JUNG   ON  MARRIAGE

December 16, 2011 Quote for Today


The following is a letter of C. G. Jung to a Mister N.

1 November 1951

Dear Herr N.,


I am sorry to be late with my answer. I was away on holiday and your letter was lying around for some time.


You have experienced in your marriage what is an almost universal fact - that individuals are different from one another. Basically, each remains for the other an unfathomable enigma. There is never complete concord. If you have committed a mistake at all, it consisted in your having striven too hard to understand your wife completely and not reckoning with the fact that in the end people don't want to know what secrets are slumbering in their souls.  If you struggle too much to penetrate into another person, you find that you have thrust him into a defensive position, and resistances develop because, through your efforts to penetrate and understand, he feels forced to examine those things in himself which he doesn't want to examine.  Everybody has his dark side which -  so long as all goes well - he had better not know about.  This is no fault of yours.  It is a universal human truth which is nevertheless true, even though there are plenty of people who will assure you that they'd be only too glad to know everything about themselves.  It is as good as certain that your wife had many thoughts and feelings which made her uneasy and which she wanted to hide even from herself.  That is simply human. It is also the reason why so many elderly people withdraw into their own solitude where they won't be disturbed.  And it is always about things they would rather not be too clearly conscious of.  Certainly you are not responsible for the existence of these psychic contents..   If nevertheless you are still tormented by guilty feelings,  then considere for once what sins you have not committed which you would have liked to commit.  This might perhaps cure you of your guilt feelings towards your wife.  With kind regards,


Yours sincerely,
C.G. Jung

C.G. Jung Letters.

I found this quoted letter on pages 175 and 176 of The Education of the Heart, edited by Thomas Moore, Readings and Sources for Care of the Soul, Soul Mates, and The Re-Enchantment of Everyday Life. Harper Perennial, 1996