What we dislike in others is often a weakness in our own lives.

We cannot rely on our native tongue if our spouse does not understand it. If we want them to feel the love we are trying to communicate, we must express it in his or her primary love language.

Respect begins with this attitude: "I acknowledge that you are a creature of extreme worth. God has endowed you with certain abilities and emotions. Therefore I respect you as a person. I will not desecrate your worth by making critical remarks about your intellect, your judgment or your logic. I will seek to understand you and grant you the freedom to think differently from the way I think and to experience emotions that I may not experience." Respect means that you give the other person the freedom to be an individual.

Requests give direction to love, but demands stop the flow of love.

What we do for each other before marriage is no indication of what we will do after marriage.

I hope the reader's sense that I am deeply empathetic with the pain of being in a desperate marriage, but I also believe that the person who is married to the abuser or the alcoholic or whomever has the greatest potential for helping them.

Love is a choice you make everyday.