It is not a lack of love, but a lack of friendship that makes unhappy marriages.

A man's best friend is a good wife.

Experts on romance say for a happy marriage there has to be more than a passionate love. For a lasting union, they insist, there must be a genuine liking for each other. Which, in my book, is a good definition for friendship.

Marriage was contrived for ordinary people, for people who are capable of neither great love nor great friendship, which is to say, for most people, but also for those exceptionally rare ones who are capable of love as well as of friendship.

Our faith in others betrays that we would rather have faith in ourselves. Our longing for a friend is our betrayer. And often with our love we want merely to overcome envy. And often we attack and make ourselves enemies, to conceal that we are vulnerable.

I open up to her more than anybody else. We have gone through a lot of ups and downs in our time together, but that has made our relationship all the stronger.