The Marriage Box

“Most people get married believing a myth that marriage is a beautiful box full of all the things they have longed for: companionship, sexual fulfillment, intimacy, friendship.

The truth is that marriage, at the start, is an empty box. You must put something in before you can take anything out. There is no love in marriage; love is in people, and people put it into marriage. There is no romance in marriage; people have to infuse it into their marriages.

A couple must learn the art and form the habit of giving, loving, serving, praising–keeping the box full. If you take out more than you put in, the box will be empty.” – J. Allan Petersen

By default, of course, we always think about what our spouse could be putting into that box, but in reality that isn’t something we can control. What we CAN control is what WE put into that box. When you do that, your spouse may begin to follow suit.

If they don’t that is obviously cause for concern, but I can say without any doubt that if nobody puts anything in, there can never be hope for a change.