The document discusses marriage from historical, cultural, and personal perspectives. It describes how marriage has been nearly universally valued across cultures as it provides benefits like economic support, childrearing assistance, and social bonds. However, it also notes marriages can be complex and fragile. The second half discusses how a good marriage between admired individuals, like the author's grandparents, can be profoundly rewarding and benefit not just the partners but entire families and communities.

1. Marriage
Marriage: for most of us, there is at least some point in our lives when marriage
seems like an inevitable event. We will grow up, find the perfect mate, behave like
mad people planning for a wedding, go on a perfect honeymoon, and from there on
we will be married. End of story. A sure thing; like death and taxes.
Most of us eventually are faced with the far more difficult and complicated truth:
Marriages are far from inevitable, and certainly seldom the end of our life stories.
We cannot count on finding the perfect mate, and if found we cannot depend on
being perfect in return. Marriages are complicated, difficult, sometimes fragile –
and much of our civilization and our sanity as we understand it is based on the
assumption that marriage can and will occur.
If the bond between a mother and child is the most durable and concrete in human
culture, the bond between married individuals is the most delicate yet critical.
Marriage provides an efficient, effective social and economic base, permitting the
distribution of labor and focus that allows for family to occur while also allowing
for the labor that is culture and civilization itself.
“Marriage” has taken many forms through history, including forms which were
neither officially acknowledged nor legitimated by the civilizations that held them.
Indeed, in many cases society has chosen to make complex and paradoxical
arrangements to ensure that non-legitimate marriages were still possible, stable,
and politely ignored. At the same time, culture has regularly and reliably provided
benefits and rewards for those who participate in the favored forms of marriage
within a culture. Civilizations themselves have used their preferred marriage forms
as cultural markers: Christendom, for example, the “recognized culture” of much
of Europe through the late Classical period through the medieval and early
Renaissance, identified itself in part by its preferred marriage form of heterosexual
life-long marriages which permitted no legalized forms of concubinage, and only
limited access to legal divorce, annulment, or even remarriage after the death of a
spouse.
Cultures have valued the benefits of marriage so highly that even “outlaw”
marriages are given a degree of protection in most cultures. It has been historically
common (though absolutely not universal) for people to turn a blind eye turned to
such arrangements as common law marriage, unofficial polygamy, extramarital
concubines and mistresses, homosexual couples, and more. Cultures, on the

2. whole, have appeared to value the end result of stable marriages even more highly
than they have valued the specific forms privileged by that culture.
What is it about marriage that makes it so valued that even “rogue” and “outlaw”
forms often receive some degree of unofficial acceptance/protection in social
structures, if not in law? What is so valuable about marriage that when possible,
most cultures find ways to incorporate legal protections to the preferred forms of
the institution? What makes the fundamental concept of long-term, committed
bonding between two adults so precious that it is presented as an ideal in virtually
all cultures? And how can we as individuals hope to obtain something so precious
and valued ourselves, when the form can seem so fragile and elusive?
Founded on a Rock
Humans were, are, and have been social beings for as long as we have been able to
trace their history. We live in collectives, and we depend on the power of the group
to support us. All but the very rarest of men and women depend on some level and
to some degree on the security provided by community, culture, and commerce.
The most primal social bond, of course, is the bond of genetic family, with the
bond between mother and child at the core. Mother and child relationships have
proven to be the most easily recognized in all circumstances, and the most
pragmatically difficult to dissolve. That relationship is closely followed by the
many auxiliary genetic ties between siblings and generations: Brothers and sisters,
aunts and uncles, cousins, grandmothers – all the ties along the maternal chain.
The mirroring tie of fatherhood and paternal relations is more fragile, not because
it is less valid, or less precious, but because nature has made it more easily
sacrificed under stressful circumstances. An infant has most often been doomed
without a mother. Without a father, survival chances are reduced, but not to the
degree the loss of a mother implies. Yet the tie between two unrelated or
secondarily related adults has proven to be of great benefit for children being
raised, for both adults, and for the families and communities they live in.
A marriage between adults creates a tiny little power-generator within a culture,
allocating labor and distributing benefits in ways that have satisfied thousands and
millions, and improved the lives of still more. In a marriage several different kinds
of need are met, and met in ways that allow honorable and conscientious people to
create rewarding, livable social structures; cultural “homes” in which to live their
emotional and productive lives.

3. A marriage provides for many things, in one single social contract. Ideally, it
establishes a pair of people committed to mutual support and aid, even when two
married people dislike each other profoundly, their marriage makes allies of them
in many ways. In regards to economy, social standing, security, status, child
rearing, and more, a married couple is locked into partnership, with mutual
sabotage being little more than a form of indirect self-destruction.
More crucially, a marriage having been formed, this commitment to mutual
support has a reasonably good chance of thriving not just in terms of practical
survival, but in terms of emotional reward. Again, humans are a social species; we
tend to draw strength and comfort from our associations – even from associations
that are less than ideal.
It is a truism that more murders are committed within families than outside
families. Many take this as a mordant sign that families – and often marriages in
particular – are emotional cesspools, breeding dysfunction, emotional illness,
misery and violence. The trouble is that such a conclusion ignores the even greater
truth: The majority of families, including unhappy families, do not indulge in
murder or criminal abuse. This fact can be challenged in highly stressful
circumstances and in cultures that reward violence and abuse in one way or another
– but the most normal truth is that most families are not only survivable, but
preferable to a lack of family. That is true physically, economically, and
emotionally. There is a reason all cultures express concern and dismay for the
“widow and the orphan,” who are cut off from the many benefits of family ties.
When a marriage is even modestly effective, the rewards to both partners are far
greater than the costs. To know that one can rely on another person for support,
affection, romance, sexual satisfaction, cooperation raising children, and division
of labor has proven to be a win-win for marriage partners through the centuries.
Even in arranged marriages between strangers the benefits have regularly
outweighed the costs.
Those benefits are awesome – indescribably precious.
There is no question that, in modern developed nations, it is possible for most
people to survive without a marriage to provide alliance and teamwork. It is even
increasingly possible to raise children without a marriage to draw on. It remains
true that even in developed countries single parents and unmarried individuals
experience more stress, insecurity, and have lower overall success rates than
married couples.

4. Why? What do even bad marriages offer that single life cannot? Well, a lot –
though not always enough to justify a “marriage at all costs” philosophy.
The Gift of a Good Marriage
If a bad marriage offers so much, how much more does mediocre or a really good
marriage offer? Infinities of reward, and strength that can endure outrageous
challenges and obstacles. A well-made marriage can prove to be the single most
precious element in the lives of the marriage partners, their children, and much of
their community.
I have always considered my grandmother and grandmother superb examples of a
good, mutually rewarding marriage that blessed both husband and wife, their
children, their friends and community, and quite possible the world beyond. My
grandfather was a civil engineer and an officer. For many years he served in the
Army, first in ordinary service, then as a commander of CCC camps during the
depression, and eventually as an officer in the Pentagon during WWII. After his
retirement from the military he went on to work as a hospital administrator. My
grandmother was among the rare few educated women of her generation. A
trained singer she was a mission school teacher for several years, a voice teacher, a
choir director, and for many years a professional public speaker.
Grandmother and Grandfather probably looked like a very peculiar match to many
of their generation. Grandmother was both older and taller than her husband, and
she was ferociously independent. A dedicated Christian of deep spiritual
convictions, she ran her home on far more strict terms than my grandfather would
have chosen, forbidding tobacco and alcoholic beverages and enforcing a weekly
church attendance with iron determination. By far the more openly radical, she
drew attention from all sides, where my grandfather, equally ethical but far more
inclined to compromise, slid quietly through much of his life.
Yet the two together bonded into an incredibly effective team. They survived the
depression – and maintained contact with the men who had served in the CCC
camps for their whole lives. Indeed, they collected an entire universe of passionate,
faithful, admiring correspondents over the years of their lives. On my
grandmother’s death the condolences and memorial letters poured in by the
hundreds – a fraction of the total network of friends and associates she and my
grandfather had helped, loved and supported over the decades.

5. They laughed more than they cried, and when they cried they cried together. The
fought for human rights and dignity, shocking their generational peers by
supporting the civil rights movement, by rejoicing in adopted multi-racial
grandchildren, by “adopting” children through charitable services that provided aid
and support throughout the world. They served as consciences to their church, to
their community, and to their nation. They raised two outstanding children, and
provided love and safe-haven to grandchildren, and in time to great-grandchildren.
Because of them and their partnership the hungry were fed, the heartbroken were
comforted, the lowly were raised up. The uneducated gained an education. Justice
was promoted.
As they accomplished all this, they did so in love and respect and affection. To
enter their home was to walk into an enchanted circle of laughter, story-telling,
memories, kindness, and courage. Several years after my grandmother died, I
visited my grandfather with his first great-grandchild. During the visit my
grandfather said to me, quietly, “She’s still with me, you know. Your
grandmother’s still with me. Sometimes I can feel her there, waiting. She’ll be
there for me when I go. She was my one great love.”
There is no other social bond that provides that kind of payback. Nothing that
offers the kind of personal joy coupled with public benefit. That one marriage not
only ensured a stable financial unit that would contribute to the community rather
than damage the social fabric. It did not just present reasonably civilized children
to promote the next generation. That marriage served as a roaring engine, sending
power to heal and grow to all corners of the world. In the process, it made two
people very happy.
There is nothing in our culture that offers such a great benefice. It is no surprise
that “outlaw” and “rogue” partnerships want the recognition – and the support and
celebration – more commonly recognized pairings receive. To be allowed to take
part in that great and empowering heritage of love, generosity, dedication and joy
is an honor and a privilege no one should turn away from. All those who are
allowed into the culture’s privileged class as “married” should take that role on
with awe and humility. Those who have gone before have set the standards high.
Entering Into Matrimony

6. If marriage is so wonderful, though, how do you develop a good one? How do you
find the magic “perfect partner” – your own personal Mr. or Mrs. Right? And
having found that one special soul, how to you build a marriage that will become a
landmark in the lives of your family and your friends?
Good question. I wish there was an easy answer. Unfortunately, history would
suggest that the challenge is complex, and very uncertain.
Certain truths, though, can be pointed out, and a few general directions can be
discerned. Such an important institution has obviously attracted a lot of attention
over the centuries, and advice as common as dandelions in a spring meadow.
The first challenge, of course, is to find and court someone who has got the
potential for life-long partnership. The good news is that the majority of people in
the world can, theoretically, live in and contribute to that form of relationship. The
bad news is that few do so superbly, and a limited, but exciting minority is such
very bad marital partners as to justify nearly any effort to avoid them. Worse, the
really bad choices are often extremely good at disguising themselves. Worse still,
many are not inherently awful – they are just going to become awful when locked
in a marriage with you.
That is not to suggest that you are a dreadful spouse. Not at all! Indeed, your very
strengths and virtues may contribute to a hidden vein of weakness in your
intended. Often, it seems that people marry those in whom they feel a certain
neediness they feel they can resolve or cure. Similarly, many of us marry people
who seem like the answer to all our worst sorrows and insecurities.
A shy person will marry a social butterfly, feeling as though, in their lovers’
company, they are “part of the party.” Or a butterfly will marry a shy person,
thinking that they get the best of both worlds – solitude and quiet without having to
actually be alone! Neither sees that the marriage will, in the end, only force them
over and over into exactly the sorts of situations that make them uncomfortable,
resolving nothing.
People who have felt neglected their whole lives marry people who are addicted
caretakers, thinking that at last they will be satiated. Instead, they find themselves
in life-long traps, each pushing the partnership deeper into codependency and
obsession with neediness and nurture; instead of healing and moving on, both
become more and more firmly crippled.

7. Generous people marry people who hunger to spend. Frugal people marry people
who think themselves unworthy of receiving even basic necessities. Angry people
marry people who accept anger as inevitable or even healthy – and then learn there
is no natural check to their rage built into the marriage. The array of pairings in
which people choose partners who reinforce their greatest weaknesses rather than
encouraging their strengths sometimes seems endless, and the temptation to make
such a choice overwhelming.
There is an entire classification of amateur fiction known as hurt-comfort. The
central conceit involves one character in some form of pain and need – physical,
emotional, or both – and another character who sweeps in and provides love and
comfort and kindness. Romance, of course, then blooms. The trouble is that this is
a terrible formula for most marriages, for a very obvious reason: For the marriage
to continue to succeed on the original, the original conditions must endure. That
means that at least one of the two spouses must always be in severe neediness and
the other partner must always be willing and able to provide the desired nurture. In
short, the couple must commit to a lifetime of acting out a melodramatic angst
ritual to preserve their romance.
Worse, couples caught in this trap can come to confuse angst and melodrama with
love itself. In many ways, my friend – the one with the terrible husband – got
caught in that endless loop. She confused her frantic, passionate attempts to save
her husband from himself, and his own passionate struggle to avoid being saved,
for romantic passion. It was intense, intimate, and fixated on their interaction, after
all: Was that not “true love?”
No. It was true hell, with each preserving the torments, because neither knew how
to relate to the other without them.
When choosing a partner, the first rule, then, might best be the same rule
Confucius offered in regards to friends and associates:
Have no friends not equal to yourself.
Even more, do not choose someone you do not respect, admire, and feel challenged
by. Do not marry someone because they need you. Do not marry someone you
think you need.

8. Never marry a person who tempts you into the vanity of wondering what will
become of them if you die or divorce them. Whoever you marry you should respect
enough and trust enough to believe they will mourn, and then move on.
I often remember the family story of my grandfather’s first encounter with my
grandmother. Back in his home town from a year at college, he was talked into
attending a local church social. When there he saw a tall, strong woman, who went
to the front of the room and in a beautiful, trained voice sang, “Drink To Me Only
With Thine Eyes” – a hymn well loved by temperance supporters. All their lives
later he would comment that she was like a queen. All his life later, what he loved
most about her, was her power, intelligence, and ability.
Marry a man or woman you consider awesome. Marry a hero, or a heroine, and
nothing less. Accept no substitutes.
When you have found someone you can admire for their strength, integrity, and
ability, court them on that basis. Again, do not fall into the hurt-comfort trap of
mutual dependency. You do not want to find yourself married to a person whose
very nature turns you both into helpless cripples, leaning against each other; not if
you have the potential to walk without using your partner as a permanent crutch, or
being used as a crutch in return. It is one thing to be determined and willing to help
each other in times of need. It is another to become entrenched in eternal
neediness.
Planning a Marriage
You have found the perfect person. You have courted each other in honor and
respect. You have decided to get married. What next?
You have to put some thought into planning the marriage. No, not the wedding;
the marriage.
I do not really mean that you should sit down with a stack of printed out calendars,
plotting out your lives for years to come. No one can do that – or if they can they
should use the talent for something like predicting the stock market or betting on
races. What I really mean is that you should take the time to talk together about
what marriage is, what it can be, what it will demand of you, and how you should
approach the challenge. Like business partners, defining the exact nature of their
business contract, you and your partner should take a calm, realistic look at the
nitty-gritty of real married life.

9. Some people find that easiest to do with some form of premarital counseling. In
many cases, that is a great idea: A well-grounded counselor, or in some cases a
religious leader with counseling training and experience, can help inexperienced
couples consider aspects of marriage they might never have thought to discuss.
Marriage is such a complete immersion in a new life. The lines of privacy,
personal integrity, independence, and intimacy are breached on all levels.
Preparing for that is an imposing problem.
Consider the simple question: One bed or two? A shared “marriage bed,” or the
standard television ideal of the 50s and 60s: Twin beds with a bedside table in the
middle, just like Lucy and Ricky Ricardo had in “I Love Lucy,” or Rob and Laura
had in “The Dick Van Dyke Show.” For romantics, it seems a no-brainer: Shared
bed, of course! For light sleepers, it seems equally obvious: Twins, thank you very
much! Cuddlers want the single bed. Those who get claustrophobic can come to
dream of a separate bed of their own, as they find themselves chased to the very
edge of the mattress by a clinging spouse.
The trick is to take the time to work out a sensible set of expectations, and a set of
just principles for dealing with the challenges that will face you, and to do so in a
way that allows for changes over the years to come. What seems ideal when you
are in your twenties may seem intolerable by the time you are 50. The arrangement
that seemed “fair” when you were both young, healthy, and employed, may not
seem so fair when one of you is sick, or laid off, or faced with the challenge of
serving as a stay-at-home spouse for some reason. Alterations in conditions within
the marriage and outside the marriage can change expectations. Those changes can
be hard to weather if your assumptions are too rigid, or your commitment to fair
play is too feeble.
Fairness is central; not in the sense many people mean, though. It is not always a
matter of “I’ll do dishes on Monday, but then you have to do them on Tuesday.”
Or “We each have to put in $500.00 per week into the budget, and the remainder’s
our own to spend as we wish.” Fair means arranging your marriage so that each of
you has room to grow, security to explore, and certainty of respect if you give your
best effort.
That is outrageously hard to ensure. Few marriages will, over decades, present
perfect, balanced arrangements. Over time, one partner or another will succeed
wildly, while the other may struggle in relative obscurity. One may become ill, or
suffer a crippling loss.

10. This is where the rubber meets the road: It is where your own integrity and that of
your partner comes into play. You need to commit bone deep to dealing with the
inequities and injustices life will impose on your family and your partnership,
determined to ensure each of you remains respected and admired within the
marriage to the very end.
It is a standard element of Greek Orthodox marriage ceremonies to conclude with
the newlywed husband and wife presented to the congregation crowned, as king
and queen of their own new household. When the crowns are presented, they are
swapped back and forth between the two partners three times, indicating the
equivalence and equality of their roles in the marriage; their crowns are equal.
That is a hard goal to reach. It demands that both partners on the one hand work
eternally to be worthy of their own regality, while at the same time fighting to
recognize and encourage the regality of their partner even when circumstances may
threaten or obscure such dignity and power. It also demands both partners work to
maintain the strength to live with another as powerful and respected as themselves.
This is not easy at all. Most of us are, by nature or by nurture, inclined to fight for
the upper hand. We do not easily consort with full equals if we can hold our
position as slight superiors. To maintain the odd blend of humility and pride that
allows both partners to live a lifetime, through all the “richer or poorer, sickness
and health, better or worse” and never let go of the ideal of those two crowns
demands enormous honesty and self-discipline.
By allowing a counselor to walk you through the basics of your marriage to come,
you may save yourself from future booby-traps. For many people the process has
worked well to shed light on differing assumptions, or divergent ideals. Even if
you do not use a counselor, it is wise to take the time to discuss the basics together.
Most important, though, is to commit together to the ideal of respect and justice. It
is a hard ideal to pursue – but it may be the best of all ideals where two people
must share lives on all levels.
Forgiveness
No marriage will endure long without suffering failures, disappointments, and
betrayals – intentional and otherwise. No marriage will ever exist in which
forgiveness is not a central feature. If you are hoping for a life-long happy
marriage, you are committing to a life of forgiveness offered freely and graciously,

11. day after day, and year after year. In some times of your marriage, it may even
seem like you are offering each other forgiveness minute after minute, or even
second after second. But just as you must forgive, you must also maintain limits
beyond which forgiveness is not a simple or freely gained option.
Our culture places great value on forgiveness, but the script is not clear, and the
structure that allows forgiveness to be navigated is seldom laid out with any
precision. There are few of us in America who have not been taught on the one
hand that it is virtuous for us to offer forgiveness easily and graciously. However,
similarly, we are often taught to accept that to receive forgiveness we must do
penance and change.
Depending on what elements of the “forgiveness formula” we have most absorbed,
that can lead to some very unfair power relationships in marriages, and can trick us
into assuming we have no right to demand our partners live up to certain standards
or face real consequences. This, then, is where a mutual commitment to justice and
fair play becomes vital.
It is obvious that no one should have to suffer repeated betrayals and be expected
to forgive without any assurance that the betrayals will end. It is unfair; no matter
how high a virtue “turning the other cheek” may be, a partner who abuses that
grace and generosity has by definition broken faith with the underlying justice of a
marriage contract.
For some people, the best way to maintain a balance between forgiveness and
justice is to divide the two functions. A spouse can be forgiven from the heart for
a betrayal or a hurt – but forgiveness is not the same thing as escape from justice.
Justice demands that forgiveness not substitute for correction and reparation.
Reprieve from consequences can only occur when the reprieve is earned.
By dividing the issue this way, some people are able to cope with the mixed issue
of anger and discipline. A husband whose wife has strayed can set aside his anger
in forgiveness and mercy, while at the same time standing firm that trust and ease
will only return when his wife has reformed her behavior and structured her life so
that she can again be trusted. It is still difficult, but it separates the anger from the
consequences, allowing a certain frothing rage to depart from otherwise bitter
disputes. Similarly, a wife who discovers her husband has been hiding and
spending income on personal luxuries while letting his wife do without can in good
faith forgive her husband for a very human weakness, while at the same time

12. feeling entirely justified in demanding a new financial system be put in place that
limits her spouse’s access to funds.
My grandmother regularly said, “Love the sinner, hate the sin.” This is not always
easily accomplished, but it is part of the same challenge in marriage. The truth is
no marriage partner will manage to live through a long marriage without crossing
boundaries the other finds hard to forgive. Somehow both partners, though, must
find a way to continue to love and admire each other.
That conflict between forgiveness and standards, love and judgment, can tear a
couple to pieces, if they do not find a way through the hedge of thorns.
For some, the temptation is to demand too much: We are all quite capable of the
conviction that we are getting the dirty end of the deal in a marriage, and that can
lead many spouses to an embittered sense of grievance. For others, the reverse is
true: Many of the most dedicated and committed partners are far too inclined to
think themselves unworthy and to forgive their spouses too much on the
assumption that they already have to endure far too much! A marriage between two
partners of opposite camps can turn into the kind of hell my friend faced, with one
partner eternally convinced of his entitlement, and the other eternally convinced of
her lack of worth and her obligation to go one more mile on the forgiveness trail.
Forgiveness surpasses perfect justice, but it should never be the enemy of justice.
Forgiveness should offer hope and comfort without removing obligation or
lowering standards. Forgiveness should never demand a partner regularly give up
the hope that his or her spouse will, on some level, be fair.
Limits
Once you have come to terms with forgiveness, it is time to consider limits, and
their necessity.
The simple truth is that many people marry without accepting that there are some
lines they must not ever cross within marriage. That applies as surely to women as
to men. Within a marriage each partner must be dedicated to a relationship in
which standards of dignity and decency are upheld.
Does that sound unreasonably priggish and prim? It is not. I am not talking about
happy consensual sex, or intimacy, or the freedom of informality, or the ability to

13. relax and behave childishly on occasion, or to simply be a human animal in its den.
I am talking about fundamental respect and honor.
I once knew a couple I pitied with all my heart. The husband and wife were each,
in their own way, committed to honor and righteous life. Unfortunately, each
meant that differently, and each felt entirely justified crossing over certain ethical
boundaries to achieve their ideals. The wife, for example, had felt from before her
marriage that she must marry her first lover. But to get her first love to become her
husband, she first had to take him to bed – only to find that sex itself did not strike
him as grounds for marriage.
Fortunately for her, and unfortunately for him, her moral system allowed her to
escalate the situation: As he was already to be her husband in her mind, and as she
believed absolutely in their obligation to create children, she felt no qualm going
off the pill without telling him – or claiming to. He married her in the belief that
he had an obligation to his future child, only to learn that there was no child – only
an assumed obligation to marry what existed in his wife’s mind, not his. Over the
years, the two waged a steady war of opposing abuses. He insisted on using
condoms, as he could no longer trust her to be honest about her birth control. She,
in return, felt free to slip pins into the condoms to ensure the family she felt he
owed her. He felt free to cheat on her during business trips. She felt free to inform
their children of the fact that he cheated.
Remember the image of the Eastern Orthodox couple, husband and wife both
crowned and regal, king and queen, in their own marriage? That ideal can only be
achieved if both parties are willing and determined to treat each other like royalty:
With admiration, respect, honor, dignity, and integrity. Further, the ideal cannot be
achieved if either party fails to insist on that level of respect.
A true marriage cannot exist when it is defined by violence, betrayal, disrespect,
deceit, or lack of discipline. Wives and husbands should be able to trust that their
partners will protect their shared roles as king and queen of each other’s home and
heart. That can take many forms, some strange. I have heard of a man who, with
his wife’s knowledge, took many lovers. But when he crossed the threshold he
never failed to treat his wife as the sole authority in his home, and he refused to
suggest even to lovers that there was any other queen in his life and heart.
It was a peculiar balance, but one each partner could live with, and one that was
based on a true form of respect. On such commitment to respect and to maintaining
limits are strong marriages made.

14. Laughter
Once the many tough-love issues of marriage have been faced, there is still the one
great sanctum of the marriage yet to explore and enjoy. Not sex, necessarily,
though sex may be part of it. The soul of a great marriage, though, lies in shared
delight, and often in shared laughter. In the jokes and stories, the moments of
mutual amusement, the times of companionable peace and pleasure, a marriage is
renewed and made fresh.
Maintaining that joy is difficult, and the truth is that joy an delight phase in and out
of marriage, sometimes seeming entirely gone only to return with all the stunning
force of first love. Couples, however, have to work to allow the return of laughter
and joy when they seem gone.
In our culture it has become too common to assume that “gone for now” means
“gone forever.” The drab, gloomy, grim periods of marriage are taken as a sign of
final endings, rather than being recognized as a necessary winter fallow time, that
can melt away in a new and blooming emotional spring time. Once the chill sets in,
spouses increase it, rather than stoking the fires and waiting for the thaw.
A wife, hearing a husband tell a joke for the hundredth time, will refuse to laugh,
forgetting that over years this old joke may become a cherished, well-worn artifact
of a shared life together. A husband, annoyed by his wife’s love for petty puns,
may scowl and remind her that puns are considered the lowest form of humor,
closing the door to her effort to provoke a smile.
There are few gifts more tender or precious than to give your spouse your
willingness to be pleased. We are all capable of refusing to be pleased. It is not
hard to be a finicky, demanding, sulky fool, resisting all but the most refined
pleasures – and refusing even those when not offered “in the right time, or the right
way, for the right reasons.”
We joke about people who are “easily amused.” But to be easily amused is a gift –
a gift we can give each other freely and with ease and good will. To accept the
simple gifts of laughter, smiles, jokes, and stories, to share glances, to touch hands,
to enjoy meals together? This is the bread of life itself. Yes, it can take effort to
open our hearts and minds to joy. Sometimes it seems easier and more appropriate
to resist and refuse. But when we make that choice, we trim away the beauty of our
own marriages, wearing away the fabric a thread at a time.

15. Happy marriages are woven of shared joy and laughter, and that sharing can only
happen if you make an effort to be happy and to share that with your spouse. Be
easily amused. Be quickly charmed. Let your spouse please you. In doing so, you
bring yourself to your own happily ever after.