that would have exhausted Elsa Maxwell. His wife was essentially rather shy and withdrawn and of course resented this enforced and artificial approach to her real needs.
Women rightly consider these kinds of gestures a mockery, an expression of a latent hostility toward them rather than as an expression of love. Of course women love luxury, going out, gifts—but only when they express a sensitive awareness on the part of the giver. A rule of thumb that works is to do what one feels but to refrain firmly from doing what one doesn't feel. Somebody once said that the proper mixture for the real lover is 80 per cent male aggression and 20 per cent feminine sensitivity. The formula has much to recommend it.
One important thing that husbands and wives must learn to do is to share their deeper thoughts, problems, and feelings with one another. Over the years the general withdrawal of both partners has made communication of any kind most superficial, and hope of any important contact through conversation has been abandoned almost entirely. When the wife has finally told her husband of her determination to attack her problem frontally, the couple now have a new opportunity for establishing deep lines of communication. If the husband can seize on this new chance, divest himself of his lonely and habitual reticence, he can help his wife and their entire relationship immeasurably.
Everything may be discussed in such conversations, although one should avoid any recrimination or "confessions" that would hurt the other. Conversation about one's emotional or reality difficulties, about one's loneliness, plans, successes, fears, and hopes, are deeply moving to a woman. If a man can learn to share his real inner life with his wife it will help her to realize once more the importance of the woman's role, make her know that she has her husband's confidence in those things that are of real importance to him.
