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Show Kathleen Norris Says: Marriage Can Be Successful Bell Syndicate. WNU Feature Of all the triumphant achievements of a womans life a successful success-ful marriage is the most unusual and the most satisfying. NUPTIAL BLISS Despite dreamy platitudes plati-tudes heralding the never-ceasing never-ceasing happiness in marriage, mar-riage, the fact remains tluit married life is a business. It must be nurtured, cherished and nursed with extreme tenderness and care. Successful Suc-cessful marriages are not accidents nor are they unions which resulted from some perplexing, mystical force. They are successful because the participants want them to be and exercise exer-cise every bit of ingenuity at their command in an all-out all-out effort to achieve their ambition. t Mary Lee, 22, is on tlie verge of being married and apprehensively seeks a secret sec-ret formula for success in her marriage. She is wary . of success because she has witnessed much bitter un-happiness un-happiness in the marriages of close relatives who have been unable to reap a fruitful fruit-ful harvest from the state of matrimony. vorces arise from this one source than Irom any other. Keep the honeymoon light alive by affectionate little acts and words. Never stop them. Just one little sentence of praise for your husband's hus-band's .generosity will make him more generous. Just saying that he was right in some conversation with other persons will warm his heart and straighten out any ; hurt or mortification he feels about it. Think About the Future And above all, Mary Lee, build for the future. The 20's are not all of life, nor are the 30's. It may be .that you will be starting the 40'S when you, George, Margaret, George Jr. and little Betsy go off for that holiday cruise for which you are hungering now. It may be on the morning of your silver wedding that George, smiling that smile that has meant happiness for you for 25 years, will ask you to open that big box from the furrier's and see if you like it. You'll still be young, handsome, able to enjoy to the full every moment of the harvest you are sowing sow-ing now. In fact, I'm not sure but what these later joys have a flavor and a deepness that the younger years never know. Take as much happiness as you can along the way; keep the real friends, endure whatever you must from George's family with laughter laugh-ter and philosophy and make them love you; go in for picnics, weekend week-end trips, outdoor meals, books, music, garden everything that the fortunate life of a young American wife may hold. School yourself not to want what you can't have. Remind yourself that you will change with the passing pass-ing months and so will George. He'll amaze you sometimes by the wholeheartedness with which he abandons his plans and accepts yours. And believe me, of all the triumphant tri-umphant achievements of a woman's life, a successful marriage is the most unusual and the most satisfying. satisfy-ing. My good wishes and my prayers will be with you on your wedding day, Mary Lee. T WANT my marriage to be X a success. Is there any-secret?" any-secret?" This is what a girl from Philadelphia writes me in a most touching letter. She is 22, has been motherless since her 14th year and has been managed by a grandmother, grand-mother, aunts, her father ahd not one but two stepmothers. The marriage history of most of these persons isn't happy. Mary Lee's grandmother was widowed young, married and divorced and now is separating from her third mate, a man 33 years old. Two aunts are divorced and her first stepmother step-mother and her father did not make a success of it. "George is 29," writes Mary Lee. "He is my dream man, although I am not silly enough to tell him that But he truly has been my ideal since he was in college and I was in first year high school. He has a fine job with an oil company. He has been buying a love of a home, six rooms and a garden in a lovely neighb--hood, and everyone is sending us things. Of course, I am the happiest girl in the world." "But what I want to know," the letter goes on in a more serious tone, "is how to begin now to make my marriage a success. I want children and friends. I want to be a sort of woman that other women admire as a wife and mother; I want a silver wedding in 1973, with children and grandchildren. Determined to Succeed "George seems perfect to me now gentle and wise and liked by everybody. But I see the wrecks of marriage all about me and I feel that there must be some secret rules, some way in which, if a man and his wife are determined to stay together and to go on loving each other, they can do it. My mother and her mother were good and devoted wives, but you can't imagine how afraid I am of mistakes, mis-takes, how anxious I am not to do something that I will regret all my life. And George," this charming and innocent letter ends, "feels the same way." ... In reply, I want to tell Mary Lee that she and her George, in making these resolves, are starting right And for the rest, if they will try to remember as the years go by that they both are humans, both faulty, both given to changes of opinion and inconsistencies in action, ac-tion, they will find it easier to forgive for-give each other when the inevitable jars occur. Put him first to everything. That's perhaps as Important a rule as any. Keep him feeling so comfortable com-fortable and so loved that he always al-ways will want to put you first This doesn't mean spoiling him or making a doormat of yourself, but it does mean consideration for his ideas and his dignity. It means that you don't make plans without consulting con-sulting him and that if he isn t enthusiastic about parties, dancing or your old girlhood friends, go very light on all these for a time. Eventually Even-tually you will work out your own friends, both together, and then parties will be more enjoyable than any lopsided affair where one partner part-ner or the other is feeling bored or abused. Remember that finances are of major importance. Don't waste, don't run bills, don't express desires for what you cannot afford. More quarrels, more bitterness, more di- j '7s there any secret? ..." |
