How to Save This Marriage

Is love alone a sufficient guarantee of a happy marriage?

When she visited me yesterday I could hardly believe that she was the very same Suad who had been my dearest friend in our school days! She is now thin, pale, her personality broken down—and I had known her before her marriage, ten years ago, brimming with vitality and health, happiness shining on her face... What has become of her?

She loved him: When Mounir came forward to ask for her hand, her friends and her neighbors envied her for him. He was a university man of a well-known family, handsome of appearance, and of refined company in Beirut society. And above all this, he loved her—loved her to the point of madness—and she returned his love. They now have three children, two boys and a girl; their material circumstances are not bad, and all the signs indicate that this family is happy. So why is it not happy?

Suad's point of view: It was not easy to draw Suad out to reveal all the sorrows boiling in her breast. But one thing I made certain of from the start: she is without doubt “miserable”—miserable in the utmost sense of misery. And the cause of her misery, it seems, comes down to a simple matter: ever since her marriage she has lived with her husband's family, made up of his mother and his sister, and all she asks is to live with her husband and her children in an independent home; for throughout these ten years she has never felt herself the mistress of a house, with a will of her own and the freedom to decide her own domestic affairs and the upbringing of her children. And what wounds her pride is the difference in culture between her and her husband's family; she is a woman of high culture, and amid the confusion, disorder, and pretension that reign in the house she has nearly lost her culture and the beauty of her personality as a lady, as a wife, and as a mother! Had her mother-in-law and her sister-in-law acknowledged her superiority to them and yielded to her the position of

Dear reader: Do you agree with me in condemning the husband as the one responsible for saving his marriage? Write to me with your opinion—above all if you disagree—and state your reason. Your magazine's editors welcome your opinion...

(Continuation of “How to Save This Marriage”)

command, the matter would have been easy, and Suad would have regarded them as her own mother and sister; but the family situation as it now stands is unbearable.

Who is responsible? The first and last responsible party, in Suad's view, is her husband, for he knows these things full well. It is true that at first he used to promise his wife that he would open an independent home for her, but the problem grew more tangled with every new baby that came. In her moments alone with her husband, Suad would pour into his ears the cares of her heart, begging and imploring him to move her and her children to an independent home—let it be two small rooms—because she wants to be given the chance to bring up her children in a calm family atmosphere, untroubled by the clash of opinions and the fruitless disputes...

And Mounir would promise her that he would grant her request: “In two months, my darling... there is a deal about to go through... and soon you shall have everything you desire...” With promises like these her husband would quiet her rebellion and soothe her feelings—and how quickly she would believe, and go on waiting.. until at last it became plain to her that he was lying! How dared he deceive her and put her off with evasions?!

Her rebellion became, more often than not, a kind of listless indifference. All day long she is like a machine, running after her three children and their endless demands. As for her husband, whose love was once for her a kind of worship, it seemed to her that a deep gulf had opened between her and him, until he was almost a stranger: he goes off to his work in the morning, seldom comes home for lunch on the plea of business, and his return is usually late, after the little ones have gone to sleep and their mother is a heap of burdens and despair. And so all she wants now is divorce and separation, for she can no longer endure this humiliating life.

Mounir's point of view: Mounir is the model of the Eastern man who refuses to render an account of his deeds and words, above all in what concerns his family, because he is its absolute master. He loved Suad, and he still believes she is the ideal wife for him and the ideal mother for his children. He is proud of his children too.

But Mounir is solely responsible for his mother and his sister, for his father is dead and left no son but him. And so he stands in awe of public opinion—“What would people say of him if he left his mother and sister to live alone?” He has his social standing, and he cannot afford to trifle with his reputation... Very well then, let him sacrifice his “sensible” wife... and whenever she grows angry, he knows how to appease her—with a couple of words!

... And he usually succeeded; but matters grew more tangled with the days, and Mounir began to shun meeting his wife and being alone with her, lest she corner him and hold him to his promises, and complain to him of the state she was in and the wretched life imposed upon her... And so his absences from the house stretched out longer and longer, and his temper and character worsened, because he dared not face the facts and give his wife the chance to have the matter out with him—and the gulf between them grew deeper and wider, and the situation went from bad to worse—all this while the children silently watch everything that goes on around them, and sense the resentment, the spite, and the hatred that show themselves in the remarks and glances of grandmother, aunt, and mother alike. Is it any wonder that the house has become an inferno?...

Can this marriage be saved? And why not, so long as the foundations of a happy marriage are still all present in the wife and in the husband together? All that must be done is for Mounir to give up his empty obstinacy and to acknowledge Suad's simplest and most important rights—not only for the sake of her own happiness, but for the sake of the children's happiness and their future; for upon this period of their growth the future of their happiness depends, and nothing in a little one's mind equals “a serene childhood.”

The finest of Suad's qualities are “virtue” and “contentment.” She is a virtuous and contented lady who does not burden her husband with women's many demands. But the shock to her spirit, and her failure to secure her own happiness and her family's, have made of her a hesitant creature shrunk into herself, turning all her tenderness and love upon her children—so much so that one has come to fear for the little ones the effect of this one-sided emotional outpouring; through it they have grown deeply suspicious of the nature of the relations between their mother and their father.

In any case, this marriage must be saved, in mercy to Suad and in mercy to her three little ones. The matter rests with Mounir and depends upon him alone. He has only to resolve and to act, and not fear that people's tongues will sting him if he lives with his family in an independent home apart from that of his mother and sister; for he can look after his mother and sister as well, and provide for their living—but his wife's right over him is a binding duty. And let him know that people's tongues are surely gnawing at him now more than he realizes; so let him pay them no great heed, and be rid of the problem at its root.

The happiness of his wife and his children hangs upon his decision—so what will he do, this responsible husband?!