Devorah Tarrow, Aesthetic Realism consultant, writes:

“He’s changed on me!” many a wife has felt about her husband: “He forgets this. He doesn’t do that. He doesn’t even seem to think about me much anymore….” And the list of disappointments goes on.

Granted, men have imperfections, as do women! But frequently in a wife’s eyes, his become glaring, magnified, all-consuming personal affronts. Also, people can hope to find something wrong with a spouse, and create a reason to be disappointed that doesn’t really exist. Why this happens and how it can change will be explained in the Understanding Marriage! class on Saturday, April 8th, from 11:00 AM to 12:30 PM: Disappointment—Does a Wife Get Anything Out of It?

With depth, style, and humor, consultants Barbara Allen, Anne Fielding, and Meryl Nietsch-Cooperman, of the teaching trio There Are Wives, conduct this class. It is based on the following statement by Eli Siegel, founder of Aesthetic Realism: “The purpose of marriage is to like the world. The reason happiness in marriage is such a rare item is that people have tried to love in a way that would mean less of a like for the world—in fact, a contempt for it.”

There’s going to be lively, down-to-earth discussion of these sentences from Mr. Siegel’s lecture Mind and Disappointment:

Disappointment can be defined as a state in which we feel that what we were looking for was not had….The first thing necessary to avoid disappointment is to ask if we’re not going after it….Many people don’t want to be pleased by anything; on the one hand, they complain that they are disappointed, and on the other, to be disappointed is their triumph. We can arrange our disappointment. We can insist on it.

Since the source of all hope is the outside world, if we are going to get what we hope for, it is going to be from reality. But if we don’t like what we want things from, that much we spoil our chances for getting them and for enjoying them.

Wives have thought the last thing they wanted was to be disappointed, but the class will be showing a new, surprising fact which Aesthetic Realism explains: we can get a triumph in our disappointment. Women will have a deep, good time learning the central matter: Does a wife hope to think well of her husband, to find reasons to respect him and the world more? Or does she hope to see him as not coming through for her, not worthy of her, so she can feel noble, long-suffering, and superior? To learn about this second hope—which is contempt—and what it means to use her husband to affirm her deepest hope, to like the world, is the most romantic and practical thing for a wife!

The fee for the class is $10. For more information, call 212.777.4490.