Personality Adjustment for Conversation : Page 158

The second difficulty in such a marriage is that affecting their circle of friends. A circle of friends, conversationally compatible to one, will be beneath or above the other. This presents a serious problem, and again can only be solved by the self-abnegation of one of them. Let's assume that a husband who likes to talk about economics wants to draw his wife who enjoys talking only about groceries into a circle compatible to him. If we assume further that for job or social reasons it is unwise for him to sacrifice himself and subside into her circle, so that she must come into his, what is to be done? In such circumstances, she can become an acceptable and harmless member of his circle, only if she will train herself to say very little but to listen very sympathetically. If she were to persist, however, in rattling away about what is on her mind, she will frustrate the others in the group, and drive her husband to apologize for her.