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Show Kathleen Nor ris Says: . Stop Fooling Yourself Bell Syndicate. WNU Features. "Tom came home and agreed to a divorce, but he took 'lis child away from the mother whose open infidelity, the court decided, indicated that she was an unfit guardian." By KATHLEEN N ORRIS PERHAPS you are one of the thousands of American Ameri-can women who met another an-other man, while dear old unromantic Bill was away at the war front, and are wondering won-dering just how to break it to Bill that you want to be free. If you are, wake up and stop fooling yourself. This new man wouldn't continue his tender flattery, his generous gener-ous presents, his breathless admiration of everything you say and do, much longer than the honeymoon. Then he'd turn into the usual exacting, unreasonable unfeeling sort of everyday man that Bill is. If there is one glaring lesson that stands written in letters of fire on the skyline of American domestic domes-tic life, it is that a second marriage mar-riage is more difficult than a first, more full of bitterness and disillusionment. dis-illusionment. And a third is worse than a second. When a woman deliberately turns down a fairly satisfactory, unexciting unexcit-ing husband who is far away, for a glamorous sweetheart here at home, she guarantees for herself several years of misery. Alter those years, she may win to several forms of content; resignation, resig-nation, philosophy, other interests, a general growing-up. But the first years after a passionate leap from the cooling ardors of one man to the furious embraces of another, Is a staggering disappointment. The illicit love that was so absorbing becomes something nearer hatred as the woman realizes what she has sacrificed for it, and hsw she has complicated every other relationship relation-ship in her life. 'It's All Over.' It is different when she is widowed, wid-owed, or when years of separation from an unfit mate have lent a sort of dignity to her selection of a new partner. But I am speaking of the many, many wives who write the distant soldier, or greet him on his return with the news that It Is all over a new love has entered their lives. Take Carolyn Martin, for example, ex-ample, who writes me a frantic letter let-ter from Duluth, and threatens to take her own life unless someone does something that will restore her to her old content and self-respect. Tom Martin went off to war; J Carolyn devoted herself to little j Patsy Lee. Presently she met Grcg-I Grcg-I ory, stationed nearby, uniformed, handsome, with a captain's pay. Gregory had a wife in Virginia, but i he was lonely, too, and misunder- stood, and he adored Carolyn. They became lovers, and Carolyn's mad passion had its hour. . But look how it all turned out. Tom came home and agreed to a divorce, but he took his child away from the mother whose open infidelity, in-fidelity, the court decided, indicated that she was an unfit guardian for Patsy Lee. Carolyn hadn't quite foreseen that. And Gregory's wife, who also has a young daughter, refused him a divorce; Carolyn hadn't thought of that, either. "We have quarrelled bitterly," she writes me. "For I know perfectly per-fectly well that Gregory Brown could have gotten a divorce If he had Insisted. But no, I'd given him everything everything, and he'd tired of me, the way men do. Thul's all past. "Rut my little Patsy Lee, I can't v ... -?r"v -,; "ir'ly li(l I s'firf iirtivl't'tlinn?" THE PRICE OF INFIDELITY During the lony. months and years of war, m my wives bedame restless, Wjl felt starved emotionally; - Their husbands were away in service. serv-ice. As time dragged on, love for the absent spouse often dwindled and faded away. She met some other man at the war plant, or through a friend. This new man seemed to be much more glamorous than her husband had ever been. In time she began to admit to herself that she loved this man, and that she was tired of her husband. She icas anxious to be free of him, so she could marry again. In the case considered today, to-day, Miss Norris points out that a woman who thinks another an-other marriage is going to bring her glorious happiness is fooling herself. Life will soon settle into its humdrum pattern. Difficulties and quarrels quar-rels still come along. The custody cus-tody of children may go to the former husband, and so be lost to their mother. Or even greater tragedy may overtake the foolish, selfish woman. live without her! I can't bear the thought that she is with Tom's sister, sis-ter, whose own three children will, of course, come first In everything. What did I do that was so wrong of course I know that it wasn't fair to Tom, but can a woman help loving lov-ing a man as masterful as attractive at-tractive as Greg?" Easy to Plan Divorce. And she encloses me three of Greg's old love-letters to give me some idea of the forcefulness of his wooing. It's easy to talk of breaking up a marriage, everyone is going to be agreeable, in the first stages. "Isn't it better for Greg and me to be happy, even if Tom Isn't, than to have all three of us wretched?" the wife asks, with a great air of considering con-sidering the greater good for the greater number. "Greg," they say, "adores Patsy Lee, he is going to be the kindest daddy in the world to her." Then the law steps in; the lawyer law-yer asks all sorts of dreadful questions; ques-tions; Greg's sister reminds him that he has every right to his child. Carolyn's heart begins to fail her, and a thousand times as the slow processes go on, she wishes she hadn't ever started the series of acts and events that led to this change. The other day I was in court when a divorce case was being decided; the husband was Just back from service overseas, the wife a pretty young tiling who had taken on a lover during her months alone looked miserably unhappy already. Her mother told me in an aside that the poor child couldn't marry her sweetheart until he got a Job. At one stage of the proceedings the girl looked at her husband imploringly. implor-ingly. "Oh, are we both crazy, Alan?" she sobbed. The man growled an angry "yes," the case went on, and one more homo was thruwn on the junk heap. Homo Gnrrlpn Still Neerletl President Truman is urging home gardeners to continue the production produc-tion of vcKi'lnbli'S in 11)1(1 because of the worldwide shortage of rood. A good garden will produce enough vegetables of vnrious kinds for a 12-ninnth 12-ninnth supply. These include fresh vve;ct;iblcs for IIh; growing season of live or six months and a quantity to be canned, dried, stored or fruzen for tile renuilning six or seven months. Records shew lliat n quarter-acre area, if wll-m:in-aged, will supply a family of live. |