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Our granddaughter Abigail texted, asking if we would like to hear an author speak during our visit to Birmingham. The name of his book is, How to Stay Married.
“I think she wants us to hear a marriage counselor,” my wife, Shirley, said. She and I have been married 57 years. Abigail and Josh have been married four months.
“No,” Marcia, our daughter and Abigail’s mother, said, “I think the guy is a comedian.”
Indeed, Harrison Scott Key is a comedian, and his book is funny. Amazingly, it’s about his wife, Lauren, leaving him—twice—for another man, a neighbor who wore cargo shorts on purpose and aimed a leaf blower with the precision of a Special Forces sharpshooter.
Abigail had bought the book, but stopped reading a few chapters in. “It’s very raw,” she said. I borrowed the book, read it and saved her the trouble.
“Raw” is a good word. So are honest, gritty, brutal, harsh, candid. And then the nicer words: softness, resilience, reconciliation, hope, love.
Key certainly knows how to turn a phrase, exposing each side and deftly using sweet and sour words to reveal every emotion known to man. He lets it all out.
Being inexperienced at recovering from a leaving wife, the mother of his three daughters, Key sought advice. He got it. Burn her clothes in the backyard. Win her back. Move on. Get over it. He met with his pastor, who suggested excommunication. Kicking her out of the church wasn’t the answer he needed.
Key changed to a small, upstart church where people hugged him, knowing without judging. Its pastor prayed for him and cried with him and was there for him.
Key read the Bible through and, after getting through parts that made little sense to him, concluded that “there was real hope in it.”
The best advice came from a counselor who suggested he look in the mirror. By his own admission, Key liked talking but not listening, offering his opinions but not accepting others’. He was often distracted and seemingly uncaring—choosing sarcastic humor over genuine concern. “I have a migraine,” his wife would say. “It’s all in your head,” he would say.
Key finally realized, a little late, that his wife was sad and lonely.
Yes, Harrison and Lauren did reconcile, a second time. She called one day and said come and get me. He did. Their happy home wasn’t reconstructed immediately, but it’s there now, basking in the warmth of the Savannah sun.
“The most powerful force in the universe is love,” Key wrote, “and the strangest is forgiveness.” Laughter helps, too.
How to Stay Married is not a how-to book. The real title should be the subtitle: The Most Insane Love Story Ever Told.
For us long-married who are fine with the shocking language of a man betrayed, Key offers a lot of laughs.
For Abigail and Josh, I would recommend popping some popcorn and watching a romantic movie on TV. The book may be a little raw for newcomers to the institution.
