In Holy Land: A Suburban Memoir, author D. J. Waldie observes that the biggest drawback to living alone is having nobody to forgive. It is not that you don't get certain things—companionship, sex, somebody to share the chores—it is that you can't give to them. You are deprived of a great opportunity: to learn to love your neighbor as yourself. This was a radical notion in Christ's time; it is radical now. It will always be radical because it is the hardest way, the most illogical way, the 'unfairest' way—and the only way that can grant us the peace that passes all understanding.

In a way I can see only dimly, marriage is causing me to be freer with my time, my money, my affections. It is changing my heart, one molecule at a time, from stone to flesh. Day by day, hour by hour, minute by minute, it is giving me the opportunity to die to myself. And that, as Saint Francis said, is the only way to waken to eternal life.