Marriage

"[...]Part of what we promise each other is to do what we can to each sustain ourselves, so that we are available when we are needed. This might be simple, if we were simple and asked for nothing, but for real humans it could be the most complicated and frightening part. In marrying, we both risk and dare relinquishing some of our authority as arbiters of our selves. We are not predicting commitment, we are stipulating it. We are promising to conquer and cultivate our terrors. We are promising, some mornings, to lie there and let the shards of a hundred breaking impulses and fears fall away from us, and then roll over and come back to love."

- Glenn McDonald

I really like that "promising to conquer and cultivate our terrors".

From The War Against Silence.