marriage on Finding a Spouse

Pray less that God would show you who is the right husband or wife and pray more to be the right kind of husband or wife.

The problem with the myth of “the one” is that it assumes that affection is the glue that holds the marriage together, when really it is your commitment to marriage that safeguards the affection. So d...

Most men and women fall in love with individuals of the same ethnic, social, religious, educational and economic background, those of similar physical attractiveness, a comparable intelligence, simila...

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 assumpt...

It seems almost oxymoronic to believe that this new idealism has led to a new pessimism about marriage, but that is exactly what has happened. In generations past there was far less talk about compati...

God help the man who won’t marry until he finds a perfect woman, and God help him still more if he finds her.

Where do you turn for marriage advice when you aren’t religious? This is becoming an ever-increasing question as western cultures become more and more secular. One option is to turn to the London-base...

One day we were out running errands. The radio in my car was playing in the background, and between songs there was an advertisement for an online dating service. The spokesman-doctor-expert guy was d...

Our culture is still stuck on viewing marriage through the lens of happiness first and foremost—defining happiness by romantic intensity and sexual chemistry. Since the 1960s, sociologists have found ...

A few years ago Christian friends of ours, after several years of marriage, came to see Esther and me to explain that their relationship had reached an impasse and that they could see no alternative b...

One of the most influential myths nourished by the culture of authenticity is that we will be “saved” or made complete when we meet the right-shaped soul, that perfectly complementary person who can f...

A few weeks ago, our family celebrated a very special occasion: my mom's remarriage after being widowed several years ago when my father died of a rare disease. The ceremony was Catholic, and I fo...

Get married. If you have a good wife, you’ll be happy; if not, you’ll become a philosopher.

Before you marry a person, you should first make them use a computer with slow Internet to see who they really are.

A man or woman’s aim is to find a mate who completes him or her. In this view, marriage is an end in itself, and sexual consummation is a celebration of such completion. Yet the Bible teaches that God...

In marriage do thou be wise: prefer the person before money, virtue before beauty, the mind before the body; then thou hast a wife, a friend, a companion, a second self.

Weddings are easy; marriages are difficult. The couple wants to plan a wedding; I want to plan a marriage.

A successful marriage requires falling in love many times, always with the same person.

Marriage is tough because you have to deal with feelings and lawyers.

I heard about a woman who married a very demanding, hard, and unloving man. Her husband made her existence miserable by presenting her with a list of his demands and expectations… The woman’s husband ...

The tension between autonomy and intimacy is most clearly evidenced in the trend toward cohabitation. Today, between 50 and 70 percent of American couples are cohabiting before or instead of marrying....

Marriage is like twirling a baton, turning hand springs or eating with chopsticks. It looks easy until you try it.

My husband says my ability to talk is what first attracted him to me. He loved how I could work a room, making the shy ones feel included. I could converse with the college president and yuck it up wi...

One summer I spoke at a church in Pennsylvania, and a young woman came up to me afterward. She and her boyfriend were talking about marriage. She asked my advice, and we discussed her boyfriend’s stre...

Marriage is an adventure, like going to war.

I have known many happy marriages, but never a compatible one. The whole aim of marriage is to fight through and survive the instant when incompatibility becomes unquestionable. For a man and a woman,...

Today I pray for those of us who are married. Because of sin, we will never experience exactly what you intended for marriage. But, by your grace, we can approach this ideal. Help us, Lord, to make ou...

The real soul mate is the one you are actually married to.

It is a common belief that the surest way to end your sex life is to get married. But the reality is far more complicated. While it’s true that for many couples, sexual excitement fades in marriage, o...

Too many young guys are waiting for writing in the sky before they make a relational commitment. It doesn’t have to be that complicated. My grandpa DeYoung met my grandma on his paper route. Then they...