Self-transcendence is required in marriage . . . or in any lifelong commitment to another. But the culture does not encourage self-transcendence; just the opposite. Our cultural myths about love give witness to a comment Soren Kierkegaard once made about the "self-love of erotic love"; too many young people grow up understanding that "true love" means possessing and being possessed.
— Kathleen Norris, The Cloister Walk