Atlanta tri-weekly journal. [volume] (Atlanta, Ga.) 1920-19??, 1923-05-24
DOROTHY DIX DISCUSSES LIFE
TALKS ON HEART AND HOME

Middle-aged women are peculiarly
subject to this sentimental hallucina-
ton because, as they see romance re-
ceding from them, they become NOR
bidly DESTROYS of it. They are mad
to experience again the emotions of
their girlhood. They want to pal
pitate and thrill at the touch Of a
hand; to grow hot and cold at the
sound of a footstep; to see a man as
a cooling; to dream of him at night
and think Of him by day And when
they can not pump up those sensa-
bands they decide that they no long
err love them.
The remedy for this is simply pa
tience-patience, even, when the
woman is fool enough to think that
some other man than her husband is
her soul mate, and to indulge in a
beIated filtration. She soon finds
that he, no more than her husband,
can inspire romantic love in her,
and she is glad enough to turn from
it back to the old tried-and-true af
lection she has proved.
I should give three pieces of ad
vice to the man whose wife says
that she has ceased to love him. The
first is not to take her too seriously.
There are ten chances to one that
it is just a mood that will pass il
given time.
God knows why, but all women
like to go on a sentimental debauch
now and then in which they revel in
torturing themselves by playing that
their hearts are broken and their
lives wrecked by a fatal mistake in
marriage-that their husbands are
men who can never understand them,
and whom they have ceased to love.
1t ends up in a jag of tearS Of self
pity, and that is all there is to it
They return quite contented and hap
ply to the husbands they really knew
they cared for all the time.
My second piece of advice to the
man whose wife says she has ceased
to love him is to go away from her
or, better still, send her away from
home for good long trip some
where.
The main reason that husbands
and wives grow tired Of each other is
because they see too much of each
other. 1t takes distance to get the
right perspective on the virtues, the
charms of our relatives. If we have
to live always within arms touch
of them, we not only behold all OF
their defects, but every defect grows
into a fatal blemish.
A wife can come to feel that she
actually hates her husband because
he always throws the paper on the
floor and spills ashes on the table
and she feels as if she would Shrek
if she had to see him eat spaghetti
another time. But when he goes
away, even for a month, she forgets
all of these faults, and remembers
only his good Qualities. There is nc
tonic for keeping love in robust
and healthy condition like a little jul
dicious absence.
My third piece of advice to the
man who wants to win back his wife
is to reverse whatever attitude he
has held toward her.
If he has been cold and Indifferent
to her, play the lover to her with
fire and passion. Surround her with
the attentions he paid her in her
girlhood. Send her flowers and books
and candy. Be Romeo to her Juliet.
If, on the contrary, he has. always
been her humble and adorifg slave
if he has sacrificed himself to her;
if he has let her run over him, wake
her up by neglecting her. Make her
jealous. Let her think that she is
about to lose you. and she will find
out how much she really cares for
you.
After all, winning wife back
isn't so hard, because the woman
wants to be won.
Copyright 1929