My offering today is not of my creation.  It is a piece forgotten about I found saved in my “good article” folder on my computer.   I started here today wanting to write about why I, like most of us,  have had more “lovers” than we do “true friends”.  I find the collection of thoughts below hint at answers to that quandary better than any original thoughts I am having this morning.  So with thanks and gratitude to Dr. Diamond and apologies for the non-original nature of today’s installment of G.M.G,  I offer “The 25 Most Helpful Things That Have Been Said About Love, Marriage, and Relationships” by Jed Diamond, Ph.D. 

25.  Once a woman has forgiven her man, she must not reheat his sins for breakfast.  ~Marlene Dietrich 

24.  That quiet mutual gaze of a trusting husband and wife is like the first moment of rest or refuge from a great weariness or a great danger.  ~George Eliot (Mary Ann Evans) 

23.  Almost no one is foolish enough to imagine that he automatically deserves great success in any field of activity; yet almost everyone believes that he automatically deserves success in marriage.  ~Sydney J. Harris 

22.  The way to hold a husband is to keep him a little jealous; the way to lose him is to keep him a little more jealous.  ~H.L. Mencken 

21.  The concept of two people living together for 25 years without a serious dispute suggests a lack of spirit only to be admired in sheep.  ~A.P. Herbert 

20.  Affairs are just as disillusioning as marriage, and much less restful.  ~Mignon McLaughlin, The Second Neurotic’s Notebook, 1966 

19.  If you are afraid of loneliness, don’t marry.  ~Anton Chekov 

18.  In the early years, you fight because you don’t understand each other.  In the later years, you fight because you do.  ~Joan Didion 

17.  Pity all newlyweds.  She cooks something nice for him, and he brings her flowers, and they kiss and think:  How easy marriage is.  ~Mignon McLaughlin, The Neurotic’s Notebook, 1960 

16.  Marriage is a lottery in which men stake their liberty and women their happiness.  ~Virginie des Rieux, Epigrams 

15.  By the time you’re his
Shivering and sighing,
And he vows his passion is
Infinite, undying
Lady, make a note of this:
One of you is lying.
~Dorothy Parker

14.   To keep your marriage brimming,
With love in the loving cup,
Whenever you’re wrong, admit it;
Whenever you’re right, shut up.
~Ogden Nash 

13.  Women hope men will change after marriage but they don’t; men hope women won’t change but they do.  ~Bettina Arndt, Private Lives, 1986 

12.  Being divorced is like being hit by a Mack truck.  If you live through it, you start looking very carefully to the right and to the left.  ~Jean Kerr, Mary, Mary, 1960 

11.  In marriage there are no manners to keep up, and beneath the wildest accusations no real criticism.  Each is familiar with that ancient child in the other who may erupt again…. We are not ridiculous to ourselves.  We are ageless.  That is the luxury of the wedding ring.  ~Enid Bagnold, Autobiography, 1969 

10.  The problem with marriage is that it ends every night after making love, and it must be rebuilt every morning before breakfast.  ~Gabriel García Márquez

9.  I figure that the degree of difficulty in combining two lives ranks somewhere between rerouting a hurricane and finding a parking place in downtown Manhattan.  ~Claire Cloninger, “When the Glass Slipper Doesn’t Fit and the Silver Spoon is in Someone Else’s Mouth” 

8.  Love requires a willingness to die; marriage, a willingness to live.  ~Mignon McLaughlin, The Second Neurotic’s Notebook, 1966 

7.  People do not marry people, not real ones anyway; they marry what they think the person is; they marry illusions and images.  The exciting adventure of marriage is finding out who the partner really is.  ~James L. Framo, “Explorations in Marital & Family Therapy” 

6.  Getting divorced just because you don’t love a man is almost as silly as getting married just because you do.  ~Zsa Zsa Gabor 

5.  Marriage must constantly fight against a monster which devours everything:  routine.  ~Honore de Balzac 

4.  Wasn’t marriage, like life, un-stimulating and unprofitable and somewhat empty when too well ordered and protected and guarded.  Wasn’t it finer, more splendid, more nourishing, when it was, like life itself, a mixture of the sordid and the magnificent; of mud and stars; of earth and flowers; of love and hate and laughter and tears and ugliness and beauty and hurt.  ~Edna Ferber, Show Boat, 1926 

3.  Marriage changes passion – suddenly you’re in bed with a relative.  ~Author Unknown 

2. When two people are under the influence of the most violent, most insane, most delusive, and most transient of passions, they are required to swear that they will remain in that excited, abnormal, and exhausting condition continuously until death do them part.  ~G.B. Shaw, Getting Married, 1908 

And the most helpful thing that has been said about the secret of a happy marriage is….. 

1. The secret of a happy marriage remains a secret.  ~Henny Youngman 

Jed Diamond has been a licensed psychotherapist for over 40 years and is the author of seven books. Diamond is Director of the MenAlive, a health program that helps men live long and well.  http://www.menalive.com/jed-bio.htm