Little Problems of Married Life XVIII

Little Problems of Married Life/

BY WILLIAM GEORGE JORDAN

XVIII — The Incubus of Constant Faultfinding. Job, the patriarch of sublime patience, suffered many grievous trials and sorrows, ingeniously selected by Satan to compass his downfall, but he was mercifully spared one supreme test a wife — with a talent for nagging. It is true that his wife was indiscreet on one occasion and offered him some unwise advice, but this may have been only the impulsive outburst of her love, her loyalty, her sympathy, her protest, and that desperation we feel when we see some one we love suffer while knowing we are powerless to help. But she did not fuss, and fume, and fret, and fury, and find fault from dewy morn till darkening eve had she done so, samples of ;

her method would surely have been entered on the record. She must have been a wonderful woman, Job's wife, and she has never received the credit and honor she deserved. She won no medal nor no crown in history. She never made a single personal complaint her one emotional explosion was for her husband, ;

not for herself, yet she suffered the sudden death of her seven sons, the fortune swept away, the stealing of the cattle and the camels, the burning of the sheepfold, the murder of the servants, — and, in fact, everything that Job suffered except the boils and the three friends. It was not to her, but to this nagging visiting committee of three, that he cried out in agony of soul and righteous resentment and rebellion he could not restrain "Ye break :

me to pieces with words." Constant faultfinding is an intoxication of the tongue that has destroyed more homes than drink. It is an insidious evil, so innocent in the beginning, yet it may bring every other source of unhappiness in its trail, and two who have loved and should love may mourn over a dead happiness slain by discord that one or the other should have prevented by self-control. To keep the air of the home sweet, wholesome and life-giving does not require two angels or two saints, but just two human beings with sense enough to realize that nagging is foolish, unnecessary, cruel, and that it does not pay. In an atmosphere of constant faultfinding, real respect for each other soon dies, every good impulse is dwarfed, every effort discouraged, every spontaneity stifled, love is killed and, goaded to desperation, with misunderstandings multiplied beyond the bear-

copyright, 1910, by Fleming H. Revell Company.

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ing point, two finally become separated in everything that means unity, though they may still present the semblance of union to their friends and to the world. If there be one place on earth where peace should reign that place is— the home. It should ever be an unfailing sanctuary from the struggle, stress and storm of the world. When conditions are reversed and the world becomes a refuge from the home, then the death of love and all possibility for happiness becomes inevitable unless there be speedy reorganization in the home partnership. That home is doomed to disruption from within like a ;

nation bravely meeting foreign aggression, but having dissension within, it will finally be broken by internal revolution. The husband honestly and earnestly seeking to furnish the funds for the home on as liberal a scale as he can may have a faultfinding wife, discontented, unsympathetic, unappreciative of his efforts, selfishly thinking only of her own desires. Nothing that he can do ever satisfies and he may have to face at each homecoming the eternal money discussion and argument. It dominates the dinner-table, overflows into the evening session and rises with new force at breakfast time, a depressing, nagging influence that saps spirit and energy in meeting the business problems and duties of the day. If there be a temporary lull, a brief spell of sunshine, he feels ever a sense of apprehension like a canoeist on certain mountain lakes who realizes that a squall may come at any moment. He enters the house with dread he remains in fear he ; ;

leaves it with relief. There is not a subject on earth that he can venture to introduce without feeling that her ingenuity will find in it some opening for a monologue of complaint, a slur of condemnation, a mood of censure, an irritating pose of martyrdom or some other of the roles in her elaborate repertoire of faultfinding. If he ventures to remark that the evening papers say there will probably be a general war in Europe she loses sight of the awful horror of the thought in her remark about the expense of it "No one can understand better than I what war must cost, when it takes so much money to run a house." This becomes the text for a sermon on his failure as a money-maker and his inferiority to the man next door. The suggestion of the high flight of an airship gives her the chance for a sudden transfer to "the high cost of living." The barbaric treatment of women among savages makes her remark with an undertone of personal significance that would be humorous were it not so maddingly serious "Yet the women of :

America suffer terrible things, too, and they are silent about it." If on some other occasion after looking in every direction for storm signals, thinking that now at least he is safe, he may hazard the information of a new submarine that has made wonderful

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descents, he may suddenly be jostled from his self-complacency as he hears the warning preface: "For years I have known what it means to be down in the depths. I can sympathize with them."

He soon puts himself in the attitude of a careful chess-player who mentally moves every piece on the board and studies all its new possibilities before making the actual move. He thinks of the radiation of every phrase before he speaks it, but even then, some seemingly innocent sentence may hardly have passed his lips before he hears what means "check" to his soul. He may hear: why did he marry her? she had everything in life at home her sister's husband has just put through a new deal ;

the people in the corner house have bought an automobile; she reminds him constantly that she sacrificed so much in taking him when there were so many other better candidates. It requires heroic self-control for him to resist saying what he feels at this point, but he may find it prudent not to put into her hands fresh

ammunition for future assault, when she will quote the fatal phrase of his outburst while forgetting, or even denying in her own mind, that she gave the slightest provocation. When this faultfinding reaches a chronic state, though he might have done much in the earlier stages, now it seems he can do nothing. No matter what action it takes it proves to be the wrong one. The cards seem stacked against him so that he must lose. His explanations are riddled and ridiculed and mean simply new points of attack his tenderness may be construed as a ;

weak admission of the right of all she says and of the justice of her siege his arguments are all mowed down by the avalanche of ;

her unreason his indignation bursting bonds may break into ;

angry protest that brings a cascade of tears at "this new suffering." In sad despair he may valiantly try silence, determining to say nothing no matter what it costs him in self-control. This gives her a free field for a little while until she suddenly becomes conscious of the lack of return fire that seems like shelling a deserted city. Then she may become aggravated to say something specially stinging to draw some spark of response from the flint of his silence. He may at last sadly feel that absence from home is his only resource, and accept quiet outside if he cannot peace at

home. In his desperation he may care nothing for the outcome; — he simply lets go and drifts. It may be the wife who suffers all this or some similar brand of nagging from her husband. She lives in a state of terror of his moods, grows old before her time, loses her spirit, her sweetness and her interest in life. She feels as hopeless and helpless as a leaf in the tempest of his faultfinding. Her battle with herself during the day to be thoughtful, kind and forgiving and to meet the storm in the best way she can may be nullified in a few

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moments when her good resolutions and her plans for patience and prudence are suddenly laid low as a cyclone levels a town. Some little thing she worked over for days for his pleasure or comfort may be ignored, treated with contempt or even condemnation for wasting her time. Her powers of endurance are killed by a sneer cruel as a blow. His grumbling at the food, at the house, at the servants and at her may finally "get on her nerves" so she feels she cannot keep still. She feels like an electric machine, vibrating at a tremendous velocity, and that any moment she may fly to pieces. She, 'like Job, knows what it means to be "broken to pieces with words." And then he may lapse into cold, bitter sarcasm that seems to suffocate her, words that bite like an acid into her consciousness they are unanswerable ;

in their form, cruelly, cowardly, contemptibly unjust in their spirit. They blight everything that is best in her nature, they shrivel every good impulse. She hates this sarcasm with an intensity of soul she cannot express and she may soon hate him.— He is venting his temper on her, getting the relief of the outburst in a degrading tyrannical way he would not dare to do at his club or at his business with customers though he would doubtless make helpless clerks his victims. He masters it for dollars at his store, why does he not conquer it for peace at home? A mislaid collar-button, that he forgets he himself lost in the morning, may be sufficient to convert a home into an inferno in a few moments. Such a man, too, smiling and gay with his guests, may say in the course of a dinner a number of mean, vitriolic things in the way of slurs and allusions, that fall innocently on unknowing ears, but which the wife knows are aimed with deadly intent at her. He is shooting from a masked battery, with a silencer on his gun and with smokeless powder, but as each shot finds its mark, she may hear herself talking automatically to the guest she is entertaining, hardly conscious of what she is saying, because of the pain in her heart, and the very air of the room seems tp grow stifling she is humiliated by the shame of it and she wants to get ;

away, somewhere, anywhere, and to be alone. Faultfinding, when it is the atmosphere of an individual life, is but an assertion of intense selfishness, it is seeing things only from one's own standpoint and expressing the feeling of discontent, dissatisfaction or protest that things are not goinsr as we wish, that the universe is not run on our schedule. Faultfinding is the father of all the bad tempers. We sometimes sneak of anger as if it were the onlv telnper when it is merely one of them. Tempers are the indispositions of the mind, the emotions, and the will. There are many : scolding, complaining, nagging, fretting, grumbling, fuming, whining, sulking, pestering, fussing, moping, sneering, snarling, opposing, arguing, and the others. The fault primarily rests not with conditions but with the subject, the indi-

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vicinal himself or herself. It does not need a reason, an excuse it creates a wrong if one does not exist. It is often -

will suffice ;

the spontaneous combustion of a mood or a temperament that needs no outside conditions to start its fire it burns because it is ;

its nature to burn and everything is food for its tongues of flame.

There are times when, merely in an acute form, it means only tired nerves, illness of body or of mind, a little touch of loneliness or the blues, the burden of anxiety and strain on the part of the wife or of financial pressure, worry, or business cares that fret and chafe on the part of the husband. Then it should be borne pa- tiently, sweetly, soothingly, with gentle forbearing and forgiving and forgetting as the mother bears the irritability and peevishness of a sick child. But if it becomes chronic it means wantonly kill- ing the happiness of both. Sometimes the wife, through her love and loyalty and with the best intentions, wounds and wearies her husband by her per- sistent remonstrances, entreaties, and pleading and complaints, bringing up constantly new arguments on the same old theme. There are certain subjects upon which the two find they cannot agree, each new discussion intensifies misunderstandings, yet one or the other constantly reopens them. There should be an absolute quarantine on these topics they should be consigned forever ;

to the realm of the unspoken, in the best interests of both. There are some people who hoard up petty grievances as a miser does gold coins and take a strange satisfaction in turning them over and studying them in detail, giving them new dignity, power and exaggerated value. We should cultivate the talent for fine forgetting, banishing forever the disagreeable from our life. our speech and our thought, if experience shows it cannot be cured. If it can be cured it should be cured and — forgotten. We never truly forgive if we let ghosts of regret haunt a memory. Men and women who have nagging tempers are often blissfully unconscious of it. Were it called to their attention they would in most cases file some alibi of explanation or interpretation that reveals their self-delusion. The wife feels that she is a martvr, that no one realizes how much she has to suffer — she forgets that most of it is of her own creation. She may even wonder why there is continuous discord in the home she may recount her good ;

qualities and as she tearfully checks off the items vou may agree with her in every instance, but she somehow overlooks the fact that her tongue and her temper have made all these virtues count for nothing. The sterling qualities of 'her character simply intensify the sadness of it all the greater the value of a building and the ;

finer arrl richer its treasures the greater the loss when it is fed to the flames. Th p husband mav expand hi<; chest as though it were covered with medals when he tells ho.w bountifully he provides for the

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home —why does he not provide happiness He says he ? is strictly temperate —why does he not introduce quality this into his language He never smokes — why does he not ? no worse realize it is to smoke than fume to He never goes ? bad company — why does in he not get away from himself occasionally? He popular among is men who know him— why does he not try be popular home to at ? He sucessful is business — why does he not make in home a his success ? Constant faultfinding means death to the happiness of both. It is hopelessly foolish, too, for no man or woman was ever converted from a fault, failing or weakness through nagging. It rouses the worse side of human nature, stubbornness, bitterness, opposition it never stimulates nor inspires the better side. ; Man responds better to an ideal to live up to than an evil to live down. Praise for good accomplishes more than blame for evil. If you tell a child that she has beautiful hair and a little care will make it more beautiful you have touched through praise the secret spring

of her pride. If you tell her constantly how horrid and disorderly her hair looks she is apt to grow defiant, reckless and uncaring. The same philosophy applies to us older folks. Where there be any habit of husband or wife that displeases, a word of praise on some occasion where it seems mastered for the moment, spoken with no reference to its being an exception, may accomplish wonders by inspiring pride without wounding. Nagging can only be cured in the individual by self-control. It must be mastered, or happiness and all hope of it will die. Love, comradeship, conference and trust in married life will banish it and bring sweet peace, confidence and harmony in its stead.

["Talking Business Matters at Home" will be the next topic in this series.]

Purity

Look not to lust, but hope and trust That you may strength be given, Both night and day, at work or play, To live the laws of heaven; Then, in the hour of Satan's power, Your faith will never fail, But stronger grow, as on you go To realms beyond the veil. M. A. Stewart. MESA. ARIZONA