Show KATHLEEN NORRIS divorce Is as much a state HT GOT MARRIED without know i ing anything about marriage arriage ni and five years later I 1 got a divorce without knowing anything about divorce this sentence in a letter that came to me this week expressed acme something thing that I 1 had never thought out before I 1 mean that divorce Is just as definite a state as marriage Is and an even more difficult and complicated one before I 1 had worked out any of the problems of marriage the letter goes on 1 I found myself with a whole set of new ones as a divorced woman I 1 made hals home comfortable I 1 was restless and dissatisfied always wishing that I 1 was back on my old job with 40 a week to throw away just as I 1 pleased I 1 was bored with dust dishes and eventually baby yvonne was a delicate baby I 1 was nearly mad with nerves and mental cruelty provided an escape Es escape capel you know wh what at I 1 escaped into id never made the slig slightest hest effort to make hals people like me and they 1 I did go back to my old job but it the same thing with my little girls claims tearing at my heart I 1 tried combining with a girl friend who had a small boy that work I 1 tried boarding homes vonnie and I 1 were miserable through all those years I 1 felt myself neither one thing nor another and when von was 12 1 I married again could have been friends it was a mistake I 1 saw the mistake all the sooner because I 1 had strangely enough mod made e a close friend of hals sister and t through hr ugh her of his mother we could have be been friends all the time it if I 1 t been so immature and so nearly mad trilb nerves spoiled my aly second husband had good points but business acumen one of them I 1 found myself supporting him and second baby daughter so when von made a foolish young marriage followed within two years by a divorce I 1 divorced also and we combined forces I 1 now am back at the old job I 1 ran away from 17 years ago with von supporting the family with payments from the fathers of both children and myself cook and nurse tor for nil all tour four pt 1 I us 1 I am only 40 but my life as a loved protected wife Is over von sees her father who Is married again and his has two boys I 1 never see anyone I 1 go to movies in the evening my daytime hours are crowded with wilh domestic duties and I 1 am tired r til 1 11 the time mother alother takes manic blame deep in my heart I 1 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 wid nd of course will marry again then I 1 dont know what will become of me A job I 1 suppose and some arrangement for my little marle louise such as I 1 made tor 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 of other children 1 I know I 1 have wilde made a mess of my life and that 11 1 I had known the true values of things 15 years ago I 1 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 1 hear every year yea r it seems impossible t to 0 convince our children of just two simple truths one that no marriage 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 matt er how difficult to achieve is the most worthwhile thing in the world and perhaps we should add three that divorce freedom it is instead a plunge into deeper and deeper complications A certain chicago divorce attorney one samuel M starr Is trying to do som something ething about th the e appalling increase of divorces in these united states he has established divorces anonymous my respect admiration and best wishes accompany mr starr in this undertaking I 1 more lore power to him of the thousands of letters letter 3 I 1 receive every year on this subject of divorce more than halt 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 who somehow expected married life to be more varied |