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Show Kathleen Norris Says: If You Are Bored With Marriage, It's Your Oivn Fault (Bell Syndicate WNU Service.) Bob has small sympathy with the struggles and handicaps of these foreign-born foreign-born musicians and accuses me of being in love with the singer, Vanni. By KATHLEEN NORRIS THERE are terrible moments mo-ments in any marriage, when it seems to both INCOMPATIBILITY The first twelve years of married life are the most critical, according to Kathleen Norris. The husband and wife sometimes tend to drift apart during these years because they "find it impossible to develop similar interests." Miss Norris attributes at-tributes this to a failure to build upon those interests they do have in common. "This is not only dangerous, dan-gerous, but stupid," she explains, "because happiness is never found ready made." couple of weekly magazines, and the radio weekly that doesn't seem life, to me. Appreciated by Another. "I have a church rehearsal one night a week, and often ask my friends into my home for an evening of chamber music. Bob has small sympathy with the struggles and handicaps of these foreign-born musicians mu-sicians and accuses me of being in love with the singer, Vanni. That I like him, that we have interests and ambitions in common, that he is one of the most fascinating and cultured cul-tured gentlemen I ever knew, I do not deny. "Incidentally, Vanni is penniless except for occasional singing engagements, en-gagements, and has no intention of marrying me or anyone else. But he is sensitive, congenial, stimulating stimulat-ing to me, and our love for music is a great bond. Would you advise me as to a separation, Bob going his own way and I mine, with infinitely in-finitely less friction than we experience experi-ence today, and freedom for both? Surely it isn't necessary for two persons of completely different temperaments tem-peraments to force themselves into a position that is a strain on both?" Build on Common Interests. Perhaps this letter gives us a rather rath-er extreme instance of what I was trying to express. Neither Bob nor Jean, in this case, has been wise enough to build, during the years, upon those interests that they DO hold in common. They have developed, devel-oped, rather, the things that separate sepa-rate them, Bob sneering at Jean, Jean cultivating friends who despise everything for which Bob stands. This is not only a dangerous situation situ-ation but a stupid one. Every woman, wom-an, married or single, has to learn to live with someone, learn to adapt herself to that person's ways of doing. Women who flatly refuse to change, to understand, to cultivate other than their natural tendencies, are presently lonely women, with the history of two or three unsuccessful unsuc-cessful marriages behind them, and with a final dismal conviction that they might have made a success of the first marriage, after all. Women to Blame. In Jean's case I think she is to blame, or largely to blame, as I do in most cases. For it usually is the wife who sets the tone of the marriage. If her husband gets the idea that what he does is contemptible contempti-ble to her, he naturally retaliates. He wants to show her that he can have a good time in hrs own way, and so the breach between them widens, and all the spirit and flavor departs from their married life. Wiser wives and husbands begin early in marriage to cultivate similar simi-lar tastes. The husband may never appreciate classical music; the wife may never make a good poker player. play-er. But companionship is more precious pre-cious to both than an adolescent desire de-sire to hurt each other, and so by degrees each learns to extract from uncongenial things a certain amount of pleasure, and the marriage deepens deep-ens from its beginnings into that mi-racalous mi-racalous relationship that only the most fortunate human beings ever know. Happiness in being together, dependence upon each other, the delight de-light of sharing even the simplest plans for the children or the holidays, holi-days, this is true marriage, and ninety-nine out of every hundred wives might achieve it if six would man and woman that the light of love and happiness has gone out forever, and the only possible solution is a complete break. Sometimes these moments come in the first year of marriage mar-riage but not often. Quarrels Quar-rels are cured then, and tears and despair forgotten, in the comfort of making up. And with the joy of being friends again the young husband and wife are almost ready to agree that the trouble was worth while. After several years, too, 12 perhaps, per-haps, or 15, difficulties are less apt to arrive. If there is fine quality in both partners, a real willingness to forget and forgive, to change and concede, to grow together in habits and likes, then the marriage gradually gradu-ally becomes a real thing the most perfect companionship human beings be-ings can know in this life. But in between the first year and the twelfth year there may come a bad .time. The glamour of honeymoon honey-moon days is gone, the novelty of the new life has worn away, life has fallen into a routine of responsibilities re-sponsibilities and duties; office, meals, dusting, telephone, bills, getting get-ting the children off to school, petty cares, petty amusements, petty worries. wor-ries. Dangerous Years for Women. For certain types of women these are dangerous years, when there gradually grows upon them a hunger hun-ger for . excitement, change, romance; ro-mance; in short, a hunger for self-expression. self-expression. For they are apt to find that self-expression along lines that hold no interest for the other member of the team. Take the example of 36-year-old Jean Porter, a Springfield wife and mother. Jean's husband is employed by one of the big utilities corpora-'tions corpora-'tions and earns a salary of about $100 a week. He travels a good deal, and is fond of golf, poker, fishing, movies, and his luncheon club. Jean taught harmonics in the public pub-lic schools before she was married and has never lost her interest in music. She plays the organ every Sunday in a community church of no special denomination, but writes that she has no religious convictions. 'He's a Good Man But "Everything Bob does or likes, except ex-cept our common interest in our girl and boy, is intensely and fearfully fear-fully boring boring boring to me!" writes Jean. "He is a good man, who pays his bills and loves his children; I have never known him to be mean, although his horrible habit of teasing me about my aspirations and my 'pipe dreams' and 'delusions 'delu-sions of Hollywood success' are as bad as meanness. I gave up my profession when I married, but I have kept up my organ work, and naturally I associate with musical people. Three of these, to whom Bob especially objects, are a Russian Rus-sian violinist and his American wife, and his brother, who sings baritone in the choir where I play the organ. "Home life, for Bob and me, has grown to be mere civilities. He is scornful of everything that means self-expression to me, and I cannot reconcile myself to wasting time upon the sort of entertaining and party that he likes. Men in to play card games, frankfurters and coffee at late hours, trips off in the car to some place where he can play golf, while the children and I amuse ourselves, never any talk of culture or improvement, never the reading of any worthwhile books for Bob's only reading is the newspapers, a |