The Truth about Marriage/Chapter12
CHAPTER XII
PEOPLE WHO ARE MARRIED
But what if you are already married and find out that you and your partner do not look at life in the same way, do not think alike, do not like the same things, are not congenial?
It is a hard problem to know what to do, but it is not very easy when we have built a house to live in and find it is not just what we wanted to move out at once. When we undertake obligations in business we have to live up to them. We have to make the best of situations that arise in life.
Sometimes, in the case of not getting on with people about us, the fault lies in ourselves. We ought to examine ourselves very thoroughly to see if we cannot improve our relationships by making a few changes in our own ways of thinking and acting.
The trouble with many people who get married and are not happy is that they have expected the mere fact of being married to make them happy and have done nothing to bring about happiness.
The lover is very polite and kind to his sweetheart. The girl is all smiles and sweetness and loveliness before marriage. When people treat each other so beautifully before marriage it is easy to see why they get on well as long as they treat each other politely and thoughtfully and lovingly.
But when they are married and manifest an indifference to the other's comfort and welfare that cannot but estrange, it is natural to expect that they will not get on together.
In other words, married people have themselves largely to blame for their unhappiness. We can get on with almost anyone if we try hard enough. Of course, when one or the other has to make all the effort, it is not easy.
Most of us are very selfish. After marriage, when we have won the prize, our wife or husband, we think it does not make much difference how we act. Love stories used to be occupied with courtship only. They ended, as the fairy story ended, with the statement, "And they lived happily ever after."
But after marriage too often we throw off our good manners, our polite behavior, our kind ways, our thoughtfulness and consideration. We relapse into what we really are, very selfish people.
And it is hard to get on in marriage if people are selfish. In fact, they can get on only as fighting cats and dogs get on. The way that some men treat their wives is appalling. They are selfishness personified. They think only of their own comfort. They take no interest in the home and its problems. They will not even listen with sympathetic interest to the difficulties which the poor wife has experienced all day long. They would have done so before marriage, or pretended to do so at least. They claim that they are tired. They say they have troubles of their own.
Of course, they have, but usually the wife will listen with interest to the husband as he tells her his troubles. And very probably she will help him by sound suggestions.
The fact is that we are never to get over being human, kind, considerate, helpful. If people would remember the need to be loving in manner after marriage there would be greater happiness. Marriage is a mutual arrangement, an arrangement by which two people, a man and a woman, are to live together in the closest intimacy. They cannot do so if either is regardless of the other's comfort and welfare and happiness. The fire will go out. I do not expect people to like me if I treat them with indifference or discourtesy. Why should a husband expect to find a happy wife in a happy home if he acts with complete disregard of common courtesy?
And why should a wife expect her husband to come home with delight to her if she begins by nagging him and exasperating him, as some wives know how to do?
You have certainly seen in the movies, if not in life, the rough ways in which some husbands treat their wives. And you have also seen in other movies the shallow, vain, insipid things some wives are.
It is so easy to be critical in the home, to criticize the wife, the household, the way things are done or not done. And it is very easy for the wife sometimes to be indifferent to her husband's problems and worries.
It is so easy to say words that irritate and sting and leave a hurt feeling in the soul. It is hard when one has begun to be unkind and cruel to retrace one's steps and show a smiling face. One unkind word leads to another, to replies that hurt a little more than the original thrust. And then to a fight so that separation or divorce is threatened.
Now you will admit that if husbands and wives treated each other with the courtesies that they show to friends and even acquaintances there would be far greater happiness in the home and many more happy marriages.
Suppose you have made a mistake. Why not make the best of it? You may selfishly say, Why should I suffer?
Well, suppose you had the responsibility of taking care of a father or a mother who was a trial, you would probably not think of getting a divorce from either one. You would try to make the best of it. You would say they were your flesh and blood and you had a duty to perform towards them and you would do your best. Many people have such trials to bear.
And then sometimes people have children, boys or girls, that are trials. One does not usually throw one's children out into the streets as if they were refuse if they do not come up to the mark of their best behavior.
Marriage is really a more intimate relationship than any I have mentioned. And one in marriage should try to be courteous and considerate and helpful and do one's very best to get on happily.
The rule is that when one begins to be disagreeable the other should keep silent. It takes two to make a quarrel. It is a hard rule to practice, but it pays.
Marriage is the most fundamental thing of life. It ought to be the happiest. We are certainly responsible if we fail to do all in our power to make it happy.
It means that many things will have to be overlooked, disagreeable personal habits and characteristics, and sometimes ways of thinking and acting that are offensive; but the result will pay.
None of us is an angel yet. We may be on the way to becoming angels by and by. When we are ready we shall no doubt be taken to heaven. Here on earth we are only in the process, at the very best, of becoming ideal beings. But let us help each other in every way we can.
The biggest joy of life is in helping other people to realize the best within them. Think what a fine opportunity marriage affords to help your life partner to become ideal!
It is said that the lack of money, and the pinch of hard times, have more to do with creating friction in the home than anything else.
Of course, it is trying to all of us to have to forego the many pleasures of life which money would give us. It is hard for the wife not to be able to dress as her neighbors and friends dress. It is hard to have collectors at the door or ringing the telephone and asking when you are going to be able to pay that bill. It is hard not to have comforts, and to be compelled to submit to so many discomforts in life, but if it makes us grouchy, we multiply our troubles. Yet it does make people grouchy and touchy and on edge, and often it leads to domestic trouble.
But on the other hand well-to-do people are not happier than those who are undergoing financial hardships, and quite as many rich people get divorced as poor people.
And oftentimes the troubles that people go through together unite them more than anything else.
After all the situation resolves itself into personal character and consideration of others. If the husband and wife are patient with each other, treat each other courteously and lovingly, it is possible to get on with money or even with very little.