Christian marriage is constantly renewed by sacrifice…..It is the slow transfiguration of love through the experiences of a common reality. Early love does not yet see this reality, for the pull of the heart and senses bewitch it.  Only gradually does reality establish itself, when eyes have been opened to the shortcomings and failures revealed by everyday life.  She who accepts the other then, as he really is, in spite of all disappointments, who can share the joys and problems of daily life with him, just as she has shared the great experience of early love, who can walk with him before God and with God’s strength, will achieve second love, the real mystery of marriage.  This is far superior to the first love as the mature person is to the child, as the self-conquering heart is to that which simply allows itself to be conquered.  At the cost of much sacrifice and effort something greater has come into being.

Guardini, Msgr. Romano THE LORD.