Fighting to save a marriage

A comic memoir about marital infidelity would seem like a tough sell. Is there anything funny about a family’s implosion sparked by a wife’s decision to abandon her husband for another man? No, there’s not. But is there a funny way to talk about the tragedy? Maybe, and that’s the task Harrison Scott Key, winner of the Thurber Prize for American Humor, sets for himself in the book How To Stay Married: The Most Insane Love Story Ever Told (Avid Reader Press/Simon & Schuster 2023).

The story begins when Harrison’s wife Lauren blindsided him, requesting a divorce. Feeling neglected by her ­husband, Lauren had fallen for their neighbor because he was “helpful.” Harrison couldn’t understand how working two jobs so Lauren could stay home with their three kids wasn’t helpful enough. It’s a familiar story of a dying marriage.

What isn’t as familiar is Harrison’s response. He feels betrayed, but he can’t imagine life without Lauren. He chooses to fight for his marriage and to love the woman who betrayed him.

The facetious tone of How To Stay Married provides a disconcerting contrast to these tragic events, driving home the pain of Harrison’s experience. The book is a heart-rending testimony to the psychological, familial, and social devastation of sin. But in the depths of sin’s despair—and I did despair some as I read—the book offers a glint of hope.

Key writes with a Christian vision that’s been sharpened by tribulation. Lauren has sinned greatly, but Harrison wrestles the log out of his own eye. He has friends and family to comfort him, but, like Job, not all the comforters offer sound advice.

Americans enjoy exercising their rights. Doesn’t the Bible give a husband with an unfaithful wife the right to divorce? Perhaps exercising your rights isn’t always the right thing to do. We’ve been inculcated with a belief in the sanctity of the pursuit of happiness, but Harrison says it’s the demons who whisper that we deserve to be happy. Jesus asks us to love sacrificially.

The Key family attends one of those churches where authenticity is measured in how much one enjoys single malt whisky, so don’t expect How To Stay Married to offer staid theological discourse on the nature of marriage and its relationship to Christ and His Church. The book is a raw and honest memoir about the power of Christian love—some readers will find it too raw and honest. The book also contains profanity and discusses the sex lives of the couple. (I’m stunned Lauren allowed her husband to tell their story in such detail.)

Key might write with flippancy, but How To Stay Married possesses power and beauty in its raw honesty. After all, God’s plan for the universe ends in a marriage feast, which means this story we’re in isn’t a tragedy. It’s a comedy.