od
intentions in the face of what might seem to be occasions for hurt
feelings.

A chief advantage of the married estate is its opportunity for
frankness. "Why doesn't his wife tell him of that unpleasant mannerism,
so he can correct it?" bears witness to the universal appreciation of
this function of married life. But if John nurses hurt feelings whenever
Mary punctures his vanity by suggesting that he presents to the world a
less than perfect front, Mary may soon lose courage and relinquish her
wifely job of husband improvement. Or the combination may be reversed.

Frankness must go clothed in tact. Stiff-minded people who are frank
only when angry lose their case before they present it. If the
expression of anger is to have its proper stimulative effect, it has to
be administered but rarely, and then in small doses. More has a
paralyzing effect on the recipient, producing a response in kind that
takes away the ability to think of anything except retaliation.

_9. Willingness to grow is the most necessary factor for success.
Marriage is a life program of going on together that requires
maturity; failure means that there is a holding on to childishness._

We are all immature at some points, but we can welcome opportunities for
growth, painful though they may be. The man and woman who find their
marriage yielding diminishing returns may be sure they are attempting to
hold it to an adolescent level. As this is an impossibility, they are
aware of increasing dissatisfaction. That does not mean they are
unadapted to each other. They are afraid to leave the known pleasures of
their first youth for the unguessed satisfactions of maturity, so they
try to stand still, hoping to keep their marriage, unchanged, in its
first stage of promise.

If both husband and wife accept maturing responsibilities as they come,
their marriage relationship will keep pace with their own development
and will therefore become increasingly satisfying to them. A truly
mature couple do not look back with longing to the early part of their
married life, but appreciate its value as a phase that led up to the
deeper content of each succeeding phase.

Having invested years, their youth and hopes, in their marriage, it
would be poor business for any couple to fail to follow up their initial
investment by putting in such small regular amounts of thought and
effort as will make a go of it. The difference between success and
failure is the hairline dif