Love and Marriage... go together like a horse (bucking bronco) and carriage

“Marriage is the merciless revealer, the great white searchlight turned on the darkest places of human nature.” – Katherine Anne Porter

“Marriage is the Crucible in which we realize our darkest nature. We discover things about ourselves we do not like, and we wonder tough times if there is any hope for improvement.”
“Forgiveness. We are stingy when giving it to others. It’s hard to love people so different from us. Nonetheless, we are called to love even the unlovely and to serve even those who cannot repay us ( Luke 14) IF we let Differences get in love’s way, we shrink our world and become little self-islands. How boring. And taken to logical extreme, loving only those who can relate to and who don’t challenge us ensures that we’ll never love God much either. He is incredibly different than us.”
Love is learned and marriage is the most demanding classroom of love.
The need to comfort your inner darkness is not the same anywhere else as it is in marriage. The hell you have faced and experienced can grow your soul. You can be more loving, caring, understanding, shrewd, authentic, and honest. You can be less judgmental. You can become a brighter redemptive force of light – even if your spouse or loved one does not change. Your bigger soul will become more attractive. So much of this growth revolves around forgiveness. There exists what some might mistakenly call a selfish side to the act of pardoning someone for wrongdoing. This quality isn’t selfish, though- just mutually beneficial.
“Forgiveness is an act of self-defense, a tourniquet that stops the fatal bleeding of resentment.” – Gary Thomas
“Forgiveness is a love practiced among people who love poorly” – Henri Nouwen

“If you think it’s too hard to forgive someone who has done horrible things, you need to think again. You can love the sinner and at the same time hate the sin.
– excerpts from Paul & Sandy Coughlin