You're a religious man right? Refer back to your bible, was marriage about "love" back then? No,it was about many other things. It's been about bartering, creating societal bonds, creating alliances, social standing, maintaing family lines....often it's been about many things that never included "love" between the husband and wife themselves.
Still today in many societies marriages are arranged, they aren't about love. What you are looking for is "romantic love", the love they literally play out in romance novels (which BTW I read and get a kick out of, I find them funny!). Most of the things from your list would fit into a romance novel type of "love". Ever notice, they never show you the couple in a romance novel 5-10-20 years down the road? Nope, they never do...it's always just the honeymoon phase. Romantic love isn't sustainable 24/7.
For me, my marriage is a partnership. Yes, I love my H and he loves me no doubt about that for me....but we have our differences, some of those differences will always remain too, some will change, some may end up coming together at some point. However, I made a vow to stick by him through better or worse, I made a vow to stick things out with him...and that's what I intend to do...it's part of our marital contract for me. We don't have a romantic love, but we do have an enduring love....and the temperature of that love will fluxuate throughout the years. It makes me happy to see my H happy, and it breaks my heart to see him hurt too....but do I constantly want to jump his bones and have sex? No, and I'm the HD partner. Do I always feel like a sexual goddess and am I comfortable with my body...ummm nope, but I'm HD. Do I expect him to reflect back to me the man I think he should be? No, because then he's not being true to himself. I gave up on what I thought my expectations of our marriage should be quite some time back....ever since, we have both been tons happier, things have relaxed, and low and behold....they've vastly improved too.
