I liked this quote

[Mik]

It reflects my marriage quite nicely.

"A love affair has to do with immediate personal satisfaction. But marriage is an ordeal; it means yielding, time and again. That's why it's a sacrament: you give up your personal simplicity to participate in a relationship. And when you're giving, you're not giving to the other person: you're giving to the relationship. And if you realize you are in the relationship just as the other person is, then it becomes life building, a life fostering and enriching experience, not an impoverishment because you're giving to somebody else. . .

This is the challenge of a marriage. What a beautiful thing is a life together as growing personalities, each helping the other to flower, rather than just moving into the standard archetype. It's a wonderful moment when people can make the decision to be something quite astonishing and unexpected, rather than cookie-mold products."

• Joseph Campbell,

From An Open Life: Joseph Campbell in Conversation with Michael Toms p. 127

[Axtremus]

“Personal satisfaction” sounds more fun than “an ordeal.”

[Mik]

But ultimately empty. There's never anything but the next thing..."I'll be happy when....".

Still, ordeal was probably not the best choice of words.

[89th]

I read once that a good marriage is where it’s not 50/50, but 60/40 (or 80/20), you always want to give 60% and in a good marriage so does the other person. My marriage isn’t perfect, but that would be the advice I give other newlyweds for sure.

[Mik]

The best advice I ever got is make sure she's your friend alongside everything else.

[Axtremus]

@89th said in I liked this quote:

good marriage

As if there is a timeless, universal definition for what that is.

[Doctor Phibes]

@Axtremus said in I liked this quote:

@89th said in I liked this quote:

good marriage

As if there is a timeless, universal definition for what that is.

The Anna Karenina Principle.

"All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way."

[Mik]

I don't think there is a firm definition, no, but I do think there are some commonalities that most happy marriages share.

[Axtremus]

Notice the subtle shift from "good" to "happy."

Easier to achieve consensus for "happy" than it is for "good."

[Doctor Phibes]

@Axtremus said in I liked this quote:

Notice the subtle shift from "good" to "happy."

Easier to achieve consensus for "happy" than it is for "good."

Can you think of any examples of bad marriages that are happy, or good marriages that are not?

[Axtremus]

Ask the question the other way: can you think of marriages where the couples are "happy" and yet not viewed as "good" by third parties?

The royals, the gays, the interracial, the interfaith, the old+rich marrying the young+beautiful, etc.

[Doctor Phibes]

@Axtremus said in I liked this quote:

Ask the question the other way: can you think of marriages where the couples are "happy" and yet not viewed as "good" by third parties?

The royals, the gays, the interracial, the interfaith, the old+rich marrying the young+beautiful, etc.

If I wanted to play word games I'd be logged into Squaredle