Whether one sort of breaking marriage can be mended depends on three factors: the actualities of the wife's character, the possibilities of her husband's character, and the predestined fortunes of both. Such a situation needs generous forbearance, foresighted patience, deeper understanding of human nature, and, above all, emotional self-control. The suffering wife should secretly pray for her husband's spiritual welfare, not hysterically and sentimentally for his return to her. Let her be assured that if she can bring herself to adopt an unselfish attitude in this matter, if she will repay evil deed by good thought, and hurt feeling by forgiveness, she will not lose in the end.
She must not waste her strength in emotional self-pity, but rather try to build up a reasonable attitude. And if she is a quester, she must not forget the lesson behind her marital experience of not staking all her happiness on somebody else. She must first look within for it, and then only can others give some of it to her. She herself must make the most important contribution to her own happiness.
-- Notebooks Category 13: Human Experience > Chapter 2 : Living in The World > # 466
