ASK ABE

My wife and I have split up, but I’m convinced that it was a bad idea. How can I patch things up?
I know your plight very well, fellow traveler. Lost in the shuffle of history is the fact that Mary once threw me out of the house for a month — we had been arguing over the interpretation of Psalm 131, I recall — and I was forced to win her back. If the cause for your rift is Bible-based, the simplest route back to the marital bed is to concede the point and move on. Have you found new lodgings? Proximity being vital, I urge you to find room and board near to your lady, the better to avail yourself to spontaneous wooing. Once her daily habits have been established, make it a practice to present yourself whenever possible. Unlike the great hunters of the plain, you need not hide in the bush — she is not an elk to be stalked. Rather, put on your finest morning coat and greet her as she walks outside to fetch the newspaper or leaves to do her daily market rounds. A lady also enjoys sentimental gestures. Perhaps a bouquet of periwinkles lodged in her windshield wipers, or a love poem discretely inserted into her mailbox after her bedroom lights blink off for the night? She needs to know that you’re not going anywhere.