the backbone to accept what comes and do something
about it, this type of person wants to give up as soon as the going gets
rough, and daydreams about making a better start elsewhere.

What are the parts of the marriage experience that bring out this
disposition of wanting to run away in order to try again? The romantic
love that marks the early part of marriage is a characteristically
youthful attitude. Each spouse idealizes the other and pictures their
life together as something almost unique in its perfection. Stimulated
by the mate's expectations, each one rises about his or her previous
habits of behavior, and for a while the two seem indeed to be finer and
better than the general run of humankind.

In time the first flush of enthusiasm wears off, and the husband and
wife gradually get to see each other more nearly as other people see
them. For those who flinch from reality, this is as bitter an experience
as any of the other hard parts of growing up. For nobody is it easy. But
for all who face it squarely, it is a big step toward emotional
maturity.

Without hastening the process, and thereby losing most of its benefits,
one can learn to accept it little by little, as it comes. The wife who
seemed the most beautiful or most gracious woman imaginable, the husband
who was looked upon as the strongest or cleverest man in the world,
slowly loses this impossible glamour and shrinks to the life size
proportions of a real man or woman.

When one catches a glimpse of oneself in the estimation of the newly
married spouse, and realizes how far the idealized picture is from the
somber reality one has grown up with, it is easy to think, "I am made
different by this love that expects so much of me, and if I am not yet
quite so wonderful as my beloved thinks me, I shall soon become so, for
this expectation spurs me to hitherto unimaginable efforts."

Something of this improvement does take place--but then, to the chagrin
of the one trying to improve, it becomes increasingly clear that the
original expectations of the mate are being lowered in the direction of
one's actual present level of attainment. Surprisingly enough, by the
time one is sure of this, it is not disturbing in the way one would have
expected, for one's own impression of the mate is also coming down to
earth.

At first this descent from the clouds of fanciful exaggeration of the
loved one to the lesser status of everyday life seems more or less
tragic, as