>> The funny thing is I have a wife and four kids so I am never alone, but painfully lonely. > Not to be rude, but how can that be ? I have heard this many ti

>> The funny thing is I have a wife and four kids so I am never alone, but painfully lonely. > Not to be rude, but how can that be ? I have heard this many times. A marriage can be lonely. A wife can also be your best friend. Chances are, you will feel both throughout the same marriage. The same is true of friendship too. I have felt close and far away, pleased and angry, with the same friend at different times. That's how all relationships are. They are living things. They can be one thing one day, and different the next, all depending on what each of you do. We seem to think that success in a relationship depends mostly on choosing the right person at the outset, and then the rest is automatic. If we choose the right person, a lifetime of effortless happiness. If we choose the wrong one, a lifetime of grief no matter how hard we try. The truth is that relationships, like all living things, must be daily cultivated, by each of you. You can do everything right, but if the other person chooses to do bad things, the relationship will sour. That's the beauty and the terror of independent wills.