Marriage is designed to last for a lifetime. Most other relationships don’t involve a great length of time. The longer we stay with our spouse, the more we start taking them for granted. After several years of marriage, both spouses have usually established a pretty good pattern for life. Everybody knows what their jobs are in the home. The schedule has been established. Except for sex, their relationship may have moved into a good business relationship.

Work in the work place and in the church require goals, cooperation, involvement, interaction, and production without intimacy. In the work place, the love we are to have for our spouse isn’t required. We just want to get a job done. We don’t have to work on a relationship. We just have to work on a project. We may not like each other, but, we had better get along. If we don’t, we could get fired or fail to meet important deadlines. This business relationship can happen in a marriage. But, this type of marriage doesn’t meet the marriage partner’s needs.