f
its expression in romantic interludes, are the ones who can afford to
smile at the anxiety of those newly married husbands and wives who are
terror-stricken at any lessening of the outward expressions of love.

Another terrible moment that is due to come may seem even more
frightening because it is you who are slipping. Soon or late you find
that some familiar mannerism of your spouse displeases you. It may be a
slight uncouthness at table, a peculiar back-country phrase or
pronunciation, some gesture of timidity or swaggering. Once you loved
it as a part of the individuality of the person you fell in love with.
Now it vexes you. And your vexation terrifies you. Does this mean that
you no longer love your mate as you did? You cannot help your change of
feeling. How, then, can you hope to keep your affection from
disappearing altogether if it has already begun to wane? You remember
other people you once thought you loved, and wonder, panic-stricken, how
you can keep this love from dying as those other loves did.

This is probably an almost universal experience, marking, not the
beginning of the end of love, but the passage from an adolescent type of
blind devotion to a more mature affection that persists in spite of
being able to admit the flaws it sees. For the very young a person must
register one hundred percent or be rejected. Maturity brings recognition
of human imperfections in the most heroic, but also develops the ability
to weigh big and little things and to love with more confidence because
unafraid of being disturbed by little imperfections.

Now that you can see your mate more clearly, you should also be able to
see more accurately his, or her, good points, which before were hidden
from you in the mist of your enthusiasm. Your love is now becoming less
self-centered and more helpful to your partner.

_6. There can be no holding on to the present nor seeking to bring back
the past. Each moment is new and good in itself._

The tale is never told. Always it is the unturned page the holds the
answer to the question, "How goes it with this marriage?" The present is
useful only as a foundation stone for the future, which is being built
up out of many fleeting present moments, each quickly lost in the past.

Trying to convince yourself that you still feel a kind of love you have
outlived prevents your growing into the more mature kind of love that
fits your present stature and prepares for the needs of the fu