--- title: Improvement Era description: Monthly periodical of the Mormon church, 1897 onward. This library holds the issues of November 1897 to December 1930. authors: - Jordan, William George collections: - periodicals tags: - magazine - improvement-era periodical: Improvement Era volume: 15 number: 8 published: 1912-06 publisher: Young Men’s Mutual Improvement Associations publisher_place: Salt Lake City language: en type: magazine reference: 'William George Jordan, "Little Problems of Married Life: X," *Improvement Era* 15, no. 8 (June 1912): 683–687.' source: url: https://archive.org/details/improvementera1508unse transcription: Transcribed from the Internet Archive scan of each issue (the item for each issue is named in the issue's own source); unnumbered advertising leaves are omitted, printed page numbers are kept as page markers. identifier: improvementera1508unse start_page: 683 end_page: 687 curator_note: The contents lists p. 683, but the supplied scan skips printed pp. 682–683; the surviving source text begins at p. 684. rights: status: public-domain basis: US publication 1930 or earlier (published 1912-06) source: https://archive.org/details/improvementera1508unse publication_year: 1912 note: The Internet Archive item metadata carries a blanket "© Copyright by Intellectual Reserve, Inc." notice. The library owner judged it inapplicable because this issue was published in 1912, before 1931; a scan-level notice does not restore copyright. --- # Little Problems of Married Life: X 684 IMPROVEMENT ERA It is not our days of greatest joy that we look back upon with most pleasure ; it is our time of struggle and effort, of concurred hardships, Qf pain outlived, of sorrow survived, of failure and of grief transmuted into something higher, truer, uplifting. It is when all these have grown fainter in the perspective of time, with their sharp angles dulled, that we recall them when we are in better conditions, and can then review them with even a peaceful sense of calm. Have you ever noted how successful men of business delight to tell the story of their early struggles? When gathered together in frank, easy talk, if one of them speaks of the days when stomach and purse were both empty, it will start a series of hardluck stories around the table. Each man seems to take a diver's pride in relating how far down he went, and how long he stayed under the waters of oblivion before coming to the surface. There is in these stories no note of bitterness or pessimism. They sing the inspiring, triumphant music of optimism, telling man's victory over obstacles, opposition, trial and poverty. We must all face trouble, care, sorrow, grief. It is how we face it, how we battle, how we stand the strain, that really counts. If we have a loved and loving one to stand gravely by us, for whom and with whom we can battle, heart to heart, made nearer and dearer by the united conflict, then we should feel we have been more than blessed. It is the lonely fight that is hardest. When no heart inspires us with the sympathy that is an atmosphere needing no words, when no hand reaches instinctively out to ours in the stillness and dartcness and meets ours in a clasp of inspiration and new strength — then the battlt is hard indeed. Plants grow most in the darkest hours preceding dawn ; so do human souls. Nature always pays for a brave fight. Sometimes she pays in strengthened moral muscle, sometimes in deepened spiritual insight, sometimes in a broadening, mellowing, sweetening of the fibres of character — but she always pays. Into every home come days when the clouds of trouble hang low, when sorrow shadows the doorway, when the hand of affliction tightens the heart-strings ; when the light of hope dims, flickers and darkens into despair ; when sickness comes, and its master, death, holds the trembling scale of life ; when our very LITTLE PROBLEMS OF M \kklli> LIFE 685 soul seems heavy with an untold grief. These are but some of the crises that husband and wife must meet — somehow. How they meet them rests solely with the tWO who must solve the problem. It cannot be met by others. S'»rn>w never recognizes a proxy vote. We must ourselves elect how we will meet our problems. \ period of business depression or failure, the loss of position, or other reverses, the cutting down of income and the many dangerous sequels to this dire disease, may bring the husband and wife face to face with a financial crisis. It is the entrance to a time of stringency, strain and sacrifice, with no exit made visible even by the telescope of optimism. It means a reconstruction of the home regime on siege lines. There is a reclassifying of household expenses and many of the luxuries are quietly removed from consideration, and many of the old necessities are promoted to the luxury class. Financing, in times such as these, rises from a mere science to the dignity of an art. and every dollar has to work overtime and do the duty of two or three. Chafing restrictions take the place of the old freedom, wants grow impudent and insistent, and a new atmosphere fills the home. It is a situation requiring slow, careful watchfulness as that of a sea captain, standing on the bridge of an ocean steamer and directing the snail-like progress of his ship under slow steam, through a heavy fog. There is danger of fretting, blame, recrimination, protest and lack of sympathy on the part of the wife, met by a tendency to coldness, crossness, bitterness, anger, hopelessness, sulks, sarcasm or despair on the side of the husband. When conditions are darkest it is no time for blame of either ; it is the hour when each should forget self in seeking to inspire the other. When conditions are darkest, the lamp of love should be kept burning brightest. This is an occasion where the two should pull together. You cannot move and guide a boat properly with one oar; it requires the two, on opposite sides, to move in harmony. A spirit of unselfishness, of making the best of things, of not taking trouble too seriously, of laughing away little inconveniences instead of erecting a monument of a moan to them, counting the blessings that remain, thinking more of the sal- 686 IMPROVEMENT ERA vage than of the loss, realizing" the sweet duty and privilege of the stronger to be brave for the sake of the weaker — all helps greatly in the crisis. Such an experience is not the most awful in the world. In the later days, if it has drawn the two into closer harmony and fuller realization of mutual dependence, it will be but a happy memory of an episode, the dawning of real living. They may even later laugh merrily over tht meagre Christmas dinner they had in their one" little room the year the factory failed, when they gave fancy French names to the simplest dishes and helped each other to wine that their imagination transformed from water, and gave orders in dignified society manner to the serving maid who did not exist, and did other brave, foolish little things to hearten each other. They had determined that this Christmas should not be sad, and they were almost afraid to look into each other's eyes for fear of breaking down. There were the extravagantly mendacious letters they wrote home about the building of the new wing to the house, their trouble with the servants, the parties they attended, the beautiful necklace her husband gave her on her birthday, when in reality all he could put around the throat he loved was nis arms with a clasp made of his hands, and the plays and operas of a New York season, just because they were too proud to let the old folks know and they were going to fight and to win together — somehow. Then there was that quaint, old German landlord who used to call every day for the unpaid rent and spoke with such peculiar phrases and half-digested idioms. It all seems tinged with humor now, but it was appallingly serious when they were living through -it. Its pathos and its sordidness and its tragedy have been sweetened and haloed by love, and transformed into joy in memory, because they pulled through the crisis together, and almost all they had in the world was just each other. These are the things that take the sting from memory and bring the strength and inspiration of out-lived sorrow, strain and struggle to lighten any future trials they may have to face. There are real sorrows that make mere poverty seem wealth by comparison. There is the standing together by the sick bed of a dear little one, in the hush of a dimly lighted room, watch- LITTLE PROBLEMS OF MARRIED LIFE 687 ing, waiting, fearing and hoping. Then come long days and longer nights when weak, worn and wearied, each looks for hope in the other's eyes, when all life is reduced to moments; when the light of hope dies and they face their gnat sorrow — together. Then must they meet the slow, creeping tide of long days of loneliness and emptiness of life when the thought of a child's laughter forever silenced brings a pang of, anguish that no mere words can deaden. The gentle mutual thoughtfulness, wistful watchfulness and tender-handed love of each ministering to the other lightens and lessens their journey through this Gethsemane in the lives of two. When the mantle of disgrace falls on the shoulders of some one near to both husband and wife, and a hurt pride and a wounded sense of honor threatens to leave an ugly scar, when their natures seem to grow bitter and resentful at this pain and shame coming to them who are innocent, then together must they meet it and, together, must each be a source of strength to the other. There are crises, too, where misunderstandings, begun as a trifle, augmented by that clever circumstantial evidence that so deftly fits into a theory, shake the foundations of faith, and doubt wedded to suspicion kills confidence. Then a calm conference, holding the balance of judgment suspended in the firm hand of love, listening to explanations without bitterness, seeking only truth with the wisdom that does not translate, perhaps, an innocent imprudence into a crime may help to tide over an unhappy episode that assailed the whole future of both. Faith and trust and love, to be worth anything, should be ready and equal to any emergency. They should never surrender if a ray of hope remains. Trust should be like a life-boat, designed not for sunshine and calm, when the bright blue sky is unflecked by a cloud ; but when darkness, storm and tempest make troubled seas. The spirit of unity that pulls together through a crisis has little to fear for its happiness in any of the situations that may arise in the life of the home. ["The Danger of Summer Separations" is the title of the next article in this series.]