ct. What you hate you cannot understand, because you
are ready to believe all evil of it, and unprepared to perceive its
good. Therefore surrender all grudges, jealousies, and feelings of
contempt. Emotions of enmity distort one's vision and impel one toward
actions and words that are not wise. When one person feels resentment
against another, the other is likely to feel resentment in return. This
intensifies the first resentment, and so the hatred grows. Someone has
to break the vicious cycle. Don't wait for your marriage mate to take
the first step if this joy-destroying process has started in your home.
Forgive and forget. Let good will take the place of antagonism in your
own consciousness, even though your mate continues to carry on the old
grudge for a while.

_2. Eliminate needless irritants and antagonizers._ Make a careful and
thorough study of the things that are hurting, distressing, or thwarting
your mate. Here is a check list which includes some of the most frequent
annoyers in married life.

Stop criticizing your mate--above all in the presence of other people,
but also in private.

Carefully avoid every action or situation which makes your mate feel
inferior, or which brings him unnecessary failures, even in small
things. Don't insist on playing bridge if he a poor player; don't
cultivate witty conversations with brilliant people if he feels like a
dub in such company; don't throw him into contrast with people who are
stronger, more successful, or better educated than he; avoid those
situations in which you demonstrate your own superiority over him.

Study to eliminate the topics of conversation which are annoying to him:
stop bringing up the subject of his shiftless relatives, the time he
went bankrupt, the occasion on which he made a fool of himself, or that
political or religious question on which you always quarrel.

Replace those items of household equipment which keep causing
unnecessary pain, labor, and irritation: that leaky faucet, that
worn-out washing machine, that broken light switch, that asthmatic
vacuum sweeper, that torn rug, that decrepit snow shovel, that
ready-to-be-junked lawn mower.

Avoid inflicting unnecessarily on your mate people or pastimes which
bore him. Don't drag him to teas or to concerts or to prize fights if
these events pain and torture him.

Form the habit of keeping all appointments with your mate on the
punctual minute. But (unjust as this may seem) do not dema