You tend to have far more real, intense friendships when you are single, perhaps because you can be more honest when you do not have the marriage or … - Merle Shain

I'm not sure there can be loving without commitment, although commitment takes all kinds and forms, and there can be commitment for the moment as well as commitment for all time. The kind that is essential for loving marriages-- and love affairs, as well-- is a commitment to preserving the essential quality of your partner's soul, adding to them rather than taking away.

Nobody really wants to spend life with someone who has no other choice, and children who have been raised by a mother who gave up her life for them almost always spend years on an analyst's couch learning to spit in her eye.

People who are loving toward each other set up their marriages so that it is possible for both partners to get what they need from life and so that no one is expected to give up his needs to meet those of his spouse. And when their partner meets one of their needs they accept it as a gift, instead of viewing each unmet one as if it were a betrayal.