If You Want to Keep Your Husband... Don't Resist His Whims!

They call me "the expert in matrimonial affairs," and the reason for it goes back to the success of my married life with Humphrey Bogart. As if understanding depended on one of the two parties alone! When love hovers over a marriage and both partners consent to give up some of their demands, living together cannot but yield the best results.

When I married Humphrey in 1945, the newspapers of that day set about calling me a fool — especially as Humphrey had already been married three times, and I was the fourth. That happened ten years ago.

Today those same papers look upon us with admiration and respect, saying: despite the great difference in age ("and here I must make clear that my husband is twenty-five years older than I am"), they are absolutely the happiest married couple in the artistic world!

The greatest credit for this harmony belongs to my husband, and that is for his choosing me as his life's partner. For I am a woman of many faults: I am selfish and quick-tempered. He has borne with me patiently from the very beginning, and had I married a young man of my own age, I do not doubt for a moment that he would have returned me to my mother on the second day! But to Humphrey my faults are endearing — and that only because, as he puts it, I understand his faults and accept them.

I am not exaggerating when I keep saying that we live in a paradise of our own making, composed of our beautiful house with its swimming pool, of our two children whom we worship, and of a little band of friends. I have consecrated to Humphrey a third of my existence, and I shall consecrate to him the remaining years of my life.

My husband is not even handsome, nor has he any of the qualifications of the first hero of my dreams; and yet for all that he is worthy of love... for besides his patience he carries one of the most generous and noble of hearts, and a light spirit of which I hope I have absorbed a great deal after this long time we have lived together!

I have counted up my faults, and these same faults carry virtues within them, among them the capacity for quick adjustment, which has enabled me to frame a private philosophy of marital relations that I keep for my own use. It is this: I rarely cross my husband — not because right is always on his side, but because crossing a man annoys him and makes him quick to anger; likewise I avoid opening to him the household matters that weary men in general. And I restrain myself from asking him how he feels when he wakes from his sleep — he knows better than anyone, and besides, there is a mirror in the house that spares him the question.

I am not one of those women who believe in the existence of a ready-made recipe for living happily. Apart from my dislike of that kind of recipe, I hold the firm belief — and Humphrey himself shares it with me — that every individual must give his personality room to take shape, and this is what we have applied in our married life. A woman ought to help her husband, provided the help does not come in a form visible to the eye, so as to make her partner feel that she is a part of him and of his world. And she should not forget to praise him from time to time — saying to him, for instance, "You are right, my dear," or "How right you were this evening," or "Sit in this chair, it is comfortable." These things may be simple in themselves, but they gratify a man's pride..!

What do you say, Madam?!