The way I see it at the moment is that marriage (and life generally) is a continual process of creation i.e. what thoughts, words, actions and emotions am I going to create today? How do I bring the best out of myself and the best out of my wife?
I am still discovering and still creating.
S&A
"A man can be destroyed but not defeated" - from The Old Man and the Sea, by Ernest Hemingway.
Which I take to mean that every man has within him a spirit of relentlessness and optimism. Its already there; he just has to cultivate it.