Peace be to you.

It is very often assumed that life should be without trials and difficulties.

Our blessed Lord did not predict it so.

He said in this world you shall have tribulation.

Even when one enters into a realm of love, such as marriage,

there are trials and difficulties, and it is those that we would consider in this particular

lesson.

This is what might be called a what-to-do kit when there are difficulties in marriage.

We shall consider two.

First, when marriage dulls.

Second, when the other partner becomes, what is sometimes said, impossible.

First, when marriage dulls.

Now this it does, simply because everything in life dulls after a time. Love does not continue to be one abiding ecstasy.

Simply because flesh is the medium of married love, it suffers the penalty of the flesh.

It becomes use to affection.

As life goes on, a greater stimulus is required to produce an equal reaction to sensation.

The eye can soon become used to beauty, the fingers used to the touch of a friend.

The intimacy which first was so desirable could become at times a burden.

There is such a thing as I want to be alone feeling,

or I think that I will go home to mother feeling.

And these strip the eye of rose-colored glasses.

Bill's begin to come into the kitchen and love is in danger of walking out of the parlor.

...