Important Little Ingredient to Love

I think there is this little ingredient that tells you could carve out a life with a person and make it work. It's the ability to know someone's flaws and get excited about being a part of their renewal. When this happens, that's when I know there's something deeply magical about my feelings for them.

Tim Keller says it well in The Meaning of Marriage

"Many people have asked me, How can you tell whether you've got a friendship on which you can base a marriage?" The answer that Kathy and I have always given is this. When you see the problems in each other, do you just want to run away, or do you find a desire to work on them together? If the second impulse is yours, then you have the makings of a marriage. Do you obsess over your partner's external shortcomings, or can you see the beauty within, and do you want to see it increasingly released? Then move forward. The power of truth that marriage has should hold no fear for you."