"True friendships are lasting because true love is eternal. A friendship in which heart speaks to heart is a gift from God, and no gift that comes from God is temporary or occasional. All that comes from God participates in God’s eternal life. Love between people, when given by God, is stronger than death. In this sense, true friendships continue beyond the boundary of death. When you have loved deeply that love can grow even stronger after the death of the person you love. This is the core message of Jesus...Dare to love and be a real friend. The love you give and receive is a reality that will lead you closer and closer to God as well as to those whom God has given you to love." (Henri Nouwen)

This applies to every true friendship even the friendship between married couples. I have witnessed some beautiful marriages in which their initial friendship has grown to a deeper relationship with God and with one another. I have also seen marriages where there seems to be no or very little friendship between them. Not every friendship will last, but only those rooted in Christ, who is the beginning and end of true friendships. First is your friendship with Christ and then your friendship with another in Christ. Both will grow when the focus is the other and not self.