" Spectator " Conference for Personal Problems
Unhappy Marriages
[The SPECTATOR Conference offers to readers a service of advice on personal problems in which they would like impartial help. The Editor has appointed a committee, the members of which are themselves engaged in the practical work of life ; in one way or another they have met and are meeting a great variety of problems in their own experience. They do not wish to be regarded as authorities : but they give their good will and their knowledge to all questions which are referred to them. Readers' inquiries are dealt with in strict confidence ; they are seen only by members of the Conferences, and replies are sent privately. Letters should be addressed to the Conference on Personal Problems, c lo The SPECTATOR, 13 York Street, Covent Garden, W.C. 2.] THE diary of Tolstoy's wife has shown, in all its acuteness, the problem of the unhappy marriage. Here was a great novelist, and (more than that) a great man ; he displayed in his writings an intimate knowledge of human nature and a very profound idealism ; yet none of his capacities secured him domestic happiness, and it seems as if his wife suffered from the very fact of his genius. It would be unreasonable to impute the blame either to Tolstoy or to his wife. If we look at their situation with psychological insight, we shall try only to see what were the causes which made two human beings suffer so gravely during the long period of their partner- ship.
It is natural to feel that Tolstoy was the greater being and therefore the responsibility for the failure of his marriage should fall upon him. We can see, too, that for all his knowledge of human nature there was something of wisdom lacking. In many ways he understood neither himself nor his wife. His knowledge was not knowledge in practice. But, if we look closer, we shall find that a responsibility of this sort is equally shared. A successful marriage is a joint creation, and no one partner can carry it entirely on his own shoulders.
From the beginning neither Tolstoy nor his wife had seen their marriage as a common task. Tolstoy had already shown her that she was not indispensable to him ; he had allowed her to read his most intimate diaries and to see that there were other women ir. his life. Indeed he had taken pains to draw the fact to her attention. And she, for her part, remained discouraged about her ability to win his love. She felt herself, in comparison, unskilled, without experience, incapable of fulfilling the feminine role with signal success. These circumstances were the foundation of all their later distress. She was jealous because she lacked the confidence of disinterested love. He, in his heart, held himself free and independent and never gave himself entirely to his marriage.
It is the very nature of a marriage that it is a communion : its pioblerns cannot be solved by the efforts of one partner only. Unless both of them can look upon their relations objectively, and try to build up a good marriage as a kind of artistic creation, they cannot be expected to succeed. Marriage may sometimes turn out well through a mere chance compa- tibility of aims. It is for this reason that where husband and wife have the same interest, and can aid each other in securing it—whether it be in religion or politics, business or friendship—. their personal relations are often pleasant and refreshing. The preliminary work of finding a common term between two diverse human beings has already been achieved.
Very great harm results from the romantic notion of marriage, in which the whole problem is taken to be the love of two human 'beings 'for each other. There is nothing objective to unite the two : there is no inclusive aim to which disputes may be referred. Each will try to find his whole justification in the eyes of the other. Each will regard the other, almost literally, as the whole world. They have isolated themselves from anything which would alleviate their personal intercourse, and it is impossible to prevent a marriage based on the ideal of perpetual romance from developing into a struggle for the- expressim pe,sonality.- Peoide who stake
everything on their marriage—their personal prestige, their success in life, their whole adaptation to the world—are put- ting it to an unfair strain. They are limiting the field of their activities, and demanding that in this limited field all the problems of the human soul shall find solution.
A marriage is not only a private interest ; it is also a social work. The more we make friends and acquaintances a party to our marriages, and the wider the realm in which our mar- riages have contacts with our external interests, the greater is the promise of success. Every husband and wife whose marriage has reached a critical stage, and who nevertheless desire to carry it through to a good conclusion, will be well advised to stop pushing the fact of their marriage too hard ; to develop their independent interests, to widen their inde- pendent contacts. The degree of tension which may be thrown on the marriage relation is almost incredible ; and the best hope for solving a crisis of marriage is that we should begin to solve some of the problems we have thrown upon it in other directions ; to meet with success the problems of works friendship, and family relations.
A tired business man will revenge himself on his wife for his reverses during the day. She will be the point from which he tries to get back the prestige he feels himself to have lost. A wife who has been disappointed of her early hopes will try to dominate her husband and improve her position at his expense. They will make their marriage a means of trying their strength. Every small crisis will become magnified, as if the whole welfare of the soul depended upon it They will even consider it predominantly important that each should force the other to acknowledge his worth and make everything else depend upon the success of their marriage.
A good adaptation in any other realm will immediately aid the prospects of marriage ; take the strain from it, and provide a general happiness, self-sufficiency and ease which will reflect themselves in personal relations. A common interest in children can prevent these neurotic tensions from arising. The parents are no longer isolated, and each can in a direct way aid and co-operate with the other. It is never useful, however, to advise unhappily married people to have children in order to relieve their bad personal relations ; at least unless they are really willing to find in their children a common reconciling interest and a common trust.
It should be especially stressed in our own days that; although sexual adaptation is important for a happy marriage, it is completely secondary : it is an effect, not a cause. The adaptation of modes of behaviour, style of living, character; mood, and aim, takes the first place: Sometimes sexual adaptation is looked on as if this were the means by which all relations could be improved ; the fact is entirely different. Sexual adaptation follows in the wake of personal 'sympathy, the feeling of equality and a community of aims and feelings.
Where there are difficulties which only one partner sees and tries to remedy, or where only one seems especially conscious of the need for changed relations, there is an especial urgency that he should refuse to see the situation as if his prestige were at stake and that he should refrain from testing the relation all the time to see if things are more to his liking. It still remains true that he will not achieve his end until both of them are equally willing to see the marriage as a common task ; but he must avoid all attempt to make this common task a matter of duty or obligation on the other side until it is spontaneously seen in such a light. Every- thing he wins must be worked for and must be worked for without any desire to assure himself prematurely of success. Indeed we might almost • say that as long as there is any tense hanging on to a marriage situation, as long as the prospect of failure has not been accepted with equanimity; there is little chance of an objective effort to see how much can be achieved.
LAii PiSkiin;
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