Virginia Ironside, `The Independent', 1 Canada Square, Canary Wharf, London E14 5DL, fax 0171-293 2182, or e-mail dilemmas independ ent.co.uk - giving a postal address for the bouquet.. I worry that once we part we'll never get back together again. It's up to him.B FOWLERNEXT WEEK'S DILEMMADear Virginia,My girlfriend and I have been living together for three years and things haven't really been going right, despite lots of talking Now she wants a trial separation. You may want a good life for your son, but if he chooses not to accept your gifts you can't force him to.

I value my achievements because I have earned them, rather than had them bestowed upon me.Forcing me to leave home was the best thing my grandparents ever did for me. Now I am about to get my degree, and have a place on a graduate trainee programme. I believe this was because I suffered from cataclysmically low self-esteem But the reason was that I never did anything constructive. Anyway, I was finally asked to leave their home, and drifted into a series of low-paying clerical jobs, until finally I got my act together and went back to school.