AC 4145 - the path to conjugial love

AC 4145 [3]
Take as another example conjugial love.
The good which comes first and is introductory
is good looks, or good manners, or outward compatibility,
or similarity of social class, or aspiration.
These forms of good (mediate goods)
are the first intermediate ones of conjugial love.
After this comes the joining together of minds
in which one wills as the other does
and finds delight in doing that which is pleasing to the other.
This is the second state,
and although those initial forms of good are still present
they are no longer kept in view.
Finally there follows a uniting
involving celestial good and spiritual truth.
That is to say, one believes as the other believes,
and one is moved by an affection for good
as the other is moved.
When this state is reached
both together experience the heavenly marriage,
which is a marriage of good and truth,
and so experience conjugial love
since conjugial love is nothing else.
At the same time the Lord is flowing
into the affections of them both as into a single affection.
This is a good which flows in down a direct line,
whereas the previous kind of good (mediate good)
which had flowed in down an indirect line
had served as the means of introduction to this good.