Sessions auerfarm bruno opts to for the appropriate importantly talk a happy marriage is not much how compatible you are, but how you deal with incompatibility. Tolstoy is what you've been through with somebody. Thurber The most important marriage skill is listening to your partner a way that they can't possibly doubt that you them. Sollee, When we are listened to, it creates us, makes us unfold and expand. Menninger Being heard is close to being loved that for the average person, they are almost indistinguishable. Augsburger When asked his secret of being married fifty-four years to the same person, he said, and I are happily incompatible. Any fool can have a trophy wife. It takes a real to have a trophy marriage. Sollee, One advantage of marriage, it seems to me, is that when you fall out of with each other, it keeps you together until maybe you fall again. Viorst We just say: the divorce didn't work out. who remarried his wife after they divorced A successful marriage requires falling times, always with the same person. Meara of the comedy team Stiller and Meara observed awhile ago a New Times interview of her 30-plus year marriage, Was it at first sight? It wasn't then but it sure is now. Meara, New Times For most people, a life lived alone, with passing strangers or passing lovers, is incoherent and ultimately unbearable. Someone must be there to know what we have done for those we Pittman Or, put another way, and 'borrowed' from Pittman: Why is it that people get married? Because we need a witness to our lives. There's a billion people on the planet. What does any one life really mean? But a marriage, you're promising to care about everything… The good things, the bad things, the terrible things, the mundane things, All of it… all the time, every day. You're saying Your life not go unnoticed because I notice it. Your life not go unwitnessed because I be your witness. I knew couples who'd been married almost forever forty, fifty, sixty years. Seventy-two, one case. They'd be tending each other's illnesses, filling each other's faulty memories, dealing with the money troubles or the daughter's suicide, or the grandson's drug addiction. And I was beginning to suspect that it made no difference whether they'd married the right person. Finally, you're just with who you're with. You've signed on with her, put a half century with her, grown to know her as well as you know yourself or even better, and she's become the right person. might be more to the point. I wish someone had told me that earlier. I'd have on then; I swear I would. A Patchwork Planet The heart of marriage is memories. Cosby I now think of marriage like I think about living home state of Minnesota. You move into marriage the springtime of but eventually arrive at the Minnesota with its cold and darkness. of us are tempted to give up and move south at this point, not realizing that maybe we've hit a rough spot a marriage that's actually above average. The problem with giving up, of course, is that our next marriage enter its own at some point. do we just keep moving on, or do we make our stand now with this person, this season? That's the moral, existential question we face when our marriage is trouble. Doherty, What greater thing is there for two human souls than to feel that they are joined for life to strengthen each other all labor, to rest on each other all sorrow, to minister to each other all pain, to be one with each other silent, unspeakable memories at the moment of the last parting. I was burned out from exhaustion, buried the hail, poisoned the bushes, blown out on the trail; hunted like a crocodile, ravaged the corn, Come she said, I'll give ya shelter from the storm. Committing to staying calm is the first key to committing to staying married. Runkel Commitment has kind eyes. He wears sturdy shoes. Everything is vivid when he is around. It is wonderful to sit and have lunch his gardens around harvest time. You can taste the vegetables that the soil has been cared for. J. Gendler Marriage, like a submarine, is only safe if you get all the way inside. Pittman Commitment is making a choice to give up other choices. People stay married because they want to, not because the doors are locked. Newman 't just follow your heart because your heart can be deceived... but LEAD your heart. Fireproof, the movie the consumer culture of marriage, commitments last as as the other person is meeting our needs. We still believe commitment, because we know that committed relationships are good for us, but powerful voices coming from inside and outside tell us that we are suckers if we settle for less than we think we need and deserve our marriage. Most baby boomers and their offspring our heads the internalized voice of the consumer culture-to encourage us to stop working hard or to get out of a marriage that is not meeting our current emotional needs. Doherty, Divorce to like amputation. Sometimes it's necessary but it should be avoided if at all possible because it brings about a permanent disability. Divorce is not healthy for children, or other living things. Sollee, Marriage is the