For many years (and even still this is something I have to struggle with) I saw being in a romantic relationship as the ultimate goal, and assumed that reaching that goal would solve all of life's problems. I think this comes specifically from being raised as a woman, where we are taught that our va...

I recently listened to a podcast that was talking about marriage and how in Western culture it was seen as something completely unrelated to love until reasonably recently--it was looked at more as a business venture in which the families and the individuals had something (money, power, connections)...