Evening star., 1943-07-27
Wife's Honesty
And Integrity
Will Win
By Dorothy Dix

Dear Miss Dix: My husband de-
cided year ago that life with the
children and myself was not what
he wanted, and has left us. He said
that he had lived a lie so long that
he couldn't go on with it any more,
yet up to that time he had been as
good and kind husband and father
as any one could ask for. During
the past year many things have
made me realize that I must start
a new form of education if I am
ever going to interest him again.
The current woman in the case
is in her late 30s, very sophisti-
Gated. loves bowling, races, night
clubs, beach parties and cocktail
parties n her apartment. She
dresses as if she were going to
party all the time. This, in general,
seems to be the type that a man of
20 desires.
In contrast, I am the natural
type. I love to dance. enjoy sports
of all kinds, have been good
mother, and used to think was a
good wife, but apparently I have
failed. My husband has paid well
for his sophisticated education, and
I also would be willing to pay well
for any education that would bring
his interest home again. c. C. w.
.Answer-Alas. there is no school,
nor college, nor university that can
teach wife how to light again the
fires Of love in the heart of a hus-
band who has grown tired of her,
yet that is branch of the higher
education for women that many a
one needs more than she does
knowledge of all the ologies and
isms, and that she would sell her
very life blood to get.
Sometimes, of course. a wife
drives her husband from her and
kills his affection for her by her
temper, by her nagging, by her boss
ing. by her laziness and shiftlessness
and bad cooking, but there are not
enough shrews and slovens and
female Hitlers to account for all of
the philandering husbands. Just
as often the good wives and mothers
are forsaken as the bad ones. And
just why so many men get tired of
the wives they picked out no one
knows. Perhaps they don't know
themselves.
So when woman starts to
change herself over into something
nearer to her husbands hearts de-
sire, she is undertaking hard job.
If she is middle-aged, she cannot
turn herself into a glamorous sub
deb. If she has been a hard work.
ing woman who has pinched pennies
and done her own cooking and
baby-tending in order to help her
husband pile up the fortune he is
spending on other women, how can
she suddenly become wisecracking
sophisticate? If she has worn
bungalow aprons all of her life, how
can she transform herself into a
Powers model?
The answer is, of course, that she
can't. And I think she is foolish
to waste any time and energy in
initiating role for which nature
did not cast her. Because, in the
first place, she would be a misfit.
And. in the second place, because
no husband wants a wife who is
an understudy of loose lady. And,
thirdly and lastly, because it was
variety that he was seeking, not
two women who we're as much alike
in conversation and dress and
drinking habits as two peas in a
pod.
Let your husband go his gait and
the time will come when your truth
and honesty and integrity will ap-
peal to him more than the pinch
beck charms of the women for
whom he has forsaken you, and he
will come back to home and mother,
if you still want him.
Is there a squander bug in your