THE ONES WHO DARED
THE ONES WHO DARED PODCAST Elevating stories of courage. You can listen to some of the most interesting stories of courage, powerful life lessons, and aha moments. Featuring interviews with leaders, pioneers and people who have done hard things. I hope these stories help pave the path for you to live out your courageous life.
THE ONES WHO DARED
How to Stay Married: The Most Insane Love Story Ever Told | Harrison Scott Key
Harrison Scott Key—winner of the Thurber Prize, bestselling author of How to Stay Married: The Most Insane Love Story Ever Told, and a viral TEDx speaker whose work has been featured in The New York Times and McSweeney’s. Harrison shares his raw, humorous journey through love, betrayal, and healing, revealing how his personal experience with infidelity reshaped his understanding of marriage and community.
In this episode, we cover:
• A candid look at marriage dynamics through Harrison's personal anecdotes
• How humor becomes a powerful tool for processing pain
• The vital role of community support during times of emotional turmoil
• Practical strategies for coping with infidelity and rebuilding trust
• The transformative impact of self-reflection and vulnerability
• Harrison’s journey from heartbreak to embracing unconditional love and forgiveness
Tune in for practical insights and inspiring stories that remind us all that even in the darkest moments, there’s a path to healing and hope. Subscribe, leave a review, and share this episode with anyone who needs to hear that resilience and transformation are possible.
Link to Harrison Scott Key:
harrisonscottkey.com
-Links-
https://www.svetkapopov.com/
https://www.instagram.com/svetka_popov/
You guys are going to want to hear this vulnerable episode that will make you laugh, ponder and, hopefully, examine your relationships. Harrison Scott Key, winner of Thurber Prize, best-selling author of three memoirs how to Stay Married the Most Insane Love Story Ever Told, which is the book that we'll be talking about with him in this episode. He also wrote Congratulations, who Are you Again, and the World's Largest man. Congratulations, who Are you Again, and the World's Largest man. He's a viral TEDx speaker, writer featured in the New York Times, and McSweeney's, a storyteller who has transformed American humor.
Speaker 1:I've actually discovered this book on someone's Instagram story, believe it or not, and this person vouched that they could not put it down. And I trusted them because I actually met them in person. So I got the book, read it in like three days. It was mind blown at how much it pulled on my heartstrings and also made me laugh and cry all at once. And this book is so raw. Guys, it is a really, really rare book. It's raw, it has several F-bombs in it and it's a real inside look of a man who's discovered his wife having an affair. Who's discovered his wife having an affair. This book is also about community, about human brokenness and so much more, and that is why I love this book. And so when I read it I was like I need to get Harrison Skaki on the podcast, but I wasn't sure if he would be willing to come on, and thankfully he said yes.
Speaker 1:So let's get into the episode with Harrison Skaki. Hey friends, welcome to the Ones who Dared podcast, where stories of courage are elevated. I'm your host, becca, and every other week you'll hear interviews from inspiring people. My hope is that you will leave encouraged. I'm so glad you're here. Harrison Scott Key, welcome to the Once we Dare podcast.
Speaker 2:Well, I hope I dare in this interview.
Speaker 1:Yes, well, I think you sure as heck dared because your story was really impactful. I just said earlier that I finished your book in about three days. It was I couldn't put it down. It just it was so impactful. Because it's not often that you have someone share such intimate personal details of a marriage and your book is called how to Stay Married and the Most Insane Love Story Ever Told. Now, why would you think, in your perspective, that this is the most insane love story?
Speaker 2:ever told.
Speaker 2:Well, that's like a lot of my writing. That subtitle is a total exaggeration on some part, because every marriage that falls apart is its own insane love story. You know, because of the nature of this particular podcast, I mean, I think it's safe to say that many of your listeners would understand that that's also a reference to the Bible and you know, in the 80s there was a version, there was a translation of the Bible that was marketed as the greatest story ever told, and so there was a little there's a little sort of poetic subtle hinting at those themes in the book too, with that subtitle. But what's crazy about ours is and I think this is pretty of, uh, the majority of people who read the book.
Speaker 2:And no, there are so many points in the book that you are asking how in the world will these two people stay married? And that's the promise of the title. How to stay married is almost as what creates the suspense of the book, in a way, because you read it and you start reading it and you're like, oh okay, I see things are bad, and then they get good and you're, and then they get really bad again, and then they get really, really bad, and even up until like the last couple of chapters. I think some readers have reached out to me and said that they still weren't sure we were going to stay married, even as we got toward the very end. And so there's just. There are so many twists and turns that the fact that Lauren and I are still married is pretty remarkable.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I love how you used a lot of humor in that too. And this guy named Chad is. She had the affair with what you name him, Chad, Um, but the guy who wears cargo shorts on purpose, I mean, it's just.
Speaker 2:I feel bad for the cargo shorted. Uh, I also. I've had a number of actual Chad's. That's not his name in real life.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's close, but that's not his name. Uh, but I've had some real people named Chad who come up to me and they're like thanks, man, like you really ruined it for the rest of us. Or everybody makes fun of me. Now I'm like I'm sorry, I don't know many Chads. I was not hoping to hurt anybody's feelings.
Speaker 1:Yeah, well, it's interesting because, well, right now, in our modern culture, the term Chad you probably know because you have teenage kids, and it's used as someone who's like the jock in school, like the hot guy you know, the one that everybody wants to be with. So I don't know if you knew that using that reference like a Chad, but I think in yours it's more of like this random guy who's your neighbor. And so the story really is your wife has an affair with your neighbor, someone that you know and trust, and you're working hard and you're doing to provide for your family, you're doing what you think is the right thing to do, and essentially you come across and discover this unfortunate news and I would say that your reaction to the affair is surprising and it also surprised your wife. Why do you think your wife was surprised and also angry at your reaction?
Speaker 2:Well, you know, when you're going through something like this, both spouses the one who's having an affair or doing whatever it is to end the marriage and then the one who discovers that this is happening both of you kind of lose your minds a little bit. I mean, and I really mean that you're everything that you think you know is has to be sort of relearned from the beginning, and this goes for both parties in a marriage like that. And I think Lauren was Lauren had convinced herself and I talk about this in the book and she has said this, and she you know, she writes a chapter in the book and she says this in her chapter as well she really thought I was going to be very happy that we were getting divorced and which, which. That was like the when she confessed that to me that she thought I would be excited about this, that I could move on and have my life, and she thought I would. You know, the night that she told me she was sure I was going to pack up and move out, which is what she wanted. And she thought, you know, my mom lived a few miles away. Maybe I'd go stay with my mom or one of my buddies, and then she thought I would want to move to New York because I was a writer, that I wanted this whole other life that didn't involve her. She really thought I would do that. She thought I'd be excited about that. When she confessed that to me later, everything started to make sense. I'm like oh, she had no like. Obviously I was blind. I was blind to the affair. I was blind about everything that led up to it, but she was blind to she was pretty blind about who I was. If I was a kind of an idiot about who she was, and at that point we'd been married for 10 years, I mean, it's not like we didn't know each other. She was so shocked that I didn't leave. She was really mad that I didn't storm out.
Speaker 2:I think she thought that her revelation, her admission of this affair I mean I didn't catch her in it at all. She just told me, I think, she was ready to end the marriage. In fact she wanted to wait at this. This happened in the book. This was in october of, uh, I don't know seven, eight years ago. But when she first told me, uh, I, I think she said she they were planning to wait until after christmas to to tell us, meaning for her to tell me and for chad tell his wife. But then she she said she couldn't keep the secret anymore. It was like making her sick. It was like just kind of. She kind of felt like she was living in a nightmare and she really just wanted to get out with it. And the fact that I stayed I even offered her she could stay in the master bedroom I would just like sleep in my office or the guest bedroom, um, because I can sleep anywhere and she couldn't. She was just so shocked by all of that and honestly it was.
Speaker 2:You know you have some choices when this happens. You know that you have to do something, yeah, and you know the typical responses are uh what? Fight, flight or freeze. You know you either fight this or you run away or freeze, as you don't know what to do. So you're just like a deer in the headlights. And I kind of combined all three of those in my reaction. I knew that if I reacted instantly to the news, either through anger, rage, pointing fingers, getting in a huge fight, waking the girls up, bringing them downstairs or, you know, confronting Chad that night Anything I did right then was just going to make things worse.
Speaker 1:Right, and the wild thing is he's your neighbor, so it's like you know. It's not he's somewhere out in another state or something. This is real proximity right here, so the temptation to do that would be real.
Speaker 2:One thing that helped is that he and his wife had lived next to us for about seven years, but they now lived about five minutes away, which that helped a lot, because if he had lived right next, I don't think I don't honestly the whole thing would have gone down differently if he was still right next door, but he was five minutes away. So I was at least going to have to get in my truck if I wanted to confront this guy. All that to say, I thought I didn't know what to do. I had no idea what to do when I got this news, because I had. I had a thousand things to do. Immediately.
Speaker 2:I had to think about the safety of my family, meaning, where were my, where were the girls going to live? You know, were they going to live with Lauren? Were they going to live with me? Where was I going to live? Was she going to move out? What do I do about money? Like you know, lauren and I are sharing all the same bank accounts, and now she's she's seeing this other guy. I'm like, are they going to take all this money? Are they going to? You know, like, like, is he using my debit card? I didn't know. I mean I had. I had to go to the bank, I had to talk to my employer and like take a week off of work. Like everything happened at once. And so I thought, um, the the best I could hope for is at least to confuse my wife. I thought, if I confused her, meaning you know.
Speaker 1:Like not be as predictable. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:I thought that would at least help. That would buy me some time to figure things out, and it did. I mean she was. She stayed at the house. I stayed at the house, we slept in separate bedrooms. We the next morning we got the girls ready for school. It was all so weird. It was so weird no-transcript sort of understand. All the understanding of who my wife was was out the window too, and I didn't even know who I was at that point. So, yeah, I was.
Speaker 2:I thought, well, if I don't really know what to do, then doing something rash seemed foolish. So I just I stayed there and I was like we'll talk this out, we'll figure this out. Um, it wasn't as easy as talking it out, but um, but I definitely everybody thinks they know how they're going to react. Yeah, and it's usually anger and they're like man, you know, screw her, kick her out, throw her clothes in the yard. But when it really happens and you understand that well, I mean, maybe that works.
Speaker 2:If you're you know, if you don't have any kids, I don't know, but like we had children, I'm gonna go burn my wife's clothes in the yard the night I find out she's having an affair, because I don't want my daughters looking out the window and seeing a fire in the front yard, like, like you know, you have to think about all those things that affect, and so, yeah, you might feel anger and rage, you might want to punch a hole in the wall or, you know, I don't know, slash Chad's tires. But do you really want to make things worse than they already are?
Speaker 1:All right, and go to jail. You can murder the guy, right? I mean it's like, yeah, I don't want to go to jail Like they live happily ever after.
Speaker 2:if I go to jail as a typical man, I mean, the book, you know, really charts my transformation and Lauren's transformation through a bunch of really terrible events. But at the time I was just mad. I was terribly mad and sad and I didn't want to lose my family, I didn't want to lose my wife. It seemed like it was too late. I mean, she said, you know, like the night she told me I was like you know, therapy, we can get therapy. And she was like it's too late for that, it's too late for all that. And so I felt like a man with no ideas, no solutions, no answers. And, um, I didn't. I wouldn't say I was feeling charitable toward my wife, but I she had already made things pretty bad and I was about to find out how I had contributed to that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think what I appreciate about your story and the raw honesty of your story and it's mixed with humor as well, and you're a comedian, so that you know makes sense Is that, in a sense, you pull back the curtain of humanity, right, and when you do that, you allow us to see ourselves in your story, because at the end of the day, we are all broken people to a degree, right, and we come into a marriage thinking that this is going to be perfect, the person you're marrying is perfect, you think probably highly of yourself to some degree, and no one at the day that they do the vows, imagine that this person that they're looking into the eyes and making a promise is going to cheat on them, is going to break their heart.
Speaker 1:And yet, when two broken people get together, life happens, and so I just want you to kind of speak into that to the listener of perception versus reality and to kind of draw that curtain back a little bit in here. Yeah, at the Once For a Day podcast, giving back is part of our mission, which is why we proudly sponsor Midwest Food Bank. Here's why Midwest Food Bank Pennsylvania distributes over $25 million worth of food annually completely free of charge to over 200 nonprofit partners across PA, new York and New Jersey, reaching more than 330,000 people in need. Through their volunteer-driven model and innovative food rescue programs, they turn every single dollar donated into $30 worth of food. Now that's amazing. Join us in supporting this cause. To learn more or to give. Go to midwestfoodbankorg slash Pennsylvania.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you said it. I mean, you know, when you get married, you just can't fathom anything like this happening. At least I couldn't. I mean, maybe some people can. I could not get from two people who really love each other at the altar to that moment in my living room when my wife said and I, you know, still remember the words we sat down. I knew that she wanted to talk. Um, finally, we, after dinner, we cleaned the kitchen and got the girls to bed and we're sitting there and she said she sat down and I sat down and something very big was clearly about to happen. I knew it, I didn't know what. And she said I want a divorce. And there was a pause and I said why? And there was a pause and she said I'm in love with somebody else. And there was another pause and I said and to get to that point from the altar, 10 years before, um, I think the thing that that hit me the hardest in that moment was realizing you know, I'm a, I write books and mostly write books about things I've experienced, and mostly write books about things I've experienced, and so I'm used to writing about my life, thinking about my life, thinking, remembering things.
Speaker 2:I mean I get paid to remember and write it down and try to draw some sort of universal human experience wisdom from those stories, and I try to make them funny when they're funny, and they often are.
Speaker 2:I let them be sad when they're sad, and they often are. But I like to be funny and I like to remember and I like to tell people my stories. And so when she told me that night that she wanted a divorce because she was in love with someone else, it was like falling into a really deep hole continually, because I knew instantly that at least the past 10 years of my life had been something of a lie, that I had missed things, that I had missed things and she had hidden things. Both of those things were true, one was her fault, one was mine. It was a dizzying feeling and it was horrifying just because I was like, wow, the story I have been telling myself and in some way the world about my life has been a lie, and so and that's, that's your whole identity, and so my whole identity was called into question in that moment. It was pretty awful.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and also the other thing that stood out to me is, if you read the book and this is a bit of a spoiler but you guys start to reconcile and you work on your marriage, you essentially look inward to yourself and see what are you know your contribution, like you said, what are some things? How have I contributed? Instead of just seeing the monster in her right, which we always tend to blame the other person when something bad happens. It's not us, it's them.
Speaker 1:But you really went introspective and you started to see all the ways that you have failed and you started to reconcile and there was a beautiful part to the story, but it was the middle of the book and I'm like what is gonna happen next? It can't be the end, right? Um, and then in that story you find that she's with the guy again and and this is a really I mean your story made cry and just really ponder about humanity and appreciate your raw, honest truth. But in that moment, where your wife was in her darkest moments, there was a pivotal thing that happened to you. Can you speak into that, like why was that the path that you chose and what was going on inwardly when you decided to come and actually help her?
Speaker 2:when she betrayed you essentially the second time around are you talking about the, the moment near the end of the book? Um?
Speaker 1:you know when all this went down.
Speaker 2:Uh, what you said is true. It's so easy to point the finger at the person who had the affair. Yeah, that's such an obvious breach of trust. It's such an obvious breach of trust, it's such an obvious betrayal. It's the highest treason you can imagine in a human life is to be betrayed like that. And so it's just so easy to point the finger and see red. And my wife is a bad person. She's a very, very bad person and something is wrong with her.
Speaker 1:Right, and in a sense, does it not make you feel a little more righteous because you weren't the bad guy?
Speaker 2:yeah, yeah, I mean, yeah, it's uh, it's a, very it's a, it's a terrible temptation. I mean the worst thing that can happen to you. Uh, when you find out your spouse is having an affair, the worst thing that happens is you start to you. That is the self-righteousness that you feel because you know it's real. Like it, the anger is righteous anger. That is a.
Speaker 2:That is a bad thing, that is a very bad thing, and it's so rare that humans get to experience an actual, really bad thing being done to them, a crime, whether it's a crime of the heart or whatever, and it's intoxicating at first. Wow, my wife is very bad, we must fix you and I'm going to be nice and I'm going to help fix you. That is the temptation of finding out something like this. And so early on, after she confessed that and it was kind of unclear if we were going to reconcile, she clearly, I think my wife, did not realize how hard it was going to be. She just thought, like we said earlier, she thought, hey, I want a divorce and I'd be like fine, geez, you know.
Speaker 1:Yeah, go live with this guy, get out of here. I've been waiting on this moment.
Speaker 2:And when I didn't do that, everything got much more complicated for her and I think she started to see that and started to see that she hadn't really thought through her plan, what she was going to do with herself, her job, uh, our kids. And, um, during that time, one of my best friends and I say this in the book, he, he's a therapist and he said, just, quite, you know, he would call me every other day and check on me and he knew that we were still in the house together, but everything was very uncertain and we weren't really talking, naturally, except for, like, figuring out what's for dinner and the kids. And he said you know, in situations like this, when a couple has had an affair, um, if they reconcile and this guy spoke with experience as a therapist he said, when couples reconcile after something like this, it's usually because the person who was betrayed takes some ownership in what happened. He said, without that, it just doesn't work, it just. He said it just doesn't work. And he wasn't, uh, exhorting me, he was not telling me what to do, he was just giving me an observation like this kind of thing is only resolved when the person in your position, harrison, acknowledges some contribution to the problem and that really, you know, as a writer who writes about himself, that completely gelled with my own experience, Because when you're writing your own story, it's best to make yourself the villain.
Speaker 2:You're the idiot, you're the one who's making mistakes, you're the one who doesn't understand, and I'm like that makes total sense. So I really started to think about okay, yeah, I, I work a lot. Okay, I started there. I work a lot like a lot of breadwinners, a lot of men, not not always men in marriages, but often, you know, I'm the one who's gone, I'm the one who's traveling for work. I started there and then, as you see in the book, I just made this huge list from A to Z of everything that might have made it easy for Lauren to want to leave.
Speaker 2:Now my best friend said look, this doesn't mean it's your fault when you contribute to something like this. We're not saying the affair is your fault, don't blame yourself. But how did you make it easy? How did you make that seem like a preferable option for your wife? Wow, yeah, and so I really obviously, like you know, working, traveling for work that doesn't make somebody have an affair, being I don't know, demanding or being an asshole or picking on your wife too much or your husband or whatever. You're being tight with money or like. None of those things make having an affair okay, but they definitely make it maybe not fun to be married to you, and so I really had to look long and hard at all of those ways that I had made my marriage not a very fun place to be.
Speaker 1:Those ways that I had made my marriage not a very fun place to be. Wow, I love that, because you went and just said what is it? How am I contributing to that? And I think we can all examine that in ourselves, whichever state of marriage you're in right now, Because and I think that's the gift that you give to the reader with your book is that if you are married and it's titled how to stay married, so it really helps you to examine yourself and say, okay, what am I doing? That may make me someone who's unlikable or maybe not pleasant to be with, or I've heard this, someone said this and I don't remember who it is to give credit to. But the question that you ask yourself is would I like to be married to me?
Speaker 2:Would I like to be married to me.
Speaker 1:That's a great question Because I think if you're really honest with yourself, you would find ways that you could improve.
Speaker 2:Well, yeah, duh, I mean like, of course. I mean you know what one of the things I love most about Christianity is, at least I guess what you would call like confessional Christianity, the sort of those universal propositions that most Christians throughout history have agreed that like through things like the Apostles' Creed or the Nicene Creed, whatever you know, which touch on Catholicism and Episcopals and Presbyterians and whatnot, then you know, if you are familiar with any of that history, you know that the Bible is pretty clear that humans are just prone to malice, that we love to. We are selfish beings at best, even if we're not mean and cruel, we are selfish. Even the kindest person thinks they are the center of the universe and has to work continually to remind themselves that they are not the center of the universe and has to work continually to remind themselves that they are not the center of the universe. I love that about the bible. That's my favorite. That's personally one of my um, something I have to be reminded of constantly, and and so it was. It was very natural to be like okay, all right, you know what. You know. What does Jesus say? You know, don't you know the? Don't point out the speck in someone else's eye when you haven't looked at the beam in your own eye, and so that's. That's what I was doing. I mean, I was. I didn't mean for this to be a religious book, I didn't mean for it to be a Christian book. You know, it's the only book, as far as I know, that's been nominated for book of the year by Christianity Today. That has, you know, 13 F-bombs in it. That's pretty rare, but I do know this.
Speaker 2:I've grown up in the church and you could say that, you know, I adhere to, like a Christian humanism. You know, and I go, I talk about that in the book. I'm like I didn't know what to do. I was totally bereft of answers and so I immediately went to like well, what do I believe? Do I believe in love? Do I believe in forgiveness? And you know, if this had happened to a Buddhist or a pagan or somebody else, they would have had a different reaction and it would have been a different book.
Speaker 2:But for me, having grown up as a Christian and having wrestled with my faith my whole life, I'm like, look, it was like. You know, when you buy a house and you know the realtor takes you into the backyard and they're like there's a shed back there. There's some old tools in there. If you want those, those come with the house. That was kind of like my faith.
Speaker 2:This happened and I go into the shed in the backyard with all these old 19th century tools you know thing rusting hanging on a rafter and I'm like, all right, one of them is marked forgiveness, one of them is marked, you know, humility, one of them is marked compassion, and I'm like do these, are these? Is this real? Because this would be really nice if these things worked, because I would like to stay married, I would like to keep my family intact, and so maybe I should use these tools. And that's how it became sort of a book about looking in the mirror and loving my neighbor as myself, which takes on a whole new residence when your neighbor is having an affair with your wife.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and also what I appreciate about it is that you were able to also see the brokenness in your wife for what it was, rather than the monster that she is, so to speak.
Speaker 2:You know, in that circumstance, yeah, like if I'm going to look at myself and be like, wow, here are about two dozen things that are really wrong with me. I know why I'm like that. I think I know what kind of makes me like that, which helps me to maybe address those issues and fix them. Selfishness, I can be verbally, I can be just mean. I like to think it's being funny and I and it often starts as humor and then it kind of just ends up cutting somebody down.
Speaker 2:If I can look at all that and be like, okay, I'm still a nice guy, I can fix those things, I'm not lost. If I look at myself like that, then I have to look at her like that too, like all right, well, you know, maybe she didn't do all of these things that I did, but she did a few things. She had an affair and you know a few other things besides that contributed to it. So if I can look at myself with mercy, then I should be able to look at her with mercy, and it wasn't easy, but it did make hating her harder.
Speaker 1:Yeah, because you were really real and honest. What would you say to someone who is, um, perhaps struggling? Maybe they are going through infidelity and they're in the middle of just feeling like there is no hope for them? I'm incredibly selective about the supplements I choose for me and my family, and soursop nutrition gummies by be me, beyond medicine, have become a family favorite. Not only are they packed with incredible benefits, but they're so delicious that everyone in my family enjoys them. Introducing Soursop Cell Plus Immunity Gummies the first ever physician-backed Soursop supplements in the US, expertly formulated with Soursop, elderberry and echinacea, designed to enhance your well-being, experience the benefits of soothing inflammation, balancing blood sugars, relieving stress and anxiety and strengthening your immune system. Use my code Svetka, that's S-V-E-T-K-A on Soursupnutritioncom and get 5% off today.
Speaker 2:Um, well, um, I would. That's a tough place to be, that's a dark, dark place to be. Um, you know, if they are, I mean, the conversation is a little different, if you know. I mean there there are a thousand marriages and a thousand marriages are falling apart. They're all falling apart for the same and for very different reasons. Um, the dynamics of why it's falling apart have a lot to do with how you listen to those people, um, but you know, to somebody who's in the thick of it, um, I would say this uh, I would say that you need to think about every decision you make at this point very carefully.
Speaker 2:You don't want to make any rash decisions about reconciling or about separating, and you know divorcing or you know rash decisions. You know that might lead to violence, to pain, to unnecessary costs. You know, don't, don't slash the guy's tires because you're going to end up, you know, going to court for that. Like, don't make rash decisions. That's the first bit of advice. But mostly I would say you need to talk to some people. Um, the worst thing you can do when your marriage is in trouble is to not talk to anyone about it, and there are a few people you need to talk to. If you have, you need a friend. You need to talk to a friend. They will. Your friends are so important because they are anchored in reality and you are not. When you're going through this, you are not in reality at all. You are walking through a living nightmare, but your real friends can communicate with you in that nightmare while they are just living a normal life. It's really nice to be reminded that people can live a normal life, because you forget that when your marriage is going through absolute hell, you need friends. Friends that you can go have a beer with and just tell them what's going on. Friends that you can text and be like not a good day man or you know, want to go. You know like can I come over for dinner? I don't feel like cooking, whatever. If you don't have friends, that's a huge problem, a huge red flag. Friends that's a huge problem, a huge red flag.
Speaker 2:Marriages when people who are married do not have friends outside of their marriage, things get really bad really quickly for most of us. You've got to have that. So that's first. You've got to talk to your friend. You've got to talk to a friend. Preferably, you want to keep the group small. You don't want to tell 20 friends about your marriage falling apart, because then you spend all of your time updating your 20 friends on the state of your marriage, which is too much work. It's exhausting. So you need a small group, keep your circle of trust small and you need to get together with them. Often You'll find yourself laughing, crying. They'll be sharing from their marriages.
Speaker 2:But I'm telling you, you got to have a friend. If you don't, you need to get one and you need to fix that problem. Two, you need to talk to a therapist, which is like a licensed, paid friend. They're similar to friends but they're a little different. They might sometimes you get a therapist who gives you good advice. Sometimes you have a therapist who just listens and asks you frustrating questions what do you want? How does that feel? But you need somebody who's experienced in handling these kinds of situations.
Speaker 2:I was very lucky in that, of the three close friends who I brought in to help me through this, one was a pastor and not a stuffy, pious guy at all. I mean, he has tattoos and he cusses a little too much, frankly, but in a good way. He's an entertaining with his profanity. But he had lived through his own parents' divorce and he counsels a lot of people at his church who are going through things like this, and he's a great listener. He was one guy. The other was a marriage and family therapist. So perfect, there you go, you lucked out there and then the third guy, uh, was a?
Speaker 2:um high school english teacher, uh, and a writer, and so it was nice to have another writer in my group, um, who understood. Uh, and all three guys are just really compassionate. You really need that. But you also need a therapist who's not necessarily going to valorize whatever bad decisions you are announcing, like the things my friends told me.
Speaker 2:Don't have sex with your secretary. I don't have a secretary, but I would have had sex with her if I had had one. I would have tried because I was sad and lonely and desperate and mad, right, yeah? Yeah, I mean, when something like this happens to you in your marriage, I found myself longing and lusting for affection. Almost a year went by without any physical affection from my wife, and so when all this went down, I'm like, yeah, I totally get why you would want to go to a strip club in Las Vegas and just like feel something. And my friends were very helpful at keeping me from making foolish decisions like that, because I wouldn't have been able to hide it from them, you know, um.
Speaker 2:So talk to your friends, talk to a therapist you need to talk to. If you have a guide that you talk to. That's a really important person to talk to, whether it's, you know, for me it was through prayer and I had never prayed as fervently and desperately as I prayed in those days and honestly, it felt pretty good. Like so many times when I pray I days, and honestly it felt pretty good. Like so many times when I pray, I just feel like I'm talking to the sky and talking to myself. But I did not feel like that. In the midst of all this man, I was like pretty sure God was there and I'm pretty sure if he's ever going to listen to me, he's listening now. Um, so you do need to like and that's another way of saying like. Whatever your philosophy is, this is a great time to see if it works. This is a really great time to see if your worldview is helpful at helping you solve problems and not live in hell.
Speaker 2:Talk to your friends, talk to a therapist, talk to a guide and, and most importantly, um, look in the mirror, talk to yourself, decide what's, maybe what about you could be better. We've already addressed that in this conversation. And then, lastly, you need to talk to your spouse. You're going to be in each other's lives probably for the rest of your lives, especially if you have kids. Yeah, so you don't want to burn that bridge, you don't want to say things that add to the bitterness and resentment that's already there. So you need to keep lines of communication open with your spouse as well, even if it's just through text or once a week. If y'all are separated I'm not talking about I miss you, please come back but just realizing that life has to go on and maybe you don't know if you're going to get married or sorry, get divorced, or you don't know if you're going to reconcile. But keep that line of communication as free of manipulation as you can, even while the worst is happening.
Speaker 1:That's so good. And what are three things that you would advise for someone on how to stay married?
Speaker 2:Oh, I don't know man Read the book.
Speaker 1:I guess I mean you do have to yeah, definitely read the book.
Speaker 2:It's not a how to, it's more how not to. But there are a few little-.
Speaker 1:Nuggets that you give. Yeah, for sure.
Speaker 2:I drop things that I've learned, and that I've learned, and, and that I've still feel true. You know, three years after I wrote, wrote it, um, I would say, uh, that first of all, you get a lot of bad advice. Um, you know, don't go to bed angry. You get that advice a lot. I think it's really great to go to bed angry. Sometimes, rushing a fight, rushing a resolution, just leads to another fight so many times. And sometimes you just need to say, all right, I'm just I'm going to go to bed mad, she's going to go to bed mad and I'm going to stew a little bit and let the heat kind of simmer and come down, and then we can talk about this tomorrow. I've also learned that that's how my wife prefers to deal with difficulty.
Speaker 2:I love to talk, I am a writer, I'm a teacher, I give presentations, I love to talk, and my wife does not. She is an introvert and she has to really chew on her feelings and find the words before they're ready. And I just learned that I'm like, oh okay, sometimes it's okay to go to bed mad, because she needs another 12 hours to sort of figure out exactly how she wants to express what she's feeling. And honestly, even though I could express how I'm feeling any time of the day, that's not always. I'm not always telling the truth. I don't always know how I'm feeling any time of the day. Uh, that's not always. I'm not always telling the truth. I don't always know how I feel, even when I feel like I want to talk about how I feel. Um, but how to stay married, um, realize that it might not be, uh, might not always be fun to be married to you. Uh, you need to. We've talked about that a lot in this conversation and that's probably number one.
Speaker 2:I do think you know I go back and forth on this, but I feel pretty strongly that every marriage needs therapy, and I know some people will disagree. Therapy in some ways is kind of having a backlash. Like you can have too much therapy, talk about your feelings too much. I do think you can go to therapy a little too much. You know, I have friends who are not uh, who are going from what I can tell and in my conversations with them, their lives are pretty great and they're still in therapy every week. I think that can become a problem after a while. Um, it depends on who you are and the situations are all different, but I do think most marriages need therapy.
Speaker 2:Like you know, we didn't always have therapy, it's relatively new in human history, but so is dentistry, you know like, and we all go to the dentist. Nobody says you shouldn't go to a dentist. I'm sure a hundred years ago there were people were like, ah, who goes to the dentist? Just, you know, get me that wooden healthy, right? Yeah, dentures are fine. Or if it hurts, just yank it out or take, take some Tylenol or whatever.
Speaker 2:But most of us, all of us in a modern society, we go to the dentist when something's wrong with our teeth and even when something's not wrong, we go for a cleaning to keep things from getting wronger later. That's therapy, that's all it is, and it is weird and it's so scary. That's one of the scariest things you can do as a married couple is to not be really having bad problems and to go to therapy anyway. That's scary because you know you're going to actually learn about real problems that you have that you weren't even fighting about. Why would you do that? That you have, that you weren't even fighting about, why would you do that? You know, like when you. Sometimes you know when you. It's like when you're selling your house and you have to bring in a home inspector to make sure it's not falling apart. You read things in that inspection report you wish you didn't know. You're like this house looks fine, but somebody will buy it. Why do you have to be so mean and say all these things about my house and this report? That's therapy and it can be frightening. Um, so that's that's another bit of advice.
Speaker 2:Is is go, is like you can go once a month, obviously, if you're in a crisis, I mean at our most intense. Lauren had a therapist that she saw weekly. I had a therapist that I saw weekly and we had one that we both saw together weekly. So that's, that's a lot of therapy. And that was true for about three to six months I mean, because we were in the ER of marriage and we needed all of that help and you we needed it less as time went on, um, and then it went to like once a month and then it went to like once every two or three months.
Speaker 2:But I would definitely advocate for every marriage marriage to get into therapy. You will hear your partner say things that they would never say to you and they say them typically like when they. When you say it to a therapist in front of your spouse, you're not mad. Usually you're just like, well, this is kind of how I feel. When that happens, it'll really shock and surprise you and it will help and so I recommend that. Um, but there I could give you know a list of 100 other things to do.
Speaker 2:But I think, realize that you are not perfect Everybody knows they're not perfect but to really realize, like you have been such a way that your spouse has thought, wow, wouldn't it be great not to be married to this person anymore? Every married person in the world has had that thought. You need to realize that. And then going to therapy is a great way to sort of talk about that and become slightly better. Getting better at being married doesn't mean you're becoming like a professional race car driver, right, it just means that you're more in tune.
Speaker 2:You can hear things If you have a like I talk too much. So I had to learn how to shut up and listen and really listen and be patient, especially with a woman who doesn't volunteer information willingly. Um, because it's just not her personality. You have to really pull it out of her. And so I would find myself, after all, this sort of went down and we were attempting reconciliation, I would would find Lauren like talking about her feelings and I would immediately start talking about mine. I'm like, oh, she has feelings, I have feelings, we have feelings in common, let's all share our feelings. And I'm like no, shut up. Like shut up, harrison, just like listen and be quiet. Like great interviewers. You know like silence is so great in an interview Cause, like you ask a question, they don't say anything.
Speaker 1:And what do you want to do?
Speaker 2:What you want to do is you want to ask a follow-up to kind of help them out, right you?
Speaker 1:want to go fill in the gap, like don't have any silence. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:The best interviewers don't do that. They just sit there in the silence and finally, what comes out? Something true comes out eventually, and that's pretty true in marriage. I had to learn that what Lauren had to figure out, at least in part, was how to volunteer the information. So she had a whole different journey in therapy.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's beautiful. Thank you so much for that advice. The other thing, too, that I want to point out is community. In your book was, through and through, the thing that just brought it all together, which was so beautiful and seeing, and you pointing out how I mean you mentioned friends, but your church, your community, that is. I truly believe that if we have people around us, we can make it through anything.
Speaker 2:Man, that is so true. I would add that to the list of advice I talked earlier about finding friends. Community is a better word for it. As you read in the book, our community is mostly through our church, which I realize is pretty retro for a lot of people in the 21st century and kind of feels kind of impossible for people who just find religion, especially Christianity, too difficult to believe. But so you got to find community somewhere. What's cool about religious communities is that you share this bond that sort of transcends personality, and so you end up having a fellowship with people you would never hang out with. That's really useful. It's really like I love that there are people in my church who would never vote for the candidate that the other people in my church would vote for.
Speaker 2:Everybody's so different. Some have money, some don't. Some have kids, some have kids, some don't. Some have kids, some have kids, some don't. Some have big, nice houses, some live in tiny apartments. Some are Republicans, some are Democrats, some hate America, some love America, and when you have a community like that, that's still that tries to love each other. That's so important. There are so many practical benefits to having a community like that. Um, when things go down. They bring you food when things get really bad. They bring food to you. They drop off bottles of liquor and iced coffees at your front door and they text you hey, left a bottle of irish whiskey for you. I would love to drink it with you.
Speaker 1:Text me if you want me to turn around, like that's what community is I love that your friends just kind of you know went into your behind your house and you guys just got to enjoy time together. They just came, they just showed up and I think that's the beautiful part about that is, when your friends are struggling, you just show up. You don't have to have the answers, you don't have to know the most eloquent phrase to respond. If you just show up and sit with people in their pain, that's the most beautiful gift that you can give someone and it's usually uh, listening, uh, food and chores, like those three things are so important when you have a community.
Speaker 2:Yes, you know, like when I, when Lauren, moved out and we were officially separated, I was instantly a single father of three, three young daughters between the ages of what like 10 and 14. And instantly, like one of my buddies texted me and he's like y'all come over for dinner tonight. He didn't like, that's all he said and I'm like great, I don't have to cook. How am I supposed to cook Like I'm? I'm, I'm working all day, I'm packing school lunches, I'm getting home, I'm cleaning the house, I'm doing it all myself. So, yeah, like we're going to come over for dinner, like we all are. We all look like homeless people right now and I haven't braided my daughter's hair correctly. But yeah, we'll be over there for dinner. And so you know, most people have like a small group of friends who will do that, two or three people, and that's, that's the absolute minimum that you need.
Speaker 2:When I talk about community, you know some people you know they belong to. I don't know a kickball team or a book club. I mean, those are communities too. What's nice about a church is how it's a little bit bigger and it's a little bit stronger and there's obviously it's nice when you have 20 people bringing you food and not three, so there's some strength in numbers there too. But community is huge.
Speaker 2:You got to have somebody to complain to about your spouse um, because you'll find that they'll complain about theirs in similar ways. Uh, and you feel a little less alone. I'm not saying you should have friends so you can bad mouth your spouse Uh, I don't recommend doing that much, but, um, but it's nice, like when you know, when all this went down and my friends sat with me in my backyard, like one of the things that they said was man, this could happen to any of us. Or when I talked about feeling like I worked too much and I was gone from home too much. You know, one of my buddies is like man, I have to travel for work and I'm thinking about changing jobs and making less money just so I can be home more, like I totally get what you're saying. I just felt less alone. I didn't feel isolated because I'm like these guys have the same problem. Community is key.
Speaker 1:Yeah Well, harrison, I want to honor your time and wrap up the interview For all you out there. Go get the book how to Stay Married the Most Insane Story Ever Told and I usually wrap up my interview with three questions. The first one is what's the bravest thing that Harrison's ever done? The ones who dared.
Speaker 2:I'm probably writing this book. I've gotten a lot of heat for it. You know a man writing this book. I've gotten a lot of heat for it. You know, a man writing a book about his wife's affair feels a little cringy to some people, especially in our current climate, but I'm okay with that, because men don't talk about this and our story is ultimately a story of hope. Nobody tells the truth about what really goes on in their marriage and I thought it might be nice to try.
Speaker 2:I had already written previous books about my life and I felt like I was in a pretty good position to do it fairly and honestly. But after the book came out, I went through a pretty severe depression for about a year because of you know just the comments that I read online. Um, really, I felt a lot of um, torment and shame. I wasn't sure if I'd done the right thing. Um, and I. It took me a long time to come back around to realizing that we had done the right thing, and it took me a long time to come back around to realizing that we had done the right thing and that that was just the price we paid for telling the truth in public. But yeah, writing this book is probably the bravest thing I've ever done.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean, and you say in the introduction that you know it was reliving the pain, was rewriting it. For anyone who's a writer, you know, when you're recalling your memories it's you know you're reliving that story all over again and you said you would have preferred to write something else and you were working on something else prior to this occurring. What is the bravest or what is the best advice that someone gave you and it doesn't have to be pertaining to this instance, the story necessarily um praise publicly, criticize privately.
Speaker 2:That's pretty good advice for a teacher, for a manager, for a parent that's good, yeah.
Speaker 1:And then what are three pivotal books in your life? Books that were perhaps transformative, books that shaped you, molded you.
Speaker 2:So many books I definitely couldn't provide a definitive list by John Kennedy Toole, which is one of the few comic novels that actually won the Pulitzer Prize in 1981, a few years after the author blew his brains out no, no, he asphyxiated himself in his car on the side of a road. What a way to go for a comedy writer. That book is so full of joy and hilarity and ridiculousness and somehow it's full of big, heavy ideas like real philosophical ideas and absolute silliness. And while I read the book when I was 20 years old and I've recently reread it and did not quite have the same transcendent experience because I'm, you know, almost 50 now, but that book really changed how I saw books and what books could do that you can write a funny book that had something to say at the same time. And for many years in my early career I was made to feel like comedy was not worth writing that comedy. You couldn't be a serious writer and write comedy. But Confederacy of dunces and hitchhiker's guide to the galaxy both very silly books that are best read when you're about 20 both of those books taught me that you really could say something and make people laugh at the same time.
Speaker 2:So that's on the list, uh, for number two, uh, in no particular order, I would say all the books of charles portis. He is the author who wrote the book that was turned into True Grit the movie, about 10 or 15 years ago. He's not a Western writer, though he writes really funny books. Mostly that happen in modern-day America. Charles Portis easily the funniest writer in American history. He just blows Mark Twain out of the water. But very few people have heard of Charles Portis and he's read. He wrote only five or six novels and I've read all of them about five times each. I am so jealous of his talent. He passed away a few years ago, but just such a great writer and those books are very similar. They are funny books. I wouldn't call them like laugh out loud. They're very funny moments in those books, but he's a serious writer and I just love that.
Speaker 2:And then number three, oh, I don't know. I mean I read a book that I've been thinking about lately, called on fire by larry brown, who was a fireman in oxford, mississippi, uh, and I'm from mississippi and so, and we have a lot of great writers from mississippi, like william faulkner and tennessee williams and so many others, um, and larry brown who passed away, I believe, in the late early 2000s. He was just kind of a country boy who became this amazing writer and on fire as his memoir about being a fireman so inspiring. Because he was just some country boy like me who just loved language and he loved writing and he lived a very normal life and nothing special ever happened to him.
Speaker 2:But his books were all so magical and I'm like if this guy from mississippi can write a memoir about being a fireman and it it enthralls me and I want to read it and reread it, then I can write a memoir about being me and if I can make it enchanting and interesting and descriptive and maybe funny and emotional, maybe people will read that and find something beautiful. So I love that book. Talking about it makes me want to reread it again.
Speaker 1:I'll have to check it out. Well, thank you so much for your time. And, harrison, where can people find you?
Speaker 2:Well, I'm in Savannah. So if you're in Savannah, that's where you can find me, usually on my bike riding to work and back home. But I mean just, yeah, you can Google me. I mean, you know, harrisonscottkeycom, I'm on Instagram as harrisonscottkey, that's where I do most of my posting, but I'm on X and Facebook and all the other stupid things. But yeah, you can just Google me. You can email me. My assistant boards, all reader emails.
Speaker 2:I like to respond. I like to hear from people. I have heard some crazy marriage stories ever since this book came out, people messaging me and I'm like stories that made my story seem pay and like all I can respond with is like I'm so sorry. Also, you should write that interesting story, um, but yeah, I love hearing. I love hearing from readers. Uh. So yeah, you can find me anywhere. Although I did ask chad gpt if it knew how I had met my wife and it did not. It at it. It said it knew who I was because I'm a writer and you know I've got stuff out there. But it was like harrison scott key met his wife at a party. Nope, that didn't happen. And then I was like you're wrong. And then he was like Harrison Scott Key met his wife at a church fellowship luncheon in Texas. I'm like where did that come from? This person didn't get it so clearly. Chat. Gpt doesn't know where to find me or how to find me, but readers can.
Speaker 1:Well, I just want to say thank you for the gift of this book. I know, like you said, you got backlash about writing it To me. It was a gift, I know for a lot of readers it was. It was the you know, just an insight of humanity that we're all, at the end of the day, we're all broken people and you know it's real. So I really appreciate your raw, your honesty and I think, just like the authors, that you admired your book had. It was woven with humor, with honesty and a lot of really insightful things. So thank you for that. I appreciate it.
Speaker 2:Well, you're very kind, I appreciate it.
Speaker 1:Thank you for listening to the Once we Dare podcast. It is an honor to share these encouraging stories with you. If you enjoy the show, I would love for you to tell your friends. Leave us a reviewer rating and subscribe to wherever you listen to podcasts, because this helps others discover the show. You can find me on my website, speckhopoffcom.