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Seeing marriage as a work in progress can keep us realistic.

Paradoxically, the more idealistic we are about marriage, the more likely we are to be pessimists in practice. Rather than seeing it as a union of flawed people working to create what the American social critic Christopher Lasch called a “haven in a heartless world,” we seek perfection from the get-go – a standard that’s all but impossible to meet.

“Love shouldn’t be this hard” is a line the author has heard a million times in his work as a pastor. Love, we often assume, is natural. If you meet the right person, things should just fall into place.

Many Christians have a different view. No two people are naturally compatible. As the philosopher Stanley Hauerwas puts it, “We never know whom we marry; we just think we do.”

In other words, no relationship brings us closer to another human being than marriage, and this intense experience is transformative. When we marry, we begin to change and no one can anticipate what kind of person we’ll become. Even if we find the “right” person, partners can end up becoming strangers to one another. Like many Christians, Hauerwas argues that this fact shapes the meaning of marriage, which – in his words – is about “learning to love and care for the stranger to whom you find yourself married.”

Now, this doesn’t mean you should marry randomly – some people truly are fundamentally incompatible. But this view of marriage can help us break out of the idealism-pessimism trap we described earlier. If we accept that marriage is always a work in progress, we’ll have a more realistic view of what awaits us. And that will help us build better, happier marriages.

Marriage is the chance for a richer, more intimate relationship.

Some contemporary Christian thinkers reference two types of relationships in Western societies – consumer and covenantal.

Consider your grocer. As long as she’s giving you great produce at an acceptable cost, the relationship lasts. But if a new grocer offers you a better deal, you might switch – your individual needs come first, after all. This is a consumer relationship.

Now imagine the exhausted parents of a tantrum-throwing child. This relationship is demanding, emotionally draining, and unsatisfying, but they continue sacrificing their needs. Why? We regard parenting as a covenant – an unconditional commitment to the well-being of another person. In a covenant, the relationship itself is the most important thing. This is why there’s so much social stigma attached to giving up a child even if you find parenthood unrewarding.

As we’ve seen, marriage is increasingly regarded as a consumer relationship. But, Christians take a different view.

Marriage vows aren’t just declarations of how we feel – they’re promises. We pledge to remain at the side of our spouses whatever happens, for better or for worse, in sickness and in health. Like the relationship of a parent and child, this is unconditional commitment.

Dating and living together, by contrast, are consumer relationships. To last, both parties have to demonstrate that they’re bringing something to the table which the other person couldn’t get elsewhere. Since anyone can walk away, each party has to engage in “marketing” and “self-promotion.” If the relationship isn’t meeting the individual needs of both parties at any given point, it may end.

But let’s pause a second to recall the study on happiness in marriage we cited earlier. Again, two-thirds of individuals who said they were unhappy in their marriages changed their answer to happy within five years if they remained married. Why?

Perhaps, while it’s initially disappointing when your spouse stops trying to impress you or even “lets themselves go,” it also creates a space in which you can address more fundamental issues. Who are you really? What are your real needs and problems? Marriage vows give you a reason to hang in there when things get tough. The reward? A shot at a richer, more intimate relationship and long-term happiness.

Marriage is above all a friendship.

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随便翻译了部分

> 把婚姻当作一个进行中的作品会让我们更现实。矛盾的是，对待婚姻的态度越理想主义，我们越容易在婚姻的实践中持悲观的态度（不能宽容）。我们没有把婚姻当作两个不完美的人一起创造人间天堂的联盟，而是期望一开始就很完美。

> "爱不应该这么困难"是笔者在牧师生涯中听过千万次的抱怨，我们以为爱是件不需要努力的事情，如果你遇到那个对的人，一切就水到渠成。

> 没有任何关系能够像婚姻一样把两个人这样紧密地连接在一起，这样的经验能够给人带来巨大的改变。当我们结婚后，我们开始改变，没人能预料到我们会变成什么样的人。即使找到那个对的人，伴侣也常常会变成彼此不那么熟悉的人。婚姻的意义在于学会去爱和关心那个我们与之一起生活的人(在这个过程中我们得到成长)。

> 这并不意味这你应该随便结婚，有些人确实是根本上就不能在相容的。