he joyful
ability to play come--they do come; they are real and alive and waiting
for us as we get clear from the interferences.

"Why doesn't my husband like to stay with me when he comes home? Why
can't we have nice, cozy times together?" a wife asks with sad longing
in her eyes.

And to the same friend the husband (who is, by the way, something of a
pig) says: "I should be glad to stay with Nellie often in the evening,
but she will always talk about her worries, and she worries about the
family in a way that is idiotic. She is always sure that George will
catch the measles because a boy in the next street has them, and she is
always sure that our children do not have the advantages nor the good
manners that other children have. If it is not one thing it is another;
whenever we are alone there is something to complain of, and her last
complaint was about her own selfishness." Then he laughed at what he
considered a good joke, and in five minutes had forgotten all about her.

This wife, in a weak, selfish little way, was trying to give her
husband her confidence, and her complaint about her own selfishness was
genuine. She wanted his help to get out of it. If he had given her just
a little gracious attention and told her how impossible it was really
to discuss the children when she began the conversation with whining
complaint, she would have allowed herself to be taught and their
intercourse would have improved. On the other hand, if the wife had
realized that her husband came home from the cares of his business
tired and nervous, and if she had talked lightly and easily on general
subjects and tried to follow his interests, when his nerves were rested
and quiet she might have found him ready and able to give her a little
lift with regard to the children.

It is interesting and it is delightful to see how, as we each work
first to bear our own burdens, we not only find ourselves ready and
able to lighten the burdens of others but find others who are helpful
to us.

A woman who finds her husband "so restless and irritable" should
remember that in reality a man's nervous system is just as sensitive as
a woman's, and, with a steady and consistent effort to bear her own
burdens and to work out her own problems, should prepare herself to
lighten her husband's burdens and help to solve his problems; that is
the truest way of bringing him to the place where he will be glad to
share her burdens with her as well as his o