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“When...passion begins to subside, which it assuredly will do, and yield--oftentimes too late--to more sober reflections, it serves to evince that lost is too dainty a food to live on -alone.-...More permanent & genuine happiness is to be found in the sequestered walks of connubial life than in the giddy rounds of promiscuous pleasure.' -- GEORGE WASHINGTON, Letter to Armand-Charles Tuffin, Marquis de La Rouërie, August 10, 1786.”

Quote by Jonathan Horn

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Washington's End: The Final Years and Forgotten Struggle

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Jonathan Horn

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“...Maybe the ones who married for the wrong reasons are the ones who don't make it. And the ones who married out of pure love are the ones who stand the test of time." "People get married because they're in love with the fantasy of marriage. The illusion of the happily-ever-after fairy tale we've all been sold since the beginning of time." I dust some sand of my pants, "Why does anyone do anything? Because they want the fantasy of what that thing represents. Why did you move from Nebraska to New York? Was it the fantasy of a glamorous life in one of the most famous cities in the world? The promise of success? The excitement of a fast-paced life? Somewhere along the line, someone sold you on the fantasy of life in the Big Apple, and you bought it. It's not that much different than marriage, in a way. You just committed to a city instead of a person.”

“My definition of emotional torture is being married to someone for twenty years, living separate lives. The past ten years have been empty, with no intimacy, separate rooms, very little conversation, and not sharing dreams. We are strangers to each other and pass each other in the kitchen, or on the terrace, When necessary, we attend social functions as a couple, but that ends at the end of each event. Thank God we no longer have to socialize as we did in the first ten years we were married”

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“One night he said abruptly: Stephen won't marry—I don't want her to marry; it would only mean disaster.' And at this Anna broke out in angry protest. Why shouldn't Stephen marry? She wished her to marry. Was he mad? And what did he mean by disaster? No woman was ever complete without marriage—what on earth did he mean by disaster He frowned and refused to answer her question. Stephen, he said, must go up to Oxford. He had set his heart on a good education for the child, who might some day become a fine writer. Marriage wasn't the only career for a woman. Look at Puddle, for instance; she'd been at Oxford—a most admirable, well-balanced, sensible creature. Next year he was going to send Stephen to Oxford. Anna scoffed: 'Yes, indeed, he might well look at Puddle! She was what came of this higher education—a lonely, unfulfilled, middle-aged spinster. Anna didn't want that kind of life for her daughter.”

“She would think with a kind of despair: What am I, in God's name—some kind of abomination?' And this thought would fill her with a very great anguish, because, loving much, her love seemed to her sacred. She could not endure that the slur of those words should come anywhere near her love. So now night after night she must pace up and down, beating her mind against a blind problem, beating her spirit against a blank wall—the impregnable wall of non-comprehension: 'Why am I as I am—and what am I?' Her mind would recoil while her spirit grew faint. A great darkness would seem to descend on her spirit—there would be no light wherewith to lighten that darkness. She would think of Martin, for now surely she loved just as he had loved—it all seemed like madness. She would think of her father, of his comfortable words: 'Don't be foolish, there's nothing strange about you.' Oh, but he must have been pitifully mistaken—he had died still very pitifully mistaken. She would think yet again of her curious childhood, going over each detail in an effort to remember. But after a little her thoughts must plunge forward once more, right into her grievous present. With a shock she would realize how completely this coming of love had blinded her vision; she had stared at the glory of it so long that not until now had she seen its black shadow. Then would come the most poignant suffering of all, the deepest, the final humiliation. Protection—she could never offer protection to the creature she loved: 'Could you marry me, Stephen?' She could neither protect nor defend nor honour by loving; her hands were completely empty. She who would gladly have given her life, must go empty-handed to love, like a beggar. She could only debase what she longed to exalt, defile what she longed to keep pure and untarnished.”