Really excellent reflection, Christy. I found the book so challenging to think about for many of the same reasons you mention here. It was particularly tough to resist the cultural knee-jerk acceptance of infidelity as a justification for divorce while reading because Key’s wife acted so downright stupidly over and over again. As the story develops we learn this is rooted in some deep family wounds that shed additional light in her weaknesses and motivations, but, ugh.
The writing was brilliant, especially when chapters mirror the structure and style of different parts of scripture. I especially appreciated hearing such a vulnerable sharing of his emotional & spiritual journey as a man/husband/father, which is also rare in media these days. There are a surprising number of Goodreads reviews complaining that the book was too “Jesus-y,” which made me super depressed about our society’s colossal ignorance of scripture, both as a religious text but also its significance as literature. I don’t know what they were expecting, but lots of readers totally missing the entire point of the book, as well as how Key masterfully crafted the story stylistically. Usually I don’t pay much attention to other reviews but this really got under my skin. I kept thinking, “Hello people-Have you never heard of Job or Hosea?!”
I hesitate to say I *enjoyed* this book, because it details a lot of ugly realities of human nature that, for lack of a better phrase, just “feel icky”. While we do need to find more ways to honestly discuss the realities and challenges of marriage in our current culture, it takes immense virtue to do so in a delicate way that doesn’t turn into fatalistic ruminations that ogle at the tragedy of broken marriages and families more than foster hope and encouragement in pursuing that never-ending forgiveness and purification in our relationships. My husband and I recently started participating in the mentor couple program at our parish, and I was surprised at how hard it was to be encouraging without being saccharine and also highlight challenges without being discouraging. We haven’t been married nearly as long as you have, but definitely feeling that the mystery of it all continues to deepen with time. I could go on, but the book offers a lot of food for thought.
Thank you so much for sharing your reflection! I hadn't heard about the book so after seeing this, I promptly requested it from the library and read it and have been trying to find the time to respond (around 1 month postpartum with baby #5 so my schedule is a bit unpredictable right now). I'm really grateful that the author and his wife are seeking to help others through sharing their story. I do find it interesting that they would publish this so soon after going through this ordeal, since having a larger distance from the affair might have been helpful for others to learn from (specifically in them talking about how they live afterwards) but maybe the closer distance is helpful to some people, I don't know. Regardless, it's encouraging to read about a marriage that was so rock-bottom but by the grace of God and cooperation of Key and his wife recovered! I've definitely noticed that it seems like divorce is becoming more and more commonplace. Or maybe it's always been this way and I'm just noticing it more? I don't know. My neighbor, who has been married to her husband for over 60 years, was talking about this a couple weeks ago, that so many people just aren't staying together in marriage anymore, and it's really sad.
Within the past few years, I've had a couple of good friends go through the annulment process, and one of them had the thought that we should be using stuff from the annulment process as part of marriage prep. Obviously, don't use actual names or specific situations, but general trends or information. I once mentioned this to a canon lawyer I met at a wedding reception, who thought it could help some people, based on what she has seen on annulment paperwork (yes, I'm that person who will corner a canon lawyer to talk about weighty things while at a wedding. I'm lots of fun at parties haha!). Based on my conversations with these friends, I've also realized that us Catholics in North America (at least in the places I've lived across the U.S.) don't seem to do a great job helping married couples to stay married. Yes, there's Retrouvaille, but I haven't heard of much else (though I'm sure similar things must exist), and some couples don't feel inclined to attend a Retrouvaille. Even for couples who aren't struggling, there aren't many resources! My husband and I were grateful when the Domestic Church movement came to our diocese, because that's been a huge blessing and help in our married life-it's basically ongoing support for Catholic married couples, no matter how young or old or whether or not you have kids. But, even with these things, I think we can definitely work on improving our outreach to married couples. It doesn't have to be another "program," but even just building up a strong marriage culture and support in our parishes and communities could be really helpful.
Also, I know you said you don't have a canon law degree, but do you know why getting a legal divorce is a prerequisite for starting the annulment process? At least, that's the way it is here in the USA, according to my friends. It's just weird to me. For a lot of my life, I had heard and believed that "the Catholic church doesn't do divorce," but then I learned that "Well, actually, if you want to seek a degree of nullity, you must first divorce." But maybe this isn't how the process works in other places?
This is an interesting conversation. I think part of why we don’t hear a lot about marriage separations within continuing, valid marriages is that often the spouse who is remaining married to someone with whom he or she cannot live is living in *such* heroic virtue that he or she will not discuss it for the sake of the reputation of the offending spouse. I know two of these women, one very closely, but the general principle by which she lives is that she has three people she knows love her husband well, so that she can talk about everything she needs to (with just those three) without fear that she will foster a hatred or disdain for him in the wider community where they live.
I think that without disbelieving Key’s wife’s consent to being opened up to quite a bit of scrutiny, we can trust that in many cases it would be inappropriate for the mortal sins of living people to be written about in this way. I’m willing to bet that there are more people living out this painful reconciliation than we know about, but that on this side of eternity we need to rely mainly on the lives of the saints (SOG Daphrose?) for the kind of example we need in these cases.
Both the women I am thinking of specifically are women I am willing to bet could be canonized one day. They are models of virtue. I’m sure they’d both have appreciated/would still appreciate a community of support rather than one in which they needed to worry about the intrusive, inappropriate interest of people who wouldn’t be able to love both they and their spouses well. But we live in a fallen world…I don’t know if there can possibly be a universal right answer for how openly to talk about these kinds of betrayal.
I think you’re spot on, it’s heroic virtue Key shows us, and often that is precisely “how to stay married” - and what we’re called to - in the face of really terrible trials. Thank God for the grace of the sacrament.
This was a beautiful and insight reflection- thank you for sharing! I loved (if that can be the right word?) this book but also found it bracing and challenging. I was similarly a big fan of Alain de Batton's strange novel, The Course of Love. He is not a Christian (and at times it really shows) but I found his treatment of the mundanities and sacrifices and conflict and restoration in a real ordinary marriage to be so refreshing. He begins the book noting that most cultural narratives seem to treat the wedding as the end of the story when really it's just the beginning-- the marriage itself is where the action really happens.
Really excellent reflection, Christy. I found the book so challenging to think about for many of the same reasons you mention here. It was particularly tough to resist the cultural knee-jerk acceptance of infidelity as a justification for divorce while reading because Key’s wife acted so downright stupidly over and over again. As the story develops we learn this is rooted in some deep family wounds that shed additional light in her weaknesses and motivations, but, ugh.
The writing was brilliant, especially when chapters mirror the structure and style of different parts of scripture. I especially appreciated hearing such a vulnerable sharing of his emotional & spiritual journey as a man/husband/father, which is also rare in media these days. There are a surprising number of Goodreads reviews complaining that the book was too “Jesus-y,” which made me super depressed about our society’s colossal ignorance of scripture, both as a religious text but also its significance as literature. I don’t know what they were expecting, but lots of readers totally missing the entire point of the book, as well as how Key masterfully crafted the story stylistically. Usually I don’t pay much attention to other reviews but this really got under my skin. I kept thinking, “Hello people-Have you never heard of Job or Hosea?!”
I hesitate to say I *enjoyed* this book, because it details a lot of ugly realities of human nature that, for lack of a better phrase, just “feel icky”. While we do need to find more ways to honestly discuss the realities and challenges of marriage in our current culture, it takes immense virtue to do so in a delicate way that doesn’t turn into fatalistic ruminations that ogle at the tragedy of broken marriages and families more than foster hope and encouragement in pursuing that never-ending forgiveness and purification in our relationships. My husband and I recently started participating in the mentor couple program at our parish, and I was surprised at how hard it was to be encouraging without being saccharine and also highlight challenges without being discouraging. We haven’t been married nearly as long as you have, but definitely feeling that the mystery of it all continues to deepen with time. I could go on, but the book offers a lot of food for thought.
Thank you so much for sharing your reflection! I hadn't heard about the book so after seeing this, I promptly requested it from the library and read it and have been trying to find the time to respond (around 1 month postpartum with baby #5 so my schedule is a bit unpredictable right now). I'm really grateful that the author and his wife are seeking to help others through sharing their story. I do find it interesting that they would publish this so soon after going through this ordeal, since having a larger distance from the affair might have been helpful for others to learn from (specifically in them talking about how they live afterwards) but maybe the closer distance is helpful to some people, I don't know. Regardless, it's encouraging to read about a marriage that was so rock-bottom but by the grace of God and cooperation of Key and his wife recovered! I've definitely noticed that it seems like divorce is becoming more and more commonplace. Or maybe it's always been this way and I'm just noticing it more? I don't know. My neighbor, who has been married to her husband for over 60 years, was talking about this a couple weeks ago, that so many people just aren't staying together in marriage anymore, and it's really sad.
Within the past few years, I've had a couple of good friends go through the annulment process, and one of them had the thought that we should be using stuff from the annulment process as part of marriage prep. Obviously, don't use actual names or specific situations, but general trends or information. I once mentioned this to a canon lawyer I met at a wedding reception, who thought it could help some people, based on what she has seen on annulment paperwork (yes, I'm that person who will corner a canon lawyer to talk about weighty things while at a wedding. I'm lots of fun at parties haha!). Based on my conversations with these friends, I've also realized that us Catholics in North America (at least in the places I've lived across the U.S.) don't seem to do a great job helping married couples to stay married. Yes, there's Retrouvaille, but I haven't heard of much else (though I'm sure similar things must exist), and some couples don't feel inclined to attend a Retrouvaille. Even for couples who aren't struggling, there aren't many resources! My husband and I were grateful when the Domestic Church movement came to our diocese, because that's been a huge blessing and help in our married life-it's basically ongoing support for Catholic married couples, no matter how young or old or whether or not you have kids. But, even with these things, I think we can definitely work on improving our outreach to married couples. It doesn't have to be another "program," but even just building up a strong marriage culture and support in our parishes and communities could be really helpful.
Also, I know you said you don't have a canon law degree, but do you know why getting a legal divorce is a prerequisite for starting the annulment process? At least, that's the way it is here in the USA, according to my friends. It's just weird to me. For a lot of my life, I had heard and believed that "the Catholic church doesn't do divorce," but then I learned that "Well, actually, if you want to seek a degree of nullity, you must first divorce." But maybe this isn't how the process works in other places?
This is an interesting conversation. I think part of why we don’t hear a lot about marriage separations within continuing, valid marriages is that often the spouse who is remaining married to someone with whom he or she cannot live is living in *such* heroic virtue that he or she will not discuss it for the sake of the reputation of the offending spouse. I know two of these women, one very closely, but the general principle by which she lives is that she has three people she knows love her husband well, so that she can talk about everything she needs to (with just those three) without fear that she will foster a hatred or disdain for him in the wider community where they live.
I think that without disbelieving Key’s wife’s consent to being opened up to quite a bit of scrutiny, we can trust that in many cases it would be inappropriate for the mortal sins of living people to be written about in this way. I’m willing to bet that there are more people living out this painful reconciliation than we know about, but that on this side of eternity we need to rely mainly on the lives of the saints (SOG Daphrose?) for the kind of example we need in these cases.
Both the women I am thinking of specifically are women I am willing to bet could be canonized one day. They are models of virtue. I’m sure they’d both have appreciated/would still appreciate a community of support rather than one in which they needed to worry about the intrusive, inappropriate interest of people who wouldn’t be able to love both they and their spouses well. But we live in a fallen world…I don’t know if there can possibly be a universal right answer for how openly to talk about these kinds of betrayal.
I think you’re spot on, it’s heroic virtue Key shows us, and often that is precisely “how to stay married” - and what we’re called to - in the face of really terrible trials. Thank God for the grace of the sacrament.
This was a beautiful and insight reflection- thank you for sharing! I loved (if that can be the right word?) this book but also found it bracing and challenging. I was similarly a big fan of Alain de Batton's strange novel, The Course of Love. He is not a Christian (and at times it really shows) but I found his treatment of the mundanities and sacrifices and conflict and restoration in a real ordinary marriage to be so refreshing. He begins the book noting that most cultural narratives seem to treat the wedding as the end of the story when really it's just the beginning-- the marriage itself is where the action really happens.
Those Kendra Tierney links are so good. Thanks for including those.