A good marriage means growing as a couple but also growing as individuals. This isn't easy, marriage has always been difficult. Why then are we seeing so many divorces at this time? Yes, our modern social fabric is thin, and yes the permissiveness of society has created unrealistic expectations and thrown the family into disorder. But divorce is so common be-cause people today are unwilling to exercise the self-discipline that marriage requires. They expect easy joy, like the entertainment on TV, the thrill of a good party. Marriage takes some kind of sacrifice, net dreadful self-sacrifice of the soul, but some level of compromise. Some of one's fantasies, some of one's legitimate desires have to be given up for the value of the marriage itself. 'While all marital partners feel shackled at times, it is they who really choose to make the marital ties into confining chains or supporting bends', says Dr. Whitaker. Marriage requires sexual, financial and emotional discipline. A man and a woman cannot follow every impulse, cannot allow themselves to stop growing or changing. A divorce is not an evil act. Sometimes it provides salvation(拯救) for people who have grown hopelessly apart or were frozen in patterns of pain or mutual unhappiness. Divorce can be like the first cut of the surgeon's knife, a step toward new health and a good life. On the other hand, if the partners can stay past the breaking up of the romantic myths into the development of real love and intimacy, they have achieved a work as amazing as the greatest cathedrals(教堂) of the world. Marriages that do not fail but improve, that persist despite imperfections, are not only rare these days but offer a wondrous shelter in which the face of our mutual humanity can safely show itself. According to the author, an ideal marriage life ______.