John Cuddeback

“spousal life lived to its fullness implies living a true friendship. Marriage is a union of persons who should help perfect each other and be fruitful. True friendship especially unites persons, perfects them, and allows them to be fruitful, according to their state in life. Now, spouses can be united through a mutual commitment of faithfulness without being friends in the fullest sense. Spouses can help perfect each other without being friends in the fullest sense. And they can be fruitful without being friends in the fullest sense. Indeed, even if they are not what we call virtuous friends, they are still bound by honor and moral obligation to live in a union of mutual helpfulness and fruitfulness. But how much more united, mutually helpful, and fruitful are the spouses who have pursued the noble good of growing in virtuous friendship! How much happier are those spouses who strive with each other, more than with any other human person, to grow in love, to grow in virtue, to grow in wisdom. Realizing that they are called by God to work out their salvation together, they live a kind of shared life that is beyond the sharing possible for any other friendship in this life. The blessing of children is a kind of incarnation (literally, a putting into the flesh) of their love for each other. Their ability to raise and educate those children well is directly proportional to their success in growing together in virtue and wisdom.”
― John Cuddeback, True Friendship: Where Virtue Becomes Happiness