From The Wife Desired, Fr. Leo Kinsella

Webster’s Dictionary has this to say about patience. Patience is “uncomplaining endurance of wrongs or misfortunes.” Patience “denotes self-possession, especially under suffering or provocation.” It also suggests “quiet waiting for what is expected” or persistence in what has been begun. Forbearance, leniency, and sufferance are given as synonyms.

Patience is a quality of maturity. Little children are not noted for “uncomplaining endurance of wrongs.” Mother would begin looking for the thermometer should she notice anything resembling “quiet waiting for what is expected.” It takes a bit of living and dodging of the “slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,” before people get enough sense to value patience.

Patience connotes a “self-possession, especially under suffering or provocation,” and it brings to one a quiet confidence. The patient wife is master of her own soul. She, and not every imp to come flying into her mind, is in charge of her own fort.

Since no one can be truly successful without patience, it should be expected that the possession of the virtue is a requisite for every desired wife.

Indeed, no vocation or profession in life requires patience more than that of husband and wife.

The first reason for this that they live in such proximity to each other. They rub elbows day in and day out. There is bound to be a little chafing here and there. Among saints there would be. Patience is the soothing oil preventing the irritations from becoming running sores.

Some years ago I was faced with the necessity of working up a talk on the ideal wife. Naturally, I was open for suggestions, particularly from a few ideal wives whose friendship I highly prize.

One evening, as I visited the home of one of these friends, I mentioned the task with which I was confronted.

“Mary, if you had to give an hour talk on the ideal wife to high school seniors or to a woman’s club, what would you discuss?”

Here was the voice of experience talking. I was not asking any air scout how to fly that Constellation. The senior pilot of the airlines was briefing me now. I was not asking any camp fire girl how to whip up that batter of soda biscuit mix. Grandma herself was looking over her glasses at me.

I think that it is of interest to point out here that, although she did not indicate that she considered patience the most important quality of the desired wife, she unhesitatingly suggested it first.

Not only did she mention patience first, but she also explained what she meant by patience in the wife.

Notice that the discussion deals with the patience required of the wife, not of the mother in her relations with her children.

A woman is first the wife of her husband before she is the mother of his children. Later I hope to say a few words concerning the twofold role which the woman must play.

At present I just want to make it clear that Mary is no rattle brain. She was on the ball and stayed there. She was explaining what she meant by the patience in the wife and her dealings with her husband.

Marriage is not a fifty-fifty proposition. (This of course, is Mary talking through my memory.) The wife who enters marriage with the misconception that it is, has failure lurking just around the corner. Often she will think that she is giving her fifty per cent. As a matter of fact, it is only fifteen or twenty per cent. On many other occasions the husband unconsciously is demanding ninety per cent. The fifty per cent proffered falls miserably short. The result is two people at loggerheads. A fight begins and love takes a beating, if it is not turned out-of-doors.

The understanding, the sympathy, and the patience required for happy living cannot be measured out. The stupid expression “marriage is a fifty-fifty deal” implies yardsticks, tape measures, half cups, full tablespoons, and the like.

Love has nothing to do with these things–will not be fenced in by them, for love partakes of the very limitlessness of God.

A wife’s parsimonious measuring out of her imagined fifty per cent produces many serious fights.

She wins these fights too and loses her husband.

Let us illustrate the above by concrete examples.

The wife was getting supper ready. John was fighting the traffic on his way home from work. She was humming softly as she busied herself contentedly about the kitchen. He was muttering loudly the red light blues. She felt fine. He was half sick and out of sorts. Things had not been going well at work. He was upset and unwittingly looking for a fight.

As he entered the house and gave Mary a little hug and kiss, she noticed that he looked tense and jumpy. A few minutes later she could hear him scolding one of the children. The storm warnings should have been flying by now. They had better steer clear of him tonight.

Before the family was called to the supper table, Mary had been fully on guard. Unless she was very mistaken her husband was going to demand much more than fifty per cent somewhere along the evening. So the measuring devices, the half cups and full tablespoons were behind her for this evening.

The meal was already prepared. She would not use them on her husband. She would not measure out her patience and understanding. Her husband was definitely off color this evening. She would give him her all. No matter what he said, she would pass it off.

The supper got off to as good a start as could have been expected with the cloud hanging over the table. Soon one of the children massacred table etiquette in such manner as to cause Emily Post to wince.

Before her husband could draw in sufficient breath to let out a blast at the culprit, she quickly took the wind out of his sail by firmly correcting the child. Before the dessert appeared, she took in her stride a caustic remark about the quality of the pot roast and a criticism leveled at her through one of her children.

Mary was nobody’s dish rag. She had a lot of fire and spirit. She could have stood up to him that night, “let him have it,” and have had a fight which she might have won, or, at least in which she would have held her own. But, did anyone ever win a fight of this kind?

This ideal wife had made up her mind to carry her husband through the evening, come what might. He was not himself.

Tomorrow would be another day. If he had been physically sick in bed and needed her care, would she have given only fifty per cent? Of course not. She would have nursed and lavished upon him all the warmth of her nature.

Well, he was sick that night–sick in mind and spirit. He needed her intelligent, loving and patient consideration. She would have considered herself a very shallow person to have reacted otherwise. She was in love with her husband that night too, unreasonable though he was.

A few weeks later the tables were turned. She was the one who was at wits end with herself. She started the day with a headache and things went from bad to worse. It was a rainy day, and for some unfathomable reason the school shut its doors on the children.

They were under her feet all day. Often she had to act as referee in their squabbles. As the afternoon wore on toward supper time, she was becoming conditioned for more adult opposition.

An unsuspecting husband made his entry. He was back to his little castle in the suburb with roses round the door (metaphorically speaking) and babies on the floor (literally speaking).

During the meal Mary “blew her top” about something. Oh yes, the car did not start that afternoon. The battery or something must have been dead. Some junk! It was time they had a new car.

So it was a junk, was it? John could think of the days of work it had taken to buy that old bus a few years previous. It was still a good car. What did women know about cars anyway? There ought to have been a law against women ever—-.

There is no future in this kind of thought, so John quickly banished the hideous little devil from his mind. Mary was worked up tonight. He would have to be cautious. Did he defend his car against his wife? John was a little too sharp for that.

He jumped on the band wagon and lambasted the car too. Yes. We would have to do something about that nuisance. He felt like going out then and burning it up. He knew that by the time they got to the dishes, she would have forgotten all about the car.

Mary purred through the rest of the meal contentedly with that wonderful feeling that her husband was all for her. Together they stood against the whole world.

Suppose that John had been a little thick between the ears and that he took exceptions to her remarks about the car and defended the car against his wife. A fight would have ensued. Feelings would have been hurt. And there was danger that their tempers would have swept them on to the name calling stage. Once this has been reached, real harm frequently has been done to a marriage.

Mary finished her explanation of what she meant by patience by saying that she and her husband had never had a fight in the twelve years of married life. Then she added what I thought was the epitome of her whole conversation by saying that she and her husband did not intend to have any fights.

This determination not to fight was indicative of their intelligence and maturity. Surely it was one of the factors contributing to the happy stability of their marriage.

This couple has had arguments and disagreements I believe that I have been in on a few warm ones. An argument is not a fight.

People with minds of their own will not always see eye to eye on every phase of their daily lives. Viewpoints will vary and disagreements will result even as to whether or not junior should have a crew haircut. But let us not make junior a ward of the divorce court because husband and wife cannot agree on the proper length of junior’s hair. After all, it is not that important.

Arguments and disagreements degenerate into fights, when ill-feeling, name-calling and bitterness come into the picture. The ideal wife, fortified with the virtue of patience, sets her face against such loss of harmony. Whatever be the cost she wisely realizes that her effort at peace is worth the price.

No good comes from fights in married life. I have been asked whether it is not a good idea for husband and wife to have a fight once in a while. The air is thus cleared. The very young, theorizing about this, often add that it is so sweet when they make up. In connection with this question one inquirer quoted Bishop Fulton Sheen as saying that a couple never really knows how much they love each other until they have made up after their first fight.

Nothing was said about how many found out how little they loved each other and never made up.

It is very true that sometimes good comes out of evil. Yet, how insane it is to seek or even permit avoidable evil, on the chance some good might come of it.

Fights among married people are evil things and bring untold misery into lives. So many broken marriages have come before me in which there was no third party, no drinking, no in-law trouble, no major difficulty. They just fought. So often people are less mature than their children, whom they have brought into the world to endure their bad tempers.

Fights begin between human beings because of pride. We have a will of our own. When we do not get our way pride suffers. Like children we want to fight the opposition to our will. So far we have no control of our reactions. We are made this way.

If we are adults, however, we have learned by bitter experience that our pride is the surest destroyer of happiness and love. Unless we are psycho-masochists, we crush our insurgent pride and prevent ourselves the stupid and dubious pleasure of hurting the one who has stung our pride.

Once a fight has begun between man and wife it is clear that one or the other must win the struggle against pride. One or the other must curb the desire to win the empty victory.

If the wife makes the first effort at reconciliation, her humility will make it difficult for the husband to nurse his pride. Pride cannot face up to humility. It is shamed out of existence.

Even when husband and wife make up completely after a fight, a fight is still unfortunate. Fights leave scars. The wound heals, but there ever remains a scar in the mind.

I have had many estranged married people tell me that their partners did this or that to them twenty-five or thirty years ago. Happy years had intervened between the fight and the present estrangement. But they could not forget, even if they had forgiven.

The wife desired meditates deeply on the hatefulness of fighting.

She has made up her mind to suffer anything rather than fight and thus wound her husband. Remember that there is always the danger that we begin to hate whom we hurt for the same reason that we begin to love whom we help.

“Lord, Help me to be a good wife.  I fully realize that I don’t have what it takes to be one without Your help.  Take my selfishness, impatience, and irritability and turn them into kindness, long-suffering, and the willingness to bear all things.  Take my old emotional habits, mindsets, automatic reactions, rude assumptions, and self-protective stance, and make me patient, kind, good, faithful, gentle, and self-controlled.  Take the hardness of my heart and break down the walls with Your battering ram of revelation.  Give me a new heart and work in me Your love, peace, and joy.  I am not able to rise above who I am at this moment.  Only You can transform me.”

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From The Wife Desired   by Fr. Leo Kinsella, 1950’s

HUMOR AND HUMILITY

Since humility is the foundation for all virtue, it is not surprising that it is the requisite for a sense of humor. Humility is the proper and correct appraisal of ourselves. We are the creatures of God. Of ourselves we are nothing. Whatever we are or have is from Him and His.

Because we are able to see ourselves in proper perspective, we are able to laugh at ourselves as well as at others. Our foibles and fancies and past blunders are a source of amusement to ourselves as well as to others.

We are not completely unremunerated comediennes. I have never forgotten the scene of a small boy crying with a banana in his mouth and a loaf of bread under his arm. Too many of us go through life in this comic fashion, sad-eyed-Sams with God’s blessing all about us.

On the other hand many wonderful people keep their cheerfulness with one foot in the grave and the other on a banana peel. If sick people can remain cheerful, how ashamed the rest of us should feel for being wet blankets.

The real difference between a gloomy Gerty and a cheerful person is that the latter is tuned into the harmony of God’s never ending and always new symphony. The gloomy Gerty is out of tune and full of static, a nuisance to herself and to all within earshot.

We must admit that there is an undertone of tragedy to real humor, as is evidenced in the works of Dickens. However, a sense of humor is productive of a cheerful attitude toward life. The living are more attractive than the dead.

The interested wife is interesting because she is animated to the joy of living. Joy appeals to all. The joyful wife is a pleasure to her husband. She is a pearl of great price. The wife who has a sense of humor will make a much more stable wife as well as a much more lovable and desired one. She is safeguarded against many repelling characteristics.

Conceit and a sense of humor do not get along together very well. Adolph Hitler was not famous for a sense of humor, nor are any of the other tyrants, who plague the world.

Some people are perfectionists. They want to do things perfectly all the time. Because of their aim they are in a dither with themselves and others too frequently.

A wife who is a perfectionist must watch herself. Unless she be on guard, she can easily commit one of the mortal sins of marriage by nagging her husband. A sense of humor will temper this tendency and save her from becoming a veritable shrew.

Possessing a sense of humor the wife is prevented from getting too excited over the idiosyncrasies of her husband. She can see the amusing side of things and thus is saved from many heartaches.

Besides, because she is humble, she is less sensitive. Consequently, it is hard for anyone to hurt her. She will have little temptation to go around brooding over real or imagined slights. For the give and take of every day life with her husband she is well equipped.

THE WIFE DESIRED IS A COMPANION TO HER HUSBAND

 The wife desired is the companion of her husband. Hand in hand they walk through life sharing their joys and sorrows. Together they stand against the world. They have secrets shared with no one else. Their union goes beyond that of friendship, for in it are found the little intimacies of lovers.

Together they meet life fortified with each other. Their hearts leap for gladness in the merry month of May of their lives. In the grey December their sorrows are softened with the comfort of carrying each other’s burden.

No pain can equal the pain of the loss of each other. Their loneliness when death takes the other has no counterpart in this vale of tears.

Marriage is a partnership in the business of living. Just as most phases of life are specialized, so marriage itself is specialized. To the husband fall certain obligations, to the wife others. He must bring home the bacon. She upholds her end of the bargain by being the queen of the home. “As the sun when it rises upon the world in the high places of God. so is the beauty of a good wife for the ornament of her house.” Ecclus. 26, 21.

In this chapter we consider a number of aspects of married life which may seem to have little or no reference to companionship. A girl contemplating marriage and especially the phase of companionship which it brings may wonder what sewing, cooking, and housework can have to do with companionship. The answer in a nutshell is that, unless the wife takes care of her end of the bargain, there will be little companionship.

If the husband is irresponsible and does not support the family, how can there be the normal companionship of marriage? Likewise, if the wife is remiss in the specialized chores which are her lot in life, she will make a very poor companion.

In other words, the husband’s support of the home and the wife’s cooking and housework are the basis upon which it is possible for them to build a companionship without which marriage is a bleak affair.

As we have already said, marriage is a partnership, and companionship is the reward beyond reckoning for those who accomplish the duties befalling them as partners in a glorious enterprise.

Suppose that a young lady married a man unequipped for and irresponsible about his obligations. After a few days of honeymoon–he did not have the cash for a more extended one– they returned to live with her parents. He had a few more days of freedom, she understood, before getting back to his job.

The first day or two passed well enough: but then she became worried. As she busied herself about the house under mother’s watchful eye, her man seemed unconcerned about the future.

As the days went by, his naps on the davenport became more frequent and prolonged. She could not hide her anxiety any longer, so she asked him whether he was going back to his job soon. “What job?” he frowned up at her. It did not seem that he had a job at the time, but, like Micawber, he felt that one might turn up soon.

To be sure, a wife in this position would be in for a very difficult marriage. I have seen very many men of this type–lazy, selfish, irresponsible, and as well prepared for marriage as a jackrabbit.

Occasionally, he will be a very likable individual. He is good natured and easy going and dances like a gigolo–a wonderful fellow with whom to pass a holiday at the lake, but not a man to settle down within the partnership of marriage.

Let us return to the wife. After all, she is our wonderful subject. Again we can imagine the opposite case in which the wife was delinquent.

The husband was a fine, responsible young man. He was industrious and had saved money for his marriage. In fact, he had bought a home albeit with a fat mortgage. After ten days of honeymooning they returned to their little home. He had several more days vacation before returning to work. It was summer, and they were going to make the most of it at the beach.

The wife suggested the first day that, instead of wasting time in the kitchen, they have a sandwich and milk shake on their way. They could thus have more time at the beach. The husband thought it was a good idea.

On the way home in the middle of the afternoon the wife mentioned that Aunt Susie wanted them over for dinner that night. Remember Aunt Susie? She went all out for us in the generosity of her wedding present. Splendid. Aunt Susie’s it was.

The next day and the next it was the same story–clever maneuvering away from the kitchen. By now the husband wondered why he did not save construction costs on the home by eliminating the kitchen.

This poor little wife could just about manage to boil water. She had never cooked a thing in her life and did not evidence any concern for the future.

Although these two imaginary cases are extreme, do not think that they are out of this world. One would think that a girl would pride herself on being able to cook, to sew, and to keep house. Sometimes an over efficient and fussy mother keeps her daughter from having a chance to learn these things.

More often her inefficiency indicates an indolent and even selfish girl. She prefers to let her mother spoil her by waiting on her hand and foot, while she ensconces herself on a sofa with a book and bonbons.

Of course, many of these girls rise to the occasion with their marriage and learn to be efficient wives in respect to the home. The love of her husband and children does the trick.

The worst offenders in this important phase of marriage are those who stagnate after marriage and lose interest in their homes.

One instance comes to mind in which the husband would come home from work and wash several days’ dishes and tidy up the kitchen. He had hoped to shame his wife into a realization of her position. She merely laughed at him.

She was slovenly in the care of her child. When she got around to changing the baby’s diaper, she was more than likely to throw it into a corner to remain there for some distant future reference.

This woman did little more than visit her girlfriends all afternoon and gossip with them. She flounced into the home a few minutes before her husband’s return from work.

Her preparation of dinner consisted of opening a can of beans, unwrapping some cold cuts, and placing on the table a loaf of chaff and straw dust commonly called bread by a generation unfamiliar with the joys of eating homemade bread.

Had this woman married another Okie it is possible that they could have been happy. Not many people can live in a pigsty like this and be contented.

S

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Learning the Womanly Arts is always a good thing….

by Father Kinsella: The Wife Desired
COOKING

Many people make an enjoyable hobby out of cooking. So it certainly is within the realm of possibility that the average wife can become sufficiently interested in one of her obligations to do a passable job.

If she can read, she can learn to cook. There are such things as cook books. The old saying that the way to a man’s heart is through his stomach is still true for a number of reasons.

Anybody who knows a thing about human nature knows that the time to seek a favor from or to put over a deal with a fellow human being is immediately after a fine dinner. His sales resistance is then at lowest ebb. Literally he is eating out of her hand now.

The ideal wife does not miss these opportunities. She is not a heartless schemer but she is intelligent enough to accomplish things the easy way with less wear and tear on herself and her husband.

Moreover, the wife who does right by her family in the matter of cooking will learn the esteem of her husband. He will be proud of her and love her all the more for her interest in his behalf.

SEWING

Concerning the ability of the wife to sew there comes to mind the beautiful picture of a young bride at whose marriage I recently assisted. I would never be able to remember her wedding gown except for the fact that her husband proudly told me at the reception that his wife made the gown herself.

Would that all young ladies looking ahead to marriage could have seen the stars in that young man’s eyes as he spoke of his bride’s accomplishment. As the years of marriage roll by, her knowledge of sewing will stand her in good stead.

It does for another young wife and mother of whom I am thinking. Finding herself in very moderate financial circumstances with three little children to care for, she easily could have resigned herself to a wardrobe growing more shabby and bleak with the years. Not Mary.

She is approaching thirty, and she knows how to wear clothes. Furthermore, she knows how to make them. Through her nimble fingers the best and latest creations of the designers come quickly into being.

To her comes the satisfaction only creation can bring. To her husband comes the delight only his smartly dressed wife can bring. Within her meager budget for clothes she is the envy of her circle of girlfriends.

Then there is the run of the mill sewing for the family–mending of the children’s clothes, stitching, patching, and refurbishing of hand-me-downs.

A tear in Bobbie’s breeches is like the sounding of a tocsin. Out comes the needle. The rip is mended in quick order, and Bobbie’s dignity is restored.

Life is made up of little things. In doing them well we live the good life. If we ignore or become bored with these little things and wait for something big to come along, our ship will never come in. Life will pass us by.

About eighty per cent of marriage is the daily task of cooking, dishes, laundry and shopping, and caring for the children. Unless these tasks, humdrum in themselves, be sublimated by love of husband and children, life becomes a lackluster affair.

The ironing of a shirt for her husband can be an act of love or merely a drab job to keep the wife from her own enjoyments of reading and friends.

To keep house well takes intelligence, initiative, and spirit. The ideal wife puts her mind and heart into her specialized work. However, she keeps clear in her mind that she is not her husband’s housekeeper: nor does she ever let him think so.

Within their financial means she should be ready and willing to get away from the house and the children and be alone with him.

A husband can be remiss in this respect more easily than the wife. He may fail to realize the monotony of her daily housework. He has been away all day. After dinner he is content to play with the children, put them to bed, and spend a quiet evening at home.

This will be the normal happy routine of life. But the wife needs an occasional release from her tight schedule. A certain wife seldom wears perfume. When she does, it is the signal for the man of the house to spring into action. She wants out.

Her husband sometimes has a severe cold in the head and cannot smell a thing, but, because she keeps her requests within reason, he generally rises to the occasion and waltzes her out of the house to dinner, to a movie, or to the home of friends.

There are many little tricks along with the use of common sense in the clever head of the ideal wife to prevent home life from becoming too monotonous for herself and her husband.

Situations will vary. Yet there are some old and tried bits of advice no wife seeking success will ignore. One is to “pretty up” before the husband comes home from work.

No one expects a wife to go about her housework looking like a fashion model; nor does she have to go to any silly extreme in the evening. However, if she is wise, she will stop working before he comes home. She will relax, freshen up, and slip into a fresh house dress. She will make herself attractive because her husband is going to sit down to dinner with his wife, not his housekeeper.

She may say that it is not necessary in her case; her husband does not work at an office with pretty secretaries about. There is no chance of his making any invidious, mental comparisons.

He is a plumber, or he does outside work of some sort. His occupation makes no difference. If she is wise, she will get out of her scrub clothes before he comes home.

In the second half of this chapter I shall consider a few of the most common dangers to companionship of man and wife. Since the husband can be at least as guilty, if not more so, of allowing attachments of one sort or another to come between himself and his wife, it is necessary once more to repeat that we are concerned only with the ideal wife.

“Keep a hobby and ride it with enthusiasm. It will keep you out of mischief, to say the least; it will keep you cheerful. Here as in all things you can apply the Ad Majorem Dei Gloriam (for the greater glory of God).” – Fr. Lasance, My Prayer Book

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THE PHYSICAL SIDE OF MARRIAGE (Part Two)

   Part One is here.

Disclaimer

Continued from Part One

Another erroneous idea ill-disposing a young wife for happiness in marriage is the concept that it is never proper for her to be the aggressor in any emotional display. She must never appear to be eager.

The husband is always supposed to be the Don Juan sweeping her off her feet with loving attentions. All the while she coolly and with great decorum maintains an affected, dispassionate front. With patronizing air she submits, for his sake only, to his caresses. Such women are fundamentally dishonest, not accepting the fact that they are human and in need of affection as well as their husbands.

I find it very discouraging to deal with these prim and prissy little wives so small that they could high jump under a dresser and possessing faces never once lit up with the ecstasy of love.

This matter of affection is not a one-way street. The normal husband would like to see some signs of response to his efforts at affection toward his wife. If he seldom or never gets it, how can he be blamed if he wonders about his wife’s love for him? Is he just her social security number?

The desired wife has a mischievous streak in her and can be even a little “naughty” with her husband. Some “dead pans” become so blasé about their marriages that they never flirt with their husbands. They miss a lot of fun in life, and little wonder it is that their husbands wear a “hang dog” look.

Another erroneous concept with a copious history of disharmony in married life is the assumption on the part of the wife that the emotional needs and capacities of her husband and herself are equal. Seldom is this true.

The difference of temperament, to say nothing of sex, often calls for sympathetic understanding on the part of the wife. The ideal wife is willing and able to adjust herself to the emotional needs and wants of her husband.

For example, if she is of an affectionate and warm nature, she should realize that perhaps her husband simply is unable to keep up with her, much as he might want to. He is more limited by his nervous system from frequent and prolonged display of emotion.

Some wives spend too much time reading over romantic and even erotic novels. These dubious heroes are generally Casanovas and gigolos with no counterpart in the everyday world of successful husbands.

The young wife who is disappointed because her husband does not measure up to these dreamworld standards of romantic endeavor must come down to earth. More often than not fails to realize how well off she is to have the type of husband who is a good, sound, responsible man.

Perhaps he is not the absolute ideal from the romantic viewpoint. The intelligent wife will see the favorable aspects in her husband’s nature, and the clever wife will patiently and lovingly work for the gradual development of her husband that he come to better meet her emotional and sexual needs.

It is not surprising that young ladies of pre-marriage age imagine that any future husband of theirs will be expert at love making. This misconception could easily come from the observation of the aggressiveness and “know it all” attitude of young men. Actually both wife and husband will have much to learn together.

In this connection there comes to my memory the painful recollection of a young wife estranged from her husband. She was of good, God-fearing parents. She lacked nothing in her environment from a religious and educational standpoint. Her girlhood was virtuous and exemplary. Friends and relatives reasonably assumed for her a successful marriage. Presently her whereabouts are unknown.

In shame she left all behind her after her infidelity. Although her husband was something of a knuckle head, fundamentally he was a “right guy.” His last mistake before her disappearance was in excoriating her in the vilest language. In his lonely bitterness he began to see that he overreached himself.
She was a vivacious young woman, strong in her feelings and in need of a real man for a husband. He was not very demonstrative, and I do not believe that he actually understood her hunger for affection. In any case he did not quite fill the bill.

The young wife experienced a growing sense of frustration for the first two years. Then during the last two years of their married lives she began to sulk. This later attitude put the finishing touches to their marriage. Instead of lovingly and patiently encouraging the development of her husband’s love-making potential to complement the needs of her warm nature, she withdrew within herself in disappointment and resentment.
Moreover there was little earnest effort on her part to adapt herself to her husband’s emotional nature. Perhaps he never could have risen to the heights of the greatest romantic lover of all time. Yet, if she had helped him and had given him a chance, he could have brought happiness and stability into her life.

Offhand I cannot think of a single successful marriage in which there has not been mature, intelligent adjustments on the part of both husband and wife. Very few wives will find marriage exactly as they had visualized it.

The actuality is always somewhat different from the story book picture or the girlhood dream. By this I do not mean that marriage is less than what was expected. It may turn out to be worlds more than what was looked for. In all cases it will be quite different.

Regarding the measure of happiness to be expected, a well-known ritual of marriage has this to say, “If true love and sacrifice guide your every action, you can expect the greatest measure of earthly happiness that may be allotted to man in this vale of tears.”

Except in matters of principle and questions of right and wrong, the ideal wife is not going to hang on to her preconceived concepts of marriage. She will not try to put her husband into a mold, which she has built up from romantic novels read during girlhood.

That plain, prosaic husband of hers is a much more real and interesting being than the fleshless, soulless figment of the imagination, to which she wants to cling. He has a spark of the divine waiting to be fanned into a flame of love.

The soul of a human being with all its potentialities is not developed in a vacuum. Only through love does the human soul begin to really live. And love requires at least two beings. Only through concourse with his fellow man will love come into being in the soul of a husband. Who can play the role of this second party in the life of her husband better than the wife?

The ideal wife is in love with her husband. Therefore her whole nature reaches out to him in an effort to bring him happiness. Her joy in life can come only through success in making him happy and content.

Because her first desire in life is for his well-being, all her emotional and physical attentions to him are aimed at satisfying his needs. No one can arrive at happiness through oneself, through self-seeking. Thus the wife’s display of emotion has as its object the comfort and the contentment of her husband.
If this is her way of acting, she need not fear for herself. Only those who seek themselves need fear for themselves.

Those who seek first their own pleasure out of marriage and make the happiness of their partners only a possible by-product, so to say, are doomed to misery. It is an inexorable law of our lives that only through making others happy can we expect happiness. So many wives seem to want to learn this lesson the hard, bitter way.

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“There is more danger of our not hoping enough than of our hoping too much. Don’t put your standard so low. Breathe the air of God’s promises, and raise your hearts high. God wants a great deal of us. Difficulties will vanish at once if we can only bring ourselves to believe that God loves us so. Unconquerable hope in spite of apparent difficulty. Don’t let your heart sink with the false feeling that ‘somehow God doesn’t care specially for me.’ The saints combined humility with the unshaken belief in God’s great love for them.” – Rev. Daniel Considine, S.J., 1950’s