The romantic fairy tales we grew up with -- where marriage is the happy ending rather than the opening scene -- are not useful for grown-ups.

I’ve never believed in fairy tales. One day, the fairies will tell this story. There will be a valiant prince, a part no doubt played in history by the brave Vartan who journeys to rescue his bride from a dragon. There will be fairies. There will be horse-birds and there will be an enchanted blade. But, I will no doubt be stricken from the tale, a cursed blemish on a shining story. Happy endings don’t always happen in the real world.

As married people, we dwell on a spectrum between happy and unhappy, in love and out of love, and we move back and forth on that line decade by decade, year by year, week by week, even hour by hour.

Dating is poetry. Marriage is a novel. There are times, maybe years, that are all exposition.

...there is so much beauty in the trying, and in the failing, and in the trying again.

People who don't marry miss both the pelting hardships of marriage and its warm rewards.