When the champagne is all gone, the wedding flowers have long since wilted and the honeymoon is just a romantic memory, the real work of marriage begins.
In this stage, conflict can seem to dominate a couple's life.
They wonder if it should be this hard to get along and begin to think they might have made a mistake in choosing each other.
Many marriages fail in the first few years.
No one enjoys fighting.
It's stressful and it hurts.
Indeed, the damage done when couples fight too hard and too long can be irreparable.
When mutual respect and trust are casualties of war, love dies too.
Hearts and dreams are shattered.
The combatants limp off the field in opposite directions, embittered and battered, to lick their wounds in solitude or in another's arms.
Love dreams die hard.
Mating is a biopsychosocial imperative.
Most will try again, eventually, with someone else.
Burned but not beaten, inflamed by new passions, hope springs eternal.
We need to get this right! And we'll keep trying until we're dead, emotionally or physically.
There's much wasted energy in all this sturm and drang.
The fact is that most of us don't choose wrong the first time.
We have an uncanny knack for marrying the very person who offers us the chance to heal wounds we have carried since childhood.
These injuries reassert themselves every time we try to have an intimate relationship.
If we could only realize we're already emotionally impaired, we wouldn't have to blame our partner for disappointing us.
No one gets through childhood without some emotional injury.
That's because there are no perfect parents.
They may do their best but there will still be hurt, anger and frustration.
In marriage we have a chance to clean, dress and heal these wounds, but first we have to bleed a bit.