It Pays to be Happily Married : Part 3

The Good Housekeeping Marriage Book: Twelve Steps to a Happy Marriage
by Various

(Page 14 of 16)

8. Do I act as a balance wheel, cheering him intelligently when he is tired or discouraged, or do I rub him the wrong way on such occasions?

If your husband does not share with you his disappointments, it is almost invariably because you have not qualified yourself to share them.

9. Do I try to smooth things out after unpleasant discussions - as I would if a new dress or theatre party were at stake?

Many married persons have an uncanny capacity for making miserable the objects of their affection. It is said that the course of true love never did run smooth, but the wise husband or wife will not unnecessarily roughen it.

10. Do I carry my share of responsibility, or do I save up all the petty annoyances for our dinner-table conversation?

Wives who complain that their husbands are silent during dinner have usually good reason to overhaul the quality of their own conversation. Don't bore him with your fight with the grocer or the catty things Mrs. X said at bridge or afternoon tea.

Here are some actual examples of the way wives affect their husband's business:

We selected Blake for a branch managership at Chicago, and we thought that his wife could measure up. We took him out of a job where he had reached his limit and placed him in one where his developed ability might enable him to earn twice his salary. He failed. We who appointed this man took the blame for his failure, because business recognizes no alibis. As usual, it wasn't that he didn't want to be a branch manager, or that he didn't know enough, or that he wasn't willing to work hard enough. We found that the trouble was within his emotional mechanism. He was losing his head and his temper at the wrong times.

At last he wrote to his firm: "This town takes the heart out of my wife. She is terribly lonesome, refuses to make new friends, and reminds me continually of the good times we used to have back home. Her mother misses her and threatens to come to live with us here. I appreciate this opportunity, and I know that we have more of everything here than we had back home, but I want my old job back. I can't stand it here."

Business doesn't work that way, and so we persuaded another employer to "hire him away" without his knowledge, thus saving his face and helping to maintain his courage. He would have been branded for life if we had permitted him to crawl back to his old job. Blake will never go as far as he is entitled to go, because Mrs. Blake places her own feelings above any other consideration, and her husband is not strong enough to control his emotions where his wife is concerned. Few men are.

We do not in any way blame Mrs. Blake for the part she played in her husband's failure. She merely attaches more value to staying in her old groove, in the constant companionship of her mother, and in the regular contact with old friends than she attaches to promotion for her husband. We have no quarrel with her choice, if only she realizes that she has chosen something for herself, and is now living under conditions dictated by her own choice.

Take Smith. In the language of business he is a "whipped puppy." Again, there is no question of his ability, his desires, or his willingness to work. We have, in a certain corporation, a job for Smith which would mean a 50 percent increase in salary, a place of notice in the community, and a wider acquaintance among substantial people. We have considered him for this job a dozen times, but each time we have decided to postpone action, because we are afraid of the influence of his wife. On his present job, it does no great damage for her to be so possessive, demanding all his time outside of office hours, ordering him around like a child. On the new job, such a performance would ruin him before he was fairly started. Dare we depend on her ability and willingness to grow quickly into the person she would have been training to become? We dare not, for we are held responsible for results!

"Just as I thought," some will say, "business is inhuman." One who takes this attitude has an incomplete view of the facts. If business were to tolerate a repetition of mistakes, its general level of productivity - which, in turn, means income to its employees - would be lowered immediately. This would operate against the very thing we are trying to sponsor - increased responsibility and more full living for all as soon as they earn it.

This point of view frequently gives women no end of mental trouble, because they are more inclined than men to think subjectively rather than objectively. Business employs a man for what he can produce, other things being equal. So long as he is morally sound and honest, business cares little about his attitudes on other subjects. Wives measure their husbands by their helping with the housework or their thoughtfulness in little things around the home; all of these have their value, but not in the scale of production on the job. Sentiment counts heavily with the feminine mind, as it should, whereas business is more realistic. Business buys results rather than intentions.

Business did not have an inherent desire to consider marriage relations. Its interest in them began with the many examples of maladjustment to which it was compelled to give attention, in line with its age-old policy of believing that "everything is all right until it is proved otherwise." When the negative consequences were brought to light, and business really became interested, a constructive attitude was developed which gained its momentum from the countless examples where wives have been major reasons for the success of their husbands. Fortunately for every failure there are a dozen successes.

Garden City Publishing Co. reprint edition, 1949, by special arrangement with Prentice-Hall, Inc.
Copyright, 1938, by PRENTICE-HALL, INC.