Chapter 5: Meeting Difficulties Constructively 2. Emotional Upsets

People who learn not to give way to emotional tantrums are more successful in marriage. Angry behavior, which is considered crude in any social group, is even more out of place for those who love. The realization of this will prevent much misery on both sides. Tennyson in his poem "The First Quarrel" shows in a startling way how anger may distort the mind with a hard and dangerous bitterness.

Often people act on impulses of which they are not fully aware. We fall out, we know not why. Our emotions are disturbed by unrecognized causes. Because we are experiencing some inner tension we take it out on someone else, and the marriage partner is likely to be the one. If we suffer from loneliness, jealousy, lack of self-confidence or frustration, the inner condition puts into our words and acts a tension that may be quite out of accord with the real love which we have in our hearts.

Moreover, we may flare up over some little thing, mainly because it sets off some old habit of irritation. In childhood, perhaps, we were compelled by some person whom we did not like to wear rubbers at play; then on a damp morning wife lovingly insists that we wear them to the office. Before we know it the old habit of irritation at being told to wear rubbers has flared up and wife does not know why we react in that way. Neither do we in fact. It is absurd, of course, but when we think about it, we realize that such unconscious influences are often at the roots of our behavior.

Other unrecognized sources of emotional flare-ups are in the unpleasant experiences that people have out in the world. Without being aware of it, they sometimes carry the emotional results into their home life. A woman has had an unpleasant experience in a store, or a man has gone through a difficult half-hour with the boss. There was indignation but it could not be expressed at the time. Such a person is all the more ready to become annoyed over some trifle in the home. Sometimes, before we know it, this comes out in an unfortunate way.

Some families have difficulties because it is hard for them to adjust to the real world of practical married love. When their love was in a dream world they did not give thought to the fact that marriage would have such unpleasant things as bills to pay or leaky water pipes or a TV set out of order. It all seems so different from romantic dreams, and one may unconsciously take out on the other his resentment at these harsh realities.

Married people should realize that most of the flare-ups of the home are not really serious. We should be mature enough to dismiss them lightly, or, better still, we should be thoughtful enough to prevent them.

The husband and wife should realize in advance that if they find themselves occasionally at odds it will not mean that they are unsuited to each other but rather that they need to learn some new lesson in cooperation. Sometimes, like mountain climbers, they will scale the heights only after considerable care but will be supremely rewarded for their toil and trouble.

People who want to do everything to build up their marriage and nothing to endanger it will do well to cultivate every habit and custom which adds its bit of pleasure and so helps to keep a stream of satisfactory happenings flowing through the daily life.