Our love has been anything but perfect and anything but static. Inevitably there have been times when one of us has outrun the other and has had to wait patiently for the other to catch up. There have been times when we have misunderstood each other, demanded too much of each other, been insensitive of the other's needs. I do not believe there is any marriage where this does not happen. The growth of love is not a straight line, but a series of hills and valleys. I suspect that in very good marriages there are times when love seems to be over. Sometimes these desert times are simply the only way to get to the next oasis, which is far more lush and beautiful after the desert crossing than it could possibly have been without it.
— Madeleine L'Engle, We Pledge Our Hearts by Edward Searl, editor