Holidays Apart, for Happy Marriages

Sun (Auckland), Volume IV, Issue 1052, 16 August 1930, Page 18

Holidays Apart, for Happy Marriages

HE test of a marriage is a vacation together,” once penned that seer of human nature, Honore Balzac. “Which is very true, only don’t put mar test!” adds Dr. Oscar Lea

Matthews. . Dr. Matthews, psychologist ana psychiatrist, seems to know all about marriage, judging from his books, and there is one ramification of this ab sorbing subject which may yet furnish material for a new book single 01 double vacations. Glance at the questionnaire which Dr. Matthews is preparing to mail to a number of representative married couples of his and his friends acquaintances: — Do you take your vacation together or apart? Why? Would you desire it otherwise it finances permitted? How was the most pleasant and beneficial vacation in your married life spent? Are you in favour of joint vacations or not? Why? “This may appear to be a very trivial phase of a serious subject, yet I am of the opinion that it is an im portant cog in the matrimonial wheel. The couple that sets out with the ‘until death do us part’ clause so securely rooted in their intentions as to include a week on the seashore or in the mountains are doing so at the peril of their happiness,” Dr. Matthews con tinued. For years this scientist has been peering into people’s minds looking for assets.

“Perhaps I should discuss the subject affirmatively!” he smiled half apologetically for his opening amazing statement. “I should say that a husband and wife who agree, and live by that agreement as far as possible, to take separate vacations in the summer have a better chance to make a go of their marriage than the inseparables. In fact, I believe this an item of such weight that modern brides and grooms should include the agreement in their pre-marital understanding. Then there will be no question or charge that either one is getting bored when he or she fares forth alone. “The whole thing, as I see it, is not a question of whether a husband or wife gets tired of the other; it is simply psychological education. In truth, husbands and wives are seldom conscious of the fact that many rough places would be ironed out if they could be absent one from another. Instead, they lay their growing indifference and boredom to the number of years they have been married. The stupidity of the other’s companionship is attributed to the dying down of the first flame. In reality, that fervoui can be prolonged indefinitely if it is administered to and not abused. An annual vacation, spent apart, will do

Husbands and Wives Who Go Separate Ways for Vacations Have Better Chance to Succeed in Matrimony, says Expert in Psychology.

more toward preserving interest and affection, mental and physical, than anything that I know. “Constant association wears a groove in personalities. Too much mutual experience is apt to rob companionship of its flavour. After a while husbands and wives get talked out of interesting and stimulating subjects if neither has a new experience or viewpoint which the other has not shared. Then, naturally, they turn i to the subjects that fray nerves and ! marriages. When vacations are spent : together their life is but a continuai tion of that at home, with a little ! change in background. They meet the same people, hear the same discussions, project the same differences of personality upon the other. They go away for a change—which should be the meaning of vacation —but do they get it? “The fact that when mentally unstrung individuals are taken to an institution for observance, they are seldom allowed to see those nearest and dearest to them argues for my belief that the benefit of a vacation lies in the complete discontinuance of relations lived under ordinarily. “One of the happiest married men that I have ever known confessed to me that summers spent apart were largely responsible for the success of his marriage. ‘When we separate,’ he said, ‘we go about turning that side of our personalities loose which must be restrained when we are puli ing in double harness. You know, those nameless and numberless things which are soft-pedalled because they irritate the other. For instance, lam a bachelor by nature; that is, as far as habits around the house are con cerned. I like to smoke and drop ashes on the floor and leave newspapers and magazines mussing up tables and chairs. I like to hang around the house in pyjamas when I have time. I realise that such things are offences against the taste of all good housekeepers, and so have learned to cut them out. But watch me on my vacation! I have an orgy of untidiness and am happy and satisfied to return to the old orderly order of things when I get back home. My wife has never been very talkative and has cultivated the habit largely to please me, but she says that when she hies off on her vacation she a! lows herself the privilege of being as dumb as an oyster during the whole time!’ ”

Dr. Matthews paused. “Lucky people those who have discovered that small eccentricities do little harm when allowed to run wild at intervals I am hoping to get many valuable suggestions concerning these vacations from my questionnaire returns. “The loosening of the marriage bond is one of the greatest concerns of the world today. What is undermining it? What can we do to strengthen it? These are the questions being asked from every quarter. It is altogether desirable that marriage unions should be wholesomely honest and real qr> that two partners will not be chained together In a hopeless bondage. To be entirely worthy, marriage must he a union not only gladly accepted but gladly maintained by each party to it. I venture the suggestion that 90 per cent, of marriage trouble lies in the fact that it is too close a corporation.

With these annual vacations apart, how about the danger of the “other half” falling in love with someone

else? This question was put to b, Matthews when he paused. Pr ’ “Some moderns would tell you th.. even an ‘affair’ is better than a Elm? stagnation of the marital bond but i am old-fashioned in regard to marriJ loyalty. However, a vacation atjeis worth even that risk. After alln marriage is worth preserving ; seizes every opportunity to phiUadS' In nine cases out of ten yoi wffl jkthat absence makes the heart gjJ? fonder instead of colder. Charmsft. crease and faults disappear under it magic of absence. This is one of ft! most beneficial sides to the separatevacation theory. Married people u-r only get a different perspective m each other when the viewpoint ft M longer a ’close-up,’ but they are anto get a different perspective on thenselves and marriage iu general. I hare recommended this treatment to of married people whose nnio-a seemed about to go on the rocks, ii such cases I recommend a year’s vaej. tion from each other. But this is a cure, while my plan for an ansa-j vacation :s a preventive. You kn»* what they say; ‘An ounce of preve> tion is worth a pound of cure'.” Dr. Matthews then pointed to ti» increasing number of retreats mj rest-cure resorts which are martamed individually for men or irony and whose patronage is drawn ahney entirely from the married ranks “A breakdown in health—impaired nerves —is often the only excuse aid chance of a temporary escape froa bonds which have become gaffing, if an annual separate vacation had been employed by many of these patients seeking rest cures, there would be no need of an excuse.

“When the general public is educated to the fact that whenever a husband and wife separate for the summer it does not necessarily mean that a divorce is pending and wbea the happily or unhappily married are educated to the fact tha by this mean! a divorce may be avoided, we may be a step closer to lowering the appalling statistics before us today.” In spite of the fact that he believes that habitude is apt to become tbe worst of corrosives, Dr. Matthews admits that there are some rare cases of married life where uninterrupted

companionship seems to strengthen rather than weaken the marriage bond.

“They are the eternal lovers, tbe made-in-heaven brand,” he says. “Tbe vital thing in their love is the oneness of it. Play is not play without the other, and vacations together only serve to keep the honeymoon halo bright. Let these privileged *ot1? pursue their way eternally together. They keep alive the faith in the rest of us that such a thing is possible Bat if you find yourself doubting that ytrar love was made in heaven, plan a separate vacation.”