that requires a
drastic change of personality._

Nobody can suddenly change his personality at will, and the effort to do
so to please the partner is liable to result in a topheavy hypocrisy--a
superstructure calculated to impress the observer, but built on a shaky
foundation of chaos.

The changes a husband or wife makes in the partner's total personality
are in the nature of altered emphasis in the expression of traits
already present. These minor changes occur as by-products of active
response to the personality of the mate in many small daily contacts,
and not as a result of exhortation. Nor are they necessarily permanent.
A chameleon changes color easily to match its environment or temper of
the moment, but a human being's more lasting change is not so readily
made.

Each marriage partner must be proud of the other and let the other
continue to be proud of him or her. Therefore you have to respect
yourself and act as if you did, even at home. Too many couples exploit
the sense of let-down that marriage brings with it. After so long a
time, husband and wife cease to feel that they must exert themselves for
each other in little matters. Knowing themselves accepted, they
lounge--mentally, mannerly, and physically--when at home or elsewhere
alone together. Some of this relaxation is a good thing, but it is a
mistake to let home and spouse degenerate into nothing more than an
invitation to be lazy.

Using the mate for relief, as in nagging, whining, crying, or grumbling,
is taboo. If you are tired or irritable, you can rest or exercise for
restoration, as in the days before marriage. To pour out troubles or
act out annoyance without restraint before the mate is to wear out his
or her spontaneity and dry up the source of refreshment you are trying
to tap. Fatigue and nervousness, expressed, breed fatigue and
nervousness in a sympathetic audience.

_4. Too great concentration is to be avoided. Even the greatest love
stagnates if it is kept out of the main current of life. To care only
for each other is selfishness for two, only one step removed from
self-centered engrossment._

This is why the unique value of children is their service as an entering
wedge in the close-grown love of husband and wife, a wedge that widens
and holds forever wider the unity of love it has penetrated. Other
responsibilities, other interests, may serve a similar purpose, though
more easily dislodged and seldom striking so deep.

Frien