3 December 1956

What do I want from Kurt? What is wrong between us? I think I know my side of it. It all adds up to “respect”.

I get the feeling that Kurt takes for granted I am supposed to behave in a certain manner – Isn’t my wife supposed to behave thus and so? Isn’t society with me, collaborating with my case? – is behind Kurt’s thinking. He just takes it for granted certain aspects of marriage are cut and dried and there is no need to give them any further thought. That is all well and good, but he leaves out one element – the individual. Just because he thinks a certain way – that is all there is to it.

Well it isn’t. And just so long as he expects me to fit into a pattern he has cut – he is going to be frustrated. He just cannot get it right in his head that I am not an extenuation of Kurt Zachmann. I am a separate person with separate feelings and opinions. I do not have to agree with him.

Once he can see me as a separate individual, and treat me as such, much of our troubles will be over. Somehow, he just cannot believe or get it through his head that I have different reactions from his, and that these different reactions must be contended with. I insist upon being treated as a person – not a convenience – a simple way of life.

How long will it take Kurt to understand that I love him very much, but that I am “me”, and he is “he”, and we are two different people. That he cannot treat me as an extenuation of himself and his own wishes and desires.