How to Work Out the Happiness in a Marriage

Every man whose hopes are not fulfilled is naturally inclined toward blaming others for his setback: it's the other fellow's fault! It is much easier than seeking out the inner fault, but it is absolutely sterile. This road leads only to spite, bitterness, inner revolt, and the stereotyped mutual recriminations that marital partners continually make. Or else they blame fate. The man thinks that his bad fortune was to "chance" upon such an impossible woman. His wife blames fate for a man who is insupportable.

In order to escape his responsibility, each is inclined to accuse the character of his partner, her bad health, her faults, her upbringing, or the influence of the altogether different environment in which she was raised. Now such matters are very important. We must seek to guide our children in the choice of a fiancé or fiancée. A certain degree of common background is useful. But it would be sheer folly to think that marital success and the possibility of full understanding of one another depends primarily upon one's background. No, for marriage is above all what we make of it from day to day. "It is a work of art," as a famous philosopher used to say.

Let us react then against the stupid idea of chance which leads men to imagine that we may hit upon "a pearl" for a wife as one might z prize in a lottery. Besides, it could be very difficult to be married to "a pearl" if you did not feel yourself in the same category!

What really counts, then, is the working out together of marital happiness. It is a goal to strive after, not a privilege gained at the outset. And to work it out, the ability to understand each other is essential. So-called emotional incompatibility is a myth invented by jurists short of arguments in order to plead for divorce. It is likewise a common excuse people use in order to hide their own failings. I simply do not believe it exists. There are no emotional incompatibilities. There are misunderstandings and mistakes, however, which can be corrected where there is the willingness to do so.

The most frequent fault seems to me to be the lack of complete frankness. I see many couples. Behind their difficulties I always discover another lack of mutual openness, a loyal and total openness to one another without which there can be no real understanding. A couple who are courageous enough always to say everything will build an ever more successful marriage. On the other hand, all dissimulating becomes only the portent and they way toward, failure.