![]() ![]() But Sparks got divorced after 25 years of marriage, and “till death do us part” are fearsome words left out of Disney-fied fairy tales. Too often, we fall for the world’s false story of what marriage is-the romcom, the Brides magazine cover, the Nicholas Sparks novel. Chesterton writes in his novel Manalive, “which no man of honor should decline.” And when all of his pitiful attempts fall flat, God-as the source of love-overwhelms him. In spite of rejections, lies, and personal limitations, Key learns the true nature of love. Heaven and hell and smitings and virgin births and fishes and loaves, it was all a story to celebrate and make sense of the strangest fact of all: love is what saves you.” ![]() “I’d heard this remarkable axiom all my life, and I think I finally understood. But his wife’s temporary absence from the home forces him to become not only family financier but also dad and husband. I knew that the only way this could work was for me to own my part in whatever wicked thing had happened and then do the harder thing: to use this information to become a less s-ty person.īefore the threat of impending divorce, Key had thought his role in the marriage was fulfilled by paying bills and hiring others to mow his lawn. He helps start a church with friends who give him space to share about his broken marriage and his “ugly heart.” And he leans on God for grace: In his attempt to know God, Key reads the whole Bible front to back. The person who objects “Not me” will be the liar left alone in the corner. “We are all guilty,” Dostoevsky writes in The Brothers Karamazov. Over the five years after Lauren’s cataclysmic revelation, he discovers that the move from self-absolution to confession is the necessary way forward when a marriage falls apart. “We had a crime to solve,” he writes, “and I had no interest in being a person of interest.” After his wife’s revelation, he sees his marriage as a freshly murdered body. They pat you on the back for embracing autonomy, seeking pleasure, or riding whatever emotional wave carries you.īy contrast, Key reveals his worst decisions, his friends’ best advice, the well-meaning but ineffective prayers of pastors, and the faults he’s been too afraid to name. Elizabeth Gilbert’s Eat, Pray, Love or Rachel Hollis’s Didn’t See That Coming don’t challenge American readers to see past the nose on their face. ![]() He writes of these and other moments in their marriage with an authenticity, vulnerability, and comedy that’s missing in most books on this topic. ![]() What?” But this time, he faces his wife’s request to end the relationship and has to say a very personal version of “Wait. At the start of the book, Key, too, admits that he would hear of other people’s divorces and say, “Wait. Before I was married, I was a bridesmaid ten times, and four of those ended in divorce before I had celebrated my tenth anniversary. Just as Hosea fought for Gomer, Harrison fights for Lauren, his wife of 14 years.Īs I was reading, I thought of all the times I had been blindsided by dissolved relationships. He talks explicitly about his faith and makes clear that his story makes sense only if the Christian God is real. In many ways, How to Stay Married is Key’s most Christian memoir. Who writes a comedic memoir about their failed marriage?īut here’s the surprise: His book is about a failure that was redeemed-a marriage resurrected. If you’ve read his first two books The World’s Largest Man, which won the Thurber Prize for American Humor, and Congratulations, Who Are You Again? you may not be able to imagine one of the nation’s funniest writers exploring such a serious issue. So begins Harrison Scott Key’s third memoir How to Stay Married: The Most Insane Love Story Ever Told. … He has a decorative seashell collection and can’t even grow a beard. “What happened was, my wife for a billion years-the mother of our three daughters, a woman who’s spent just about every Sunday of her life in church-snuck off and found herself a boyfriend. ![]()
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