Chapter 30: A Mirror
A MIRROR
MARRIAGE turns out to be a mirror. Each reflects the other, which is bound to be in some degree painful, for none of us can bear too much reality at once. A budgie in Australia named Tweetie Pie saw himself in a mirror hung near his cage, and had to be given tranquilizers because the revelation made him screech at night, fight imaginary enemies, and curl up in a corner of the cage.
Marriage is for most people the first experience in adulthood of common life —of the daily, ordinary, humble doing of duties in close contact with and mutual dependence on another person. Few have had to take responsibility on a day-to-day basis until they marry. A college roommate may have provided a little practice, but precious little housekeeping and probably no cooking or money managing were included. These are hard realities and if marriage is the first chance you have to face up to them you may make the mistake of blaming on marriage itself, or on your spouse, difficulties which are simply a part of adult life. Life has a lot of humdrum in it. You’ve never faced much of it alone, and when you start facing it together it’s no wonder that weakness and sinfulness will be disclosed. No wonder there are surprises. You’ll be catching glimpses of yourself in a mirror.
You have had some practice in the routines of living. You have planned, shopped for, and cooked meals in the past couple of years and you have done it well. But it is another matter to plan, purchase, and cook twenty-one meals a week, for fifty-two weeks. You have earned and managed your own spending money for several years, but to have to budget and carefully spend the money somebody else has earned, and make it last for two of you for a month and then for twelve months is quite a different thing.
And in such earthly matters you will be tested. You will see yourself in this context as you have not seen yourself before. You will see yourself through your husband’s eyes and that will be a revelation. Sometimes you will see faults in him. It is quite likely that you are seeing in him faults you need to work on in yourself.
If you are depressed, you may notice that he is depressed. If you make it a point to be cheerful, it may surprise you what a difference it makes in your husband when he has good reason not to be cheerful. You can create a climate for him according to your attitude, and this is part of your job as a wife. The home you make and the atmosphere of that home is the world he comes back to from the world of his work. Let it be a place of beauty and peace.