Page 9 - I Will Make You Happy

For Bridal and Married Couples

can I change my behaviour?“ You should rid yourself of your sensitivity
and be able to put up with it when your partner exposes your weak-
nesses or faults. It is no use being annoyed about something perhaps
for years, making a long face whilst your partner does not know why
you are sulky or wrap yourself in silence. There can be no improvement
this way. This will much more likely gnaw at your mutual love or make
your partner give up, causing the corners of his mouth to sag down-
wards at “twenty past eight” in a few years' time. Again, here too a calm
conversation that will only let you recognise and understand the other
person more deeply. Nothing of the respect will be lost, on the contrary.
Indeed, it is always a togetherness – helping each other and making
each other holy.

You have no right to order your partner around – to lord it over him or
bend him according to your own ideas and habits. You should leave
him his personality. You are not allowed to rob him of his freedom of
developing his own personality.

It is certainly praiseworthy to also adopt for yourself the good traits and
fine behaviour of the other person; each of you enters into marriage
with a lot of “richness,” but you bury a great deal in the other person if
you do not show an interest in your partner, if you do not take the time
to give him your full attention. You gain little sympathy if you show off
and think that you should be the centre of attention. Do not take your-
self too seriously. In marriage everything must be done with and for
each other. Each thinks for the other, then both and all are provided
for. In this way each will feel secure and supported. In this way you offer
your child true homely warmth and security allowing him to thrive and
develop his own personality.

The child senses in his tender soul when his parents do not get along
well together – he feels the tensions when parents do not say a single
word to one another or when only spiteful words are spoken – when
they simply live separate lives. You cannot keep this secret from your
child, neither can you justify it. He will not be able to express in words
this negative atmosphere but will suffer from it.

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