Each one of you must love his wife . . .
and a wife must respect her husband.
—Ephesians 5:33
These two things torpedo happiness: 1) wanting something you can’t have; 2) having something you wanted and no longer wanting it.
The coed who came to my office for counsel was madly in love with a fellow student—but not he with her.
She was miserable, convinced she could never be happy without him—the agony of wanting something she couldn’t have.
She continued the pursuit, eventually winning his love, and they were married.
She wanted to be treated like a queen but treated him with indifference. Five years after the “I-dos,” her love had become loathing, and she filed for divorce—the agony of getting what she wanted and finding that she no longer wanted it.
Happy relationships are pretty evenly divided between responsibility and reward.
Consider the costs when
anticipating the rewards.