Our early lessons in love and our developmental history shape the expectations we bring into marriage.

One advantage of marriage is that, when you fall out of love with him or he falls out of love with you, it keeps you together until you fall in again.

Losing is the price we pay for living. It is also the source of much of our growth and gain.

Late birds get worms while early birds get tired.

If we are the younger, we may envy the older. If we are the older, we may feel that the younger is always being indulged. In otherwords, no matter what position we hold in family order of birth, we can prove beyond a doubt that we're being gypped.

You end up as you deserve. In old age you must put up with the face, the friends, the health, and the children you have earned.

Eventually we will learn that the loss of indivisible love is another of our necessary losses, that loving extends beyond the mother-child pair, that most of the love we receive in this world is love we will have to share--and that sharing begins at home, with our sibling rivals.