Serve, serve, and serve some more. Act in love even when you don’t feel loved, act with grace even if you don’t feel particularly gracious. Sow extravagant love to the love of your life, and reap the reward of joy. For the path to joy in marriage leads away from you and runs straight to your spouse.

You probably keep score. I’m sure you don’t mean to. You may not even be conscious of it. But there’s a pretty good chance that you do it. You keep score in your marriage.

You keep score when you tally up the things you do for your spouse and when you tally up the things your spouse fails to do for you. You rarely keep a running total of your own failures or your spouse’s successes. Rather, you maintain records in such a way that you come out ahead. You probably keep the score in your marriage. And I’m sure it makes you unhappy.

Why does it make you unhappy? Because comparison is the thief of joy. Comparison is the thief of joy because it causes you to focus on yourself. Comparison leads inward, to what you desire, to what you long for, to what you are certain you deserve. Yet the path to joy leads outward rather than inward. It leads toward others rather than toward self. There is more joy in loving than in being loved, more satisfaction in doing good to others than in having good done to you. The path to joy in marriage does not lead from your spouse but to your spouse.

Thus, one of the keys to a joyful marriage is to simply stop keeping score—to stop tallying up the good things you’ve done for your husband or wife and the good things he or she has neglected to do for you. Keep no ledger of wrongs and keep no ledger of rights.

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