She found that her husband from day to day had dreaded coming home.
The truth was that he had dreaded his own irritability as much as he
had dreaded her emotional demanding. But he did not know it--he did
not know what was the matter at all. He simply knew vaguely that he
was a brute, that he felt like a brute, and that he did not know how
to stop being a brute. His wife knew that he was a brute, and at the
same time she felt throughly convinced that she was a suffering
martyr. He was dreading to come home and she was dreading to have
him come home--and there they were in a continuous nightmare. Now
they have left the nightmare far, far behind, and each one knows
that the other has one good friend in the world in whom he or she
can feel entire confidence, and their friendship is growing stronger
and clearer and more normal every day.
It is not the ceremony that makes the marriage: the ceremony only
begins it. Marriage is a slow and careful adjustment. A true story
which illustrates the opposite of this condition is that of a man
and woman who were to all appearances happily married for years.
They were apparently the very closest friends. The man's nerves were
excitable and peculiar, and his wife adjusted herself to them by
indulging them and working in every way to save him from friction.
No woman could stand that constant work of adjustment which was in
reality maladjustment, and this wife's nerves broke down
unexpectedly and completely.
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