Your Affectionate Godmother

by Elinor Glyn

And if he leaves her she must ask herself how she is in fault. She must never blame him. If she cannot discover that she is in fault at all, she is then in the position of the first magnet—and it is her misfortune; but misfortune can be turned into success by intelligence, and, with skill, a magnet can be recharged.

Now do you clearly understand this argument, Caroline? I hope so, because I have put it plainly enough to make you conscious of your personal responsibility in the matter of being able to retain your husband’s love. So we can get back to the subject of the vital importance of keeping his senses pleased with you. There are numbers of girls who at the end of a month of marriage have done, said, and looked things which they would have died rather than let their fiancés perceive, hear, or see, and yet who are much astonished and feel resentful and aggrieved because they begin to reap the harvest of their own actions in the fact of their husbands showing less love and respect for them.

How illogical! How foolish!

To please a man after marriage every attraction which lured him into the bond should be continually kept up to the mark, because there are, then, the extra foes to fight—the natural hunting instinct in man and the destroying power of satiety. How could a girl hope to keep her husband as a lover when she herself had abandoned all the ways of a sweetheart and had assumed little habits which would be enough to put off any man! If you have done everything a woman can possibly do to be physically and mentally desirable to your husband, and yet have failed to keep his love, you must search more deeply for the reason, and when you have found it, no matter how the discovery may wound your vanity or self-esteem, you must use the whole of your wits to remedy its result if you are unable to eradicate its cause.

He may have idiosyncrasies—watch them and avoid irritating them. He may have some taste which you do not share, and have shown your antagonism to. Try to hide this, and if the taste is not a low one try to take an interest in it. Try always and ever to keep the atmosphere between you in harmony.

If the lessening of your attraction for him has been engendered by the arrival of a stronger magnet on the scene, your efforts must be redoubled to replenish your own magnetic powers. You certainly will not draw him back to you by making the contrast between yourself and his new attraction the greater through being disagreeable. If he outrages your truest feelings, let him see that he has hurt you, but do not reproach him—not because you may not have just cause to do so, but because giving way to this outlet for your injured emotions would only defeat your own end, that of bringing him back to yourself.

You may be perfectly certain that if that aim of your being remains unchanged, and your love continues strong enough to make your methods vitally intelligent, you will eventually draw him away from anything on earth back to the peaceful haven of your tender arms. All this I am saying presupposing that you are “in love” with the man, and the greatest desire of your life is to keep his love in return.

But supposing that his actions kill your affection (this, though, is not so likely to happen as that your actions will damp his—because of that hunting instinct in man making him more fickle by nature)—but supposing it does happen that you find yourself utterly disillusioned and disgusted, then all you can aim at is to obtain peace and dignity in your home, and at least merit your husband’s respect, and the respect of all who know you. But this possibility I must leave the discussion of to another letter; it would be a digression in this one.

The magnet and the needle simile works both ways. If your husband ceases to draw your affection he will only have himself or his misfortune to blame—not you. We have been speaking of emotions hitherto, and of their impossibility of control—and to leave the discussion at that would open a dangerous door to those feather brains who never, if they can help it, look at the real meaning of an argument, but adapt it and turn it to fit their own desires. So I must forcibly state that, although the actual emotion in its coming or going is not under human control, the demonstration of it most emphatically is, being entirely a question of will. A strong will can master any demonstration of emotion, and it is the duty of either the young husband or wife sternly to curb all vagrant fancies in themselves, whose encouragement can only bring degradation and disaster.

I am confining myself now to enlightening you, Caroline, upon your own responsibilities. If your health should not be good use common sense and try to improve it—make as light of it as possible, and do not complain. It is such a temptation to work upon a loved one’s feelings and secure oceans of sympathy, but often the second or third time you do so an element of boredom—or, at best, patient bearing of the fret—will come into his listening to your plaints. If he is ill himself do not fuss over him, but at the same time make him feel that no mother could be more tender and thoughtful than you are being for his comfort. Do not be touchy and easily hurt. Remember he may be thoughtless, but while he loves you he certainly has no deliberate intention of wounding you. Be cheerful and gay, and if he is depressed by outside worries show him you think him capable of overcoming them all. Let your thoughts of him be always that he is the greatest and best, and the current of them, vitalized by love, will assist him to become so in fact.