The case for marriage : part 2

What Makes a Marriage Good

We are disillusioned by marriage not because we reject love, but because we've seen what happens when love is misused, neglected, distorted, and turned into a selfish pursuit that serves ego rather than the other.

We’ve seen people wither inside their vows. We’ve seen commitment weaponized. We've mistaken silence for peace, control for devotion, endurance for intimacy. We’ve watched affection sour into obligation, and promises unravel under the weight of unchecked self-actualization.

So we brace.
We avoid terms that sound permanent.
We keep things light, flexible, open-ended...believing that love, if it’s real, should feel like freedom. And if it ever stops feeling that way, we should be able to leave without consequence.

But here is the truth: a good marriage is not a trap.
It is not the end of freedom, it is the framework within which real freedom becomes possible.

A good marriage does not require you to diminish yourself.
It asks you to become more of who you already are.
It reveals you to yourself.
It challenges you to grow, not for the sake of the other, but in the presence of someone who sees your potential, remembers your essence, and nudges you, lovingly, toward the person you’ve always had the capacity to be.

A good marriage is not a balm that conceals your wounds.
It is often where they surface.
But it is also where they are met, not with judgment, but with compassion. With tenacity. With a partner who shows up, not just in the dazzling moments, but in the dailiness of life, when showing up is the hardest and most sacred thing one can do.

A good marriage is made in the invisible work:

❤️ Knowing when to reach out and when to retreat.
❤️ The shared rhythms of meals, errands, and unwatched streaming queues that become the quiet architecture of a life.
❤️ The ability to endure the everyday together without fearing that comfort means complacency.
❤️ The capacity to create wonder (to surprise each other) even after years of sameness.
❤️ The shorthand glances that speak volumes in public spaces, understood by no one else but the two of you.

A good marriage is not made in the moments that look like love from the outside.
It is forged in the private decisions to stay.
To return.
To forgive.
To believe, again, in what you’re building.

Because a good marriage isn’t about ease. It’s about alignment—on the big things: values, family, faith, freedom. It’s about knowing why you’re in it, not out of fear, not for convenience, not because of children or finances, but because it works.
Because it works for you.

Because it has made you better.
More honest.
More resilient.
More alive.

In a good marriage, you grow and your spouse celebrates that growth, even when it changes the terms of what was once familiar. You evolve and they don’t try to pull you back, but move forward with you. You believe in each other’s becoming and that belief becomes the soil in which you both bloom.

This is not idealism.
This is not romantic delusion.
This is what marriage, at its best, makes possible.

Yes, it takes work.
Yes, it is inconvenient at times.
But what is more worthwhile than a life built on mutual trust, shared vision, and enduring love?

A good marriage does not just survive time, it deepens with it.
It matures. It gathers meaning.

And somewhere along the way, you realize:
It was never about the dress, the veil, the wedding cake, or the honeymoon.
It was always about this:

❤️ The quiet coffee made just the way you like it.
❤️ The steadying hand at the small of your back.
❤️ The laughter over laundry, or the right way to pack the dishwasher.
❤️The quiet of early morning when they're asleep and you get the house all to yourself.
❤️ The laughter on waking up - at the bed hair and morning breath.

❤️ The long slow walks exploring old towns, foreign lands and your old neighbourhood.

Your shared history tells an epic story:
A story that spans all the chapters of your life, if you remain open to growing together, and as individuals.

And when you look across the room and realise you would still choose this person after all the shifts, the hard conversations, the victories both small and staggering...you will know:
This is no trap.
This is no half-life.

This is home.