Quotes & Sayings About Marriage Couples

Liz asked me the other day what I thought about twice baked potatoes. How the fuck should I know? Was I supposed to be thinking about twice baked potatoes all this time? Is this where I went wrong? Are grown men supposed to have an opinion about twice baked potatoes? — Tara Sivec

Couples in distress too often turn to solutions that can be summed up by "You do your thing and I'll do my thing" or "You take care of yourself and I'll take care of myself." We hear pop psychology pronouncements such as "I'm not ready to be in a relationship" and "You have to love yourself before anyone can love you."

Is any of this true? Is it really possible to love yourself before someone ever loves you?

Think about it. How could this be true? If it were true, babies would come into this world already self-loving or self-hating. And we know they don't. In fact, human beings don't start by thinking anything about themselves, good or bad. We learn to love ourselves precisely because we have experienced being loved by someone. We learn to take care of ourselves because somebody has taken care of us. — Stan Tatkin

Besides all of this, Patrick and I living together for the first time meant it was the beginning of a life together, that nitty-gritty one where we fight over the way he leaves the spatula on a still-hot burner, or how she always "organizes" his things in illogical piles when they were already in order according to his systems. No matter where in the world, no matter how exotic the locale, they'll still fight over that spatula and those piles. And they'll still notice how other couples, no matter their language, will glare at one another on the sunniest of days, skulking by the ocean that they'd just enjoyed hand-in-hand. — Megan Rich

Success in relationships takes death to the flesh. Singles stop begging for what you won't die for and couples start dying so your marriage can live. — Hope D. Blackwell

I oppose same-sex marriage and civil unions but I support domestic partnership between gay and lesbian couples. I have no problem with gay and lesbian couples adopting. I support equal benefits for same-sex couples such as hospital visitation rights — Mitt Romney

Of course the welfare of our children is a legitimate state interest. However, limiting marriage to opposite-sex couples fails to further this interest. Instead, needlessly stigmatizing and humiliating children who are being raised by the loving couples targeted by Virginia's Marriage Laws betrays that interest. E. S.-T. [the 15-year-old daughter of two of the plaintiffs], like the thousands of children being raised by same-sex couples, is needlessly deprived of the protection, the stability, the recognition and the legitimacy that marriage conveys ... — Arenda L. Wright Allen

What most couples fail to realize is that marriage vows denote change. — Elona Washington

In the beginning - not now, thank God - Patty was always sharing the important books of her life with him, like Black Elk Speaks, The Golden Bough, and Hero with a Thousand Faces. — Richard Price

If married couples did not live together, happy marriages would be more frequent. — Friedrich Nietzsche

It is unconstitutional to deny people, gay or lesbian couples, the right to marriage. Everyone has equal rights so this is the right way to go. I think it's a great celebration for America. — Arnold Schwarzenegger

Marriage is a long-lasting friendship. — Lailah Gifty Akita

I've called on Congress to repeal the so-called Defense of Marriage Act to help end discrimination to help end discrimination against same-sex couples in this country. Now, I want to add we have a duty to uphold existing law, but I believe we must do so in a way that does not exacerbate old divides. And fulfilling this duty in upholding the law in no way lessens my commitment to reversing this law. I've made that clear. — Barack Obama

It was possible for couples to not discover that they are in profound disagreement over the very fundamentals of life until ten or twenty years of marriage. — Julian Fellowes

I believe that marriage is between a man and a woman. But I also believe that gay and lesbians and gay and lesbian couples, those who have been in long-term relationships, deserve to be treated respectfully, they deserve to have benefits. — Dick Cheney

The Buddha referred to married people as "householders." He even gave clear instructions as to how one should be a good householder: Be nice to your spouse, be honest, be faithful, give alms to the poor, buy some insurance against fire and flood ... I'm dead serious: The Buddha literally advised married couples to buy property insurance. — Elizabeth Gilbert

Admire and appreciate your man and he will be happy on your side — Linda Alfiori

Marry for love. But also choose to marry a man or woman who you love that treats you with the ultimate respect for your expression of who you are at your very core. — Julieanne O'Connor

That isn't how I've always felt. As a congressman, and more recently as a senator, I opposed marriage for same-sex couples. Then something happened that led me to think through my position in a much deeper way. — Rob Portman

If someone doesn't like what you bring to the table in a relationship, let them eat alone. — Karen Salmansohn

All the couples therapy and communication seminars in the world won't save you if you aren't prepared to close your eyes and hug the mainmast through a storm. — Ada Calhoun

Take care of him. And make him feel important. And if you can do that, you'll have a happy and wonderful marriage. Like two out of every ten couples. — Neil Simon

About halfway through I broke down crying, which I hadn't expected. I was a little ashamed, but only a little;it was her, you see, and she never taxed me with the times that I slipped from the way I thought a man should be ... the way I thought I should be, at any rate. A man with a good wife is the luckiest of God's creatures, and one without must be among the most miserable, I think, the only true blessing of their lives that they don't know how poorly off they are. — Stephen King

Although cohabitating same-sex couples are prohibited from jointly adopting children under Utah law as a result of the same-sex marriage ban, the record shows that nearly 3,000 Utah children are being raised by same-sex couples. Thus childrearing, a liberty closely related to the right to marry, is one exercised by same-sex and opposite-sex couples alike, as well as by single individuals. — Carlos F. Lucero

Truth be told, many couples spend more time planning the wedding and the honeymoon than they do preparing for the marriage. — Carlos Wallace

If you want to see changes in the spiritual tone of your home and marriage, start with your own life. — Jim George

If you want kids, choose your girlfriend like your future child has the deciding vote. — Stefan Molyneux

Among even the happiest married couples there are always moments of regret. — Honore De Balzac

I support allowing gay couples to marry because of - not in spite of - my values. And many of those values are the same ones deeply held by those who do not believe in gay marriage. — Mark Udall

Even before we met and long after we're both gone, my heart lives inside of yours. I'm forever and ever in love with you. — Crystal Woods

Among married couples the person who actually makes out the mortgage check is likely to be more cautious about spending money than the person who doesn't. There is something sobering about sending away that much money every month in the knowledge that, rain or shine, you'll have to come up with the same amount of money the next month and the month after that. — Calvin Trillin

In Ollie's opinion, garnered from extensive reading, nothing was guaranteed to drive people apart faster than finally having sex. It was pretty much fatal to any good flirtatious relationship. Almost as bad as marriage. And everyone knew there were no romantic books written about married couples. It was all in the chase. — John Wiltshire

Marriage is like a series of opposing reflections, inverse images getting ever smaller like nesting dolls, each one of your trying to squeeze yourself smaller to fit inside the hopes of the other, until one of you cracks or stops existing. — Jacob M. Appel

Couples who regularly practice empathy see stunning results. It is the independent variable that predicts a successful marriage, according to behaviorist John Gottman, who, post hoc criticisms notwithstanding, forecasts divorce probabilities with accuracy rates approaching 90 percent. In Gottman's studies, if the wife felt she was being heard by her husband - to the point that he accepted her good influence on his behavior - the marriage was essentially divorce-proof. (Interestingly, whether the husband felt heard was not a factor in divorce rates.) If that empathy trafficking was absent, the marriage foundered. Research — John Medina

nothing but a testament of his ownership of me. A daily reminder of the golden cage I'd be trapped in for the rest of my life. Until death do us part wasn't an empty promise as with so many other couples that entered the holy bond of marriage. There was no way out of this union for me. I was Luca's until the bitter end. The last few words of the oath that men swore when they were inducted into the mafia could just as well have been the closing of my wedding vow: "I enter alive and I will have to get out dead." I should have run when I still had the chance. — Cora Reilly

Stay with me...opponents of gay marriage claim that granting equal legal rights to gay couples would degrade the sanctity of a sacred familial institution. What they don't seem to notice is that Who Wants to Marry A Multi-Millionaire?, Married By America and the Bachelor have been degrading the notion of marriage on prime time for an entire decade... — Jennifer L. Pozner

The difference between being a church attender and a church member is commitment. Attenders are spectators from the sidelines; members get involved in the ministry. Attenders are consumers; members are contributors. Attenders want the benefits of a church without sharing the responsibility. They are like couples who want to live together without committing to a marriage. — Rick Warren

In the property division splitting couples go through, the allocation of friends must surely be the most painful. — Christine Benvenuto

Many couples have trouble with this aspect of marriage. They feel abandoned when their spouse wants time apart. In reality, spouses need time apart, which makes them realize the need to be back together. Spouses in healthy relationships cherish each other's space and are champions of each other's causes. — Henry Cloud

Before marriage, many couples are very much like people rushing to catch an airplane; once aboard, they turn into passengers. They just sit there. — J. Paul Getty

Marriage and dating are man-made ideologies; if having a lover was a prerequisite to living, we'd all be born in pairs; as couples. — Mokokoma Mokhonoana

I'm not sure that it's right to view this as excluding a particular group. When the institution of marriage developed historically, people didn't get around and say, 'Let's have this institution, but let's keep out homosexuals.' The institution developed to serve purposes that, by their nature, didn't include homosexual couples. — John Roberts

Is there stop 'n' go counseling for couples on the run? — Becky Freeman

That woman," Grimm said quietly, "drives me quite insane."
Kettle grunted. "Why'd you marry her, then? — Jim Butcher

I want to try with someone who loves me enough to try with me. I want to grow old looking at the same face every morning. I want to grow old looking at the same face every night at the dinner table. I want to be one of those old couples you see still holding hands and laughing after fifty years of marriage. That's what I want. I want to be someone's forever. — Rachel Gibson

If our primary caregivers are shame-based, they will act shameless and pass their toxic shame onto us. There is no way to teach self-value if one does not value oneself. Toxic shame is multigenerational. It is passed from one generation to the next. Shame-based people find other shame-based people and get married. As each member of a couple carries the shame from his or her own family system, their marriage will be grounded in their shame-core. The major outcome of this will be a lack of intimacy. It's difficult to let someone get close to you if you feel defective and flawed as a human being. Shame-based couples maintain nonintimacy through poor communication, nonproductive circular fighting, games, manipulation, vying for control, withdrawal, blaming and confluence. Confluence is the agreement never to disagree. Confluence creates pseudointimacy. — John Bradshaw

In the best of all possible worlds, childbirth enriches a marriage. In the worst, it harms it. No matter how good their marriage is, most couples find that having a baby challenges their relationship. — Jean Marzollo

We recognize that same-sex marriage makes some people deeply uncomfortable. However, inertia and apprehension are not legitimate bases for denying same-sex couples due process and equal protection of the laws. Civil marriage is one of the cornerstones of our way of life. It allows individuals to celebrate and publicly declare their intentions to form lifelong partnerships, which provide unparalleled intimacy, companionship, emotional support, and security. — Henry Franklin Floyd

Same-sex couples should have the right to civil marriage. Our time on this earth is limited, I know that better than most. Life comes down to who you love and who loves you back- government has no place in the middle. — Mark Kirk

Even the God of Calvin never judged anyone as harshly as married couples judge each other. — Wilfrid Sheed

The most successful relationships are ones with a really low negativity threshold. In those relationships, couples allow each other to complain, and work together to constantly repair the tiny issues between them. In such cases, couples don't bottle up their feelings, and little things don't end up being blown completely out of proportion. — Hannah Fry

Couples stray," said Edgar. "Part of the breaking-in process."
"Not breaking in, breaking." Nicola differed sharply. "You can glue people together again. But then your relationship's like any other repaired object, with cracks, blobs of epoxy, a little askew. It's never the same. I can see you haven't a notion what I'm on about, so you'll have to take my word for it."
"Christ, you're a babe in the woods." Edgar stopped slicing tomatoes. "You got it ass-backward. A marriage perched like porcelain on the mantelpiece is doomed. Sooner or later grown-ups treat each other like shit. You gotta be able to kick the thing around, less like china than an old shoe - bam, under the bed, or walk it through some puddles. No love's gonna last it if can't take abuse. — Lionel Shriver

The facts are plain: Religious leaders who preside over marriage ceremonies must and will be guided by what they believe. If they do not wish to celebrate marriages for same-sex couples, that is their right. The Supreme Court says so. And the Charter says so. — Paul Martin

Every major world religion has identified marriage as between a man and a woman. — Barack Obama

After much deliberation, and after reviewing the legal, public policy and civil-rights questions presented, I support marriage equality for same-sex couples and believe that DOMA should be repealed. — Bob Casey Jr.

Many marriages dry up and miss the path to individuation because the couples try to ease their situations through excluding and representing their most essential characteristics, whether these be peculiar sexual wishes, neurotic traits, or whatever. The more one confronts everything, the more interesting and fruitful becomes the path to individution. — Adolf Guggenbhuhl-Craig

What isn't debatable is that conventional marriage is a full-blown disaster for millions of men, women, and children right now. Conventional till-death-(or infidelity, or boredom)-do-us-part marriage is a failure. Emotionally, economically, psychologically, and sexually, it just doesn't work over the long term for too many couples. — Christopher Ryan

People are always asking couples whose marriage has endured at least a quarter of a century for their secret for success. Actually, it is no secret at all. I am a forgiving woman. Long ago, I forgave my husband for not being Paul Newman. — Erma Bombeck

This is going to hurt, but you will have to watch other couples be happier, richer and louder than you. Wait. No obstacle can withstand patience. Wait. You may not think so now, but there will come a time when you will be tempted to run away. Would that be right? Would that be fair? As every matriarch discovers, entire seasons will pass without reward. As your mate's peculiarities add up, what do you do? Wait!
pg 45 — Michael Ben Zehabe

I think it's something that needs to be said - that there are interracial marriages out there, and the couples live happy lives, and there's nothing wrong with it. — Tia Mowry

After years of struggle, the U.S. Supreme Court today has made same-sex marriage a reality in California ... I have directed the California Department of Public Health to advise the state's counties that they must begin issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples in California — Jerry Brown

This isn't a spotless life. There is much ahead, my immaculate little peach. And there is no way to say it other than to say it: marriage is indeed this horribly complex thing for which you appear to be ill prepared and about which you seem to be utterly naive. That's okay. A lot of people are. You can learn along the way. A good way to start would be to let fall your notions about "perfect couples." It's really such an impossible thing to either perceive honestly in others or live up to when others believe it about us. It does nothing but box some people in and shut other people out, and it ultimately makes just about everyone feel like shit. A perfect couple is a wholly private thing. No one but the two people in the perfect relationship know for certain whether they're in one. Its only defining quality is that it's composed of two people who feel perfectly right about sharing their lives with each other, even during the hard times. — Cheryl Strayed

Most couples get married because it's time, not because they're in love. They might have money issues, parental pressure, or they're simply tired of being alone - so they pick Mr. Good Enough and tie the knot. — H.M. Ward

I hear that among the younger generation couples sometimes maintain one large bedroom for husband and wife. I suppose that this is the hallmark of an intelligent use of space, and after all, the species must be propagated. Still, I prefer the older people's way of doing things: two well-appointed bedrooms, one each for husband and wife, an arrangement that prevents the revelation of so many irksome facts ...
-Van Kamp's Guide To Housekeeping For Ladies Of High Society,
1899 Edition — Anna Godbersen

All married couples should learn the art of battle as they should learn the art of making love. Good battle is objective and honest - never vicious or cruel. Good battle is healthy and constructive, and brings to a marriage the principles of equal partnership. — Ann Landers

Most married couples spend the whole day apart, the woman in the house, the man in the office or study or workshop. — George Bernard Shaw

So we fell asleep holding hands. If married couples got to do this all the time, shit if I could understand how there were ever divorces, or even fights. — John Barnes

Maturity is a needed component of faithful, loving relationships. And if not directed into the healthy channel of permitted adult behaviour, romantic and sexual jealousies can literally tear families and communities apart.
A permanent solution like marriage makes this much less a problem and also ensures that when couples have children, those children have a mother and father to care for them. — Linda Harvey

Another argument, vaguer and even less persuasive, is that gay marriage somehow does harm to heterosexual marriage. I have yet to meet anyone who can explain to me what this means. In what way would allowing same-sex partners to marry diminish the marriages of heterosexual couples? — Ted Olson

Is anyone saying same-sex couples can't love each other? I love my children. I love my friends, my brother. Heck, I even love my mother-in-law. Should we call these relationships marriage, too? — Rick Santorum

Couples often live out years of falsehood trying to protect and save a relationship, all the while destroying any chance of real relationship. — Henry Cloud

Love the family! Defend and promote it as the basic cell of human
society; nurture it as the prime sanctuary of life. Give great care to the
preparation of engaged couples and be close to young married couples, so
that they will be for their children and the whole community an eloquent
testimony of God's love. — Pope John Paul II

Marriage is the lightning rod that absorbs anxiety and stress from all other sources, past and present. When marriage has a firm foundation of solid friendship and mutual respect, it can tolerate a fair amount of raw emotion. A good fight can clear the air, and it's nice to know we can survive conflict and even learn from it. Many couples, however, get trapped in endless rounds of fighting and blaming that they don't know how to get out of. When fights go unchecked and unrepaired, they can eventually erode love and respect, which are the bedrock of any successful relationship. — Harriet Lerner

There is no magic in marriage. If there were, married couples would never desire to seperate. But they do. — George Bernard Shaw

In life there is no formula for 'Marriage" every experience differ as well as every couples differ,so all we have to do is to invite God into our marriages because he is the 'KEY" TO OUR HAPPINESS. — Nthabiseng Motjamela

There's no need to legalize gay marriage. I have plenty of gay friends who are committed couples; some of them call themselves married, some don't, but their friends treat them as married. Anybody who doesn't like it just doesn't hang out with them. — Orson Scott Card

We came to realize how little married couples see of each other once they crawl in the bourgeois box. — Erica Jong

By our Heavenly Father and only because of God, only because of God. We're like other couples. We do not get along perfectly; we do not go without arguments and, as I call them, fights, and heartache and pain and hurting each other. But a marriage is three of us. — Barbara Mandrell

Flowers bloom whenever their eyes meet each other's, and whenever they depend on each other. What does it matter if they wed in the snow or in the rain? They have each other to support and love, and that's all that should matter. — Kim Dong Hwa

Americans have swapped the awkward phrase "same-sex marriage" for the term "marriage equality." The phrase is ordinarily employed to mean that same-sex couples will have the rights different-sexed couples do. But it could also mean that marriage is between equals. That's not what traditional marriage was. — Rebecca Solnit

It's only fair that stable gay relationships of long standing should have the same rights and responsibilities as married couples. I know the image of gay marriage is to some people horrific and ludicrous. — Ian McKellen

American couples have gone to such lengths to avoid the interference of in-laws that they have to pay marriage counselors to interfere between them. — Florence King

I'm certain that most couples expect to find intimacy in marriage, but it somehow eludes them. — James Dobson

When did it become unconstitutional to exclude homosexual couples from marriage? 1791? 1868, when the 14th Amendment was adopted? — Antonin Scalia

Some couples are married because they fell in love. Some are married because the woman fell pregnant. — Mokokoma Mokhonoana

Thousands of young couples go through with a loveless marriage because no one ever told them what genuine love is. If people today knew that kind of love, the divorce rate would be sharply reduced. — Billy Graham

If the rights of civil partners are met differently in law to those of married couples, there is no discrimination in law, and if civil partnerships are seen as somehow 'second class' that is a social attitude which will change and cannot, in any case, be turned around by redefining the law of marriage. — John Sentamu

To me, the simplest gift that a husband or a wife can do for their partner is to remind them of their precious visions, goals and dreams. What a gift that is to have a voice of reason right in your corner when you sometimes need a little nudge to get back on track. To have a team player to cheer you on and to support your efforts is indeed a massive present from the universe. Whomever has such a gift should surely treasure and protect it for all its worth. It's worth is invaluable to the world. — Sereda Aleta Dailey

I support gay unions. I think the government should get out of the marriage business completely - leave marriages to the churches. And grant civil unions to gay couples, grant civil unions to a man and woman. — Gary Johnson

Who does ever get what they want? It doesn't seem to happen to many of us if any at all. It's always two people bumping against each other blindly, acting out old ideas and dreams and mistaken understandings. — Kent Haruf

Tits and cunts and legs and lips and mouths and tongues and assholes! How can I give up what I have never even had, for a girl, who delicious and provocative as once she may have been, will inevitably grow as familiar to me as a loaf of bread? For Love? What love? Is that what binds all these couples we know together - the ones who even bother to let themselves be bound? Isn't it something more like weakness? Isn't it rather convenience and apathy and guilt? Isn't it rather fear and exhaustion and inertia, gutlessness plain and simple, far far more than that "love" that the marriage counsellors and songwriters and psychotherapists are forever dreaming about? — Philip Roth

Today the House has a chance to give 25 million married couples the best Valentine's Day gift possible, elimination from the most unfair of taxes, the marriage tax penalty. — Jerry Weller

We will all experience the judgment of others when we fall in love. Love with your whole being anyway. — Julieanne O'Connor

We cannot say to one couple that their love is deserving of marriage and to another that their love should only be called a partnership. 'Separate but equal' is never equal. Children of same-sex couples should not grow up wondering why their family is treated differently from other families — Christine Gregoire

I support ensuring that committed gay couples have the same rights and responsibilities afforded to any married couple in this country. I believe strongly in stopping laws designed to take rights away and passing laws that extend equal rights to gay couples. I've required all agencies in the federal government to extend as many federal benefits as possible to LGBT families as the current law allows. And I've called on Congress to repeal the so-called Defense of Marriage Act and to pass the Domestic Partners Benefits and Obligations Act. — Barack Obama

Still it is true that many same-sex couples want nothing more than to join society as fully integrated socially responsible family-centered taxpaying Little League-coaching nation-serving respectably married citizens. So why not welcome them in Why not recruit them by the vanload to sweep in on heroic wings and save the flagging and battered old institution of matrimony from a bunch of apathetic ne'er-do-well heterosexual deadbeats like me — Elizabeth Gilbert

Over time, any deception destroys intimacy, and without intimacy couples cannot have true and lasting love. — Bonnie Eaker Weil

We are sad for the hurting couples; it breaks our hearts, actually. But we are even more brokenhearted about the effect it has on the Kingdom. We are sad because godly marriages magnify God's ingenious creation, but few marriages radiate that glory. We are sad about the victory Satan enjoys in watching couples call themselves "Christian" while living idly, living for themselves. We are devastated by how many choose divorce over obeying the King. The sad state of marriage makes the bride of Christ look dirty and unattractive. We write in hopes of changing some of this. — Francis Chan

Moreover, the attempt by advocates of same-sex marriage to sever marriage from procreation is more chimerical than real.35 One would be hard-pressed to find an advocate of same-sex marriage who would accept the proposition that same-sex couples should be given the right to marry but that right does not entail a right to procreate and rear children. Were marriage and family truly severable, as the contractual view suggests, the one would not entail the other. However, advocates of same-sex marriage want it both ways. They want the contractual view of marriage plus the option of raising children. — Jean Bethke Elshtain

People will always want intimacy with one chosen person and you cannot have intimacy without privacy, which is why couples draw circles of privacy around themselves. They demand that family, neighbors and the law respect their union, and that is why we have marriage. — Elizabeth Gilbert

Friendships are different from all other relationships. Unlike acquaintanceship, friendship is based on love. Unlike lovers and married couples, it is free of jealousy. Unlike children and parents, it knows neither criticism nor resentment. Friendship has no status in law. Business partnerships are based on a contract. So is marriage. Parents are bound by law. But friendships are freely entered into, freely given, and freely exercised ... — Stephen Ambrose