Alain De Botton

she experienced love as a little bit invasive.

Because we think of love as, you know, true love is correct attunement to somebody.

If somebody wants to be alone, you let them be alone.

If somebody's a bit sad, you allow them to be sad.

There's a more cartoonish vision of love where it's just hugs and kisses and joy.

That's, you know...

You know the sort of parents who goes up to a child and goes, who's a pretty boy now?

And always trying to make fun when actually the child might be in a melancholy mood.

Let that child have that sad mood.

Let the child have their distance.

It's possible, who knows, that your wife experienced her father as...

forcing her out of affection but nevertheless forcing her to inhabit a certain emotional band which didn't necessarily always respect what she was actually feeling and therefore she maybe has grown up with a sense of needing to push away at moments when she might not be on the same page and that's okay so she means you know

Extreme modesty is probably a good starting point.

In other words,

we probably have to acknowledge that we'll almost certainly make some mistakes and we need to go steady.

And therefore, when we get married, celebrate if you like, but also cry a little bit preemptively because you're going to be in for some pain because few of us are without error in our love choices.

This is a very imperfect and very demanding business.

And

it's good just to lower the temperature.

You know, the perfect relationship does not exist.