[GrampaKen]

The goal of marriage ideally includes the desire of each to spend their lives together, with a continuing compassion for each other through good and bad times. There will be bad times and acceptance can be a very valuable part of the long term commitment.

It isn't always easy with different ideas, choices and habits. Some of these conflicting situations are easy to overlook while others exasperating and perhaps unchanging. By accepting those apparently permanent irritations as permanent, they will somehow become less irritating.

Joseph Addison 300 years ago put it quite nicely: "Two persons who have chosen each other out of all the species with a design to be each other's mutual comfort and entertainment have, in that action, bound themselves to be good-humored, affable, discreet, forgiving, patient, and joyful, with respect to each other's frailties and perfections, to the end of their lives."

[AussieD]

It isn't always easy but it's a commitment and also a lot of fun being married - in the young days, with children and teenagers, and later when back to a twosome again. You might enjoy some of my blogs about marriage http://marriage.families.com/blog/ma...s-a-commitment