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Others placing ads seek everything from a bowling partner to a sex partner, but they all risk rejection and pain in pursuit of the same goal: eliminating loneliness. The prospect of going through life alone is so unappealing that the search for companionship becomes a driving force. Ask anyone why they got married and, once they get past "because we were in love" (which I'm not knocking), they will talk about marriage as the antidote to loneliness.

Even if they didn't read that in the Bible first, they're onto something. God proclaimed that it was "not good" for Adam to be alone (Gen. 2:18), and it's not good for us either. Most of us expect marriage to banish loneliness by providing lifelong companionship. But look around and you'll find large numbers of couples who are married and still lonely. How does the one stated goal of marriage, God's desire to alleviate a person's aloneness, fail to come true for so many husbands and wives?

Couples feel lonely for various reasons, but the primary cause is our belief that marriage by itself will put an end to loneliness. It's a little like the man whose greatest desire in life was to enjoy barbecue hot off the backyard grill. His longing for barbecue was so intense that he felt incomplete without it.

This man saved enough money to purchase a beautiful gas grill—the one he had wanted for years. He took it out of the box, assembled it, hooked up the propane tank and rolled the grill out onto the deck. Then he went back inside to wait for his barbecue.

This was cause for celebration. He finally had the grill of his dreams. But soon he began to wonder: "Why am I still so hungry for barbecue? That grill might look classy, but it's not helping at all."

In a few weeks he noticed the grill was being used for other things. His wife used it as a plant stand; his kids found it to be a handy diving platform for their action men. The man concluded that he must have brought home the wrong grill, otherwise he wouldn't still be so hungry for barbecue.

Ludicrous? Of course. After rolling a new grill out onto the deck, there is still a lot of work involved in creating a barbecued feast. If you don't make the effort to use the grill as it was designed to work, you'll spend the rest of your life hungry for barbecue.

Likewise, the act of getting married won't put an end to your loneliness. To achieve that goal, you have to follow your initial commitment with appropriate action. When couples come to me for counseling, we often discuss the need for a "married mindset." It sounds obvious, but the truth is married couples often continue to think like single people. They agree to be places and do things without considering their partner's schedule—or even his or her preferences. They are married, but their actions don't reflect it. That's what leads to loneliness.

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