It’s easy to find someone who will drink with you late into the night, someone whose desire is plain. What is much rarer is the person who makes porridge in the morning and kisses you awake. Almost every relationship moves from romance toward marriage, and the sweetness and heat of dating do not last at the same intensity. What remains has to be held together by character, affection, and the small choices two people make. That part of love does not live in bed.
Marriage cannot be a permanent extension of courtship. The passion that once felt all-consuming is worn down by time, sometimes until little of it is left. Life returns to plainness: groceries, cooking, bills, and routine. The energy two people once spent being curious about each other can turn dull with repetition. Many couples discover that after a few years, apart from sex, there are few shared scenes they remember vividly. So is adult love only a matter of the bedroom? No. Physical intimacy matters, but it cannot carry the whole weight of a shared life. If there is nothing else to return to, the relationship becomes thin.
A flat daily life can blur novelty, but a happy marriage is still found inside that flatness. A friend once described her husband as impossible. Every time they argued, she would leave the house wanting to buy a knife and cut him into pieces. Yet by the time she was in the supermarket, the anger had melted away, and the knife turned into a pile of snacks and fruit he liked. That is marriage, I think: you may curse the other person a hundred times, but you cannot bear to hurt them once. A sharp tongue and a soft heart are part of the stubbornness of married life.
If a hundred arguments still end in reconciliation, why not try a different way of talking? Since we know we love each other, can we turn a blind eye to some small things? We do not need the other person to do everything according to our expectations. There is wisdom in not over-scrutinizing. If something does no real harm, let it go. You stay calmer, the other person stays happier, and both of you win. Water that is too clear has no fish. Marriage can be like a deep spring: demand absolute purity and you lose the pleasure of watching fish swim. Allow some impurities, and the water becomes lively.
I once heard a story about an old man on his fiftieth wedding anniversary. He said that on the day he married, he made a list of ten flaws in his wife, and if she ever committed any of them, he would say nothing. Someone asked what the ten flaws were. He said he had never actually written a specific list. Every flaw he encountered later, he simply tolerated.
That may be the best state of marriage. After the wedding, each person’s flaws appear; what matters is that tolerance gradually helps each become someone the other likes more easily. Marriage is always a two-person matter. It needs joint effort for the seed of love to take root, sprout, and finally flower and bear fruit. A good marriage asks both people to be appropriately mature—to tolerate and understand each other—so that its shelf life lasts longer. Marriage is not easy. Only when husband and wife pull together do the days become happier and happier.
