| OCR Text |
Show KATHLEEN NORRIS Divorce Is as Much a State... ago, I might have made a success of my first marriage, and perhaps spared Von her own mistake." This is only one of a thousand just such hopelessly complicated situations of which I hear every year. It seems impossible to convince con-vince our children of just two simple truths. One: that no marriage mar-riage is easy; that it has to be worked out with the utmost strength of character. And two: that the outcome of a happy, strongly-knit marriage, no matter how difficult to achieve, is the most worthwhile thing in the world. And perhaps we should add three: that divorce isn't freedom; it is, instead, a plunge into deeper and deeper complications. A certain Chicago1 divorce attorney, at-torney, one Samuel M. Starr, is trying to do something about the appalling increase of divorces in these United States. He has established estab-lished "Divorces Anonymous." My respect, admiration and best wishes accompany Mr. Starr in this undertaking. I.lore power to himl Of the thousands of letters I receive every year on this subject of divorce, more than half are from men and women who admit that, had they an opportunity to try again with the same partner, they would find it easier to make the first marriage a success than to make the divorce one. In many, many small homes there are vaguely dissatisfied women wom-en who somehow expected married life to be more varied. "T GOT MARRIED without know- ing anything about marriage. And five years later I got a divorce di-vorce without knowing anything about divorce." This sentence in a letter that came to me this week expressed something that I had never thought out before. I mean that divorce is just as definite . a state as marriage mar-riage is, and an even more difficult diffi-cult and complicated one. "Before I had worked out any of the problems of marriage," the letter goes on, "I found myself with a whole set of new ones, as a divorced woman. I hadn't made Hal's home comfortable, I was restless and dissatisfied, always wishing that I was back on my old job, with $40 a week to throw away just as I pleased. I was bored with dust, dishes, and eventually baby. Yvonne was a delicate baby, I was nearly mad with nerves, and 'mental 'men-tal cruelty' provided an escape. "Escape! You know what I escaped es-caped into. I'd never made the slighest effort to make Hal's people peo-ple like me, and they didn't. "I did go back to my old job, but it wasn't the same thing, with my little girl's claims tearing at my heart. I tried combining with a girl friend who had a small boy; that didn't work. I tried boarding homes; Vonnie and I were miserable miser-able through all those years. I felt myself neither one thing nor another, and when Von was 12 I married again. Could Have Been Friends "It was a mistake. I saw the mistake all the sooner because I had strangely enough made a close friend of Hal's sister, and through her, of his mother. We could have been friends all the time. If I hadn't been so immature and so "... nearly mad with nerves . . ." spoiled. My second husband had good points, but business acumen wasn't one of them; I found myself my-self supporting him and second baby daughter. "So when Von made a foolish young marriage, followed within two years by a divorce, I divorced also, and we combined forces. I now am back at the old job I ran away from 17 years ago, with Von supporting the family with payments pay-ments from the fathers of both children, and myself cook and nurse for all four of us. "I am only 40, but my life as a loved, protected wife is over. Von sees her father, who is married again and has two boys; I never see anyone. I go to movies in the evening; my daytime hours are crowded with domestic duties, and I am tired all the time. Mother Takes Blame "Deep in my heart I blame my own mother, who was also divorced in my childhood, but perhaps Von has as good a right to blame me. She is pretty and popular at 19, and of course will marry again. Then I don't know what will be- -come of me. A job, I suppose, and some arrangement for my little Marie-Louise such as I made for Von. This youngest little girl is very gentle and clinging, and it kills me to think that she has not the secure, happy home background back-ground of other children, "I know I have made a mess of my life, and that if I had known the true values of things 15 years |
