I thought this was really interesting:

Destructive to marriage is the self-fulfillment ethic that assumes marriage and the family are primarily institutions of personal fulfillment, necessary for us to become “whole” and happy. The assumption is that there is someone just right for us to marry and that if we look closely enough we will find the right person. This moral assumption overlooks a crucial aspect to marriage. It fails to appreciate the fact that we always marry the wrong person.

We never know whom we marry; we just think we do. Or even if we first marry the right person, just give it a while and he or she will change. For marriage, [being the enormous thing it is] means we are not the same person after we have entered it. The primary challenge of marriage is learning how to love and care for the stranger to whom you find yourself married.

-Stanley Hauerwas, Stanford University Ethics Professor

Now I always worry about people’s marriages. I think because I know how fragile marriage is and how much work it takes to make one work (and how the reverse is also true). Someday I hope to have the chance to do it right with someone who is as dedicated to making it work as I am. But in the meantime I pray for the marriages around me. That the spouses surrounding me will be dedicated to doing what it takes to make their marriages work and that they will know that feelings don’t usually dictate reality. And that they will always choose love.