Often the difficulties seem to far outweigh the breakthroughs. Many are tempted not to persevere in learning. Of course this is exactly the way it must be, real growth in learning comes when real effort is generated. Just as physical muscle is built only against strenuous resistance, so too spiritual and personality growth is built only against equivalent resistance. Perhaps the sharpest application of this idea in modern Western society is in marriage.
Marriage today is to a large extent in ruins in the secular world.
In many communities divorce is more usual than survival of marriage, and even in those marriages which do survive it is common to find much disharmony. One of the prime factors in this disastrous situation is the lack of understanding of our subject. Romance is the initial, heady, illogical swirl of emotion which characterizes a new relationship and it can be extreme. Love, in Torah terms, is the result of much genuine giving. Love is generated essentially not by what one receives from a partner, but by the well-utilized opportunity to give, and to give oneself.