—Try to look at yourself objectively. Try to do so especially in connection with your relations with others. Are you reasonable rather than prejudiced? Can you recognize that a man may be a fine person even though he is a Republican or a Democrat, that he is a good person even though he may be a Protestant or a Catholic? Do you honestly try to make decisions on the basis of facts rather than on the basis of feelings, or imaginary facts that are more agreeable to you? Sit down every few weeks and try deliberately to look at yourself as others must see you. Would you like yourself if you were someone else?
—Learn to laugh at yourself. The person who can laugh at himself, or who can laugh at the things he loves and continue to love them, is the person who is most likely to have insight into himself. And that insight is important in emotional maturity. If you have a sense of the ridiculous you can see fun in many of your own activities, and in doing so are able to relax and feel happy. You learn to laugh at your troubles, yet at the same time do your best to improve the situation. This ability to see the ridiculous side acts as a cushion and helps you maintain your stability, even when things are most exasperating.
—Set up a confidential relationship with some other person. Telling your problems to another person helps you define the problem in your own mind, it furnishes relief from the tensions you have built up, and it brings another person’s point of view into the picture. One of the biggest single values in marriage is the fact that it provides husband and wife a confidant in each other, and gives them the confidential relationship that is so important to mental integration.
—Seek work that satisfies you. Nothing will prevent you from getting a hold on your emotions more than being confined every day to work that is disagreeable to you. If you find it is uninteresting or doesn’t challenge you or doesn’t offer any opportunity as a stepping stone to more challenging work, change jobs. But do it intelligently, because the person who is a frequent job-jumper is not a good marriage risk.
Recently we talked to a man who is forty-four years of age. He had been divorced once, is now unhappily living with a second wife, wants to divorce her and marry a third woman. His job record shows that he has held thirty-nine different jobs in his life. Is it any wonder that he is unlikely to find happiness or stability in life? He does not know what he wants, can’t learn from experience, and is pursuing a will-o’-the-wisp.
—When you have a problem face it squarely. Define the problem, get all the facts, and line up alternative solutions in case the first course isn’t successful. Many people seem incapable of defining their problems. When they are faced with a frustrating situation, they frequently are unable to vary their attack upon it. When a girl can’t get her way she cries. Crying may bring her some reduction of tension, but it does not solve the problem. The emotionally mature person can keep his head, figure out something to do, but the immature person gives up or cries or gets drunk.
We have devoted so much more space to your emotional age than to the other four ages—physiological, mental, vocational and sexual—because it is so fundamental to marriage success. If you find after reading this chapter you want to know more about developing your own maturity, you will find further suggestions in the chapters “Getting Along with the Other Sex,” “Attracting the One You Want,” and “Crucial Traits for Marriage Happiness.”
When all the five “ages” are taken into consideration it would seem that a girl should not consider marriage until she is at least nineteen or twenty and the man should not before he is twenty-one or twenty-two. Those are minimum ages for normal men and girls. Those who develop slower than average in any of the five ages should try to wait a year or two longer before deciding about marriage.