Why Love Will Always Be a Poor Investment: Marriage and Consumer Culture

by Kurt Armstrong

"Marriage is intimate. Marriage is hard": sober thoughts for a time when movies and television tell us that love is supposed to be romantic and fun. In this eclectic blend of playful and earnest storytelling, social commentary, and fierce argument, Kurt Armstrong offers an up-close look at real-life marriage and the countless ways it differs from what the advertisers tell us it should be. With wisdom, wit, and profound honesty, he explores the aching beauty of love, the ongoing struggle to maintain vows, and the reality of death as the finishing line of covenant. "Even if love one day fills my heart full of grief," says Armstrong, "it is still the only thing worth living for." This moving, honest, heartfelt look at real-life marriage will strike a chord with single men and women, young couples, and seasoned veterans of married life.

142 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2011

Reviews

[Lbech · Rating 5 out of 5]

Kurt Anderson takes on a tough subject and does well with it. While he is analyzing the way our current culture de-values the full investment that love requires, he also shares his own road to the loving married relationship he has with his wife and children. It's not perfect and that's what makes it good. It is also worth the sacrifice. He writes honestly and wonderfully about sex, about the constant neediness we bring to our relationships at the same time that loving is what we have to do if we want to be in a loving relationship. My words sound flat next to the sincerity and thought he pours into his writing. He is well-read and is shows in the other authors that he quotes.

Kurt is a Christian and he writes from that perspective, but he does not write from a particular "political" Christian perspective. He makes some points about God's love and the love that we practice with each other in ways that are fresh, deep, and insightful. When I finished it, I thought I should buy 5-6 copies for the next couples with whom I do pre-marital counseling. It is a short, powerful book about the most important relationship human beings will ever voluntarily enter. The trouble is couples planning to get married don't want any information that is going to "rock the boat." Maybe, this should be the first anniversary present? That's about the time it's sinking in that marriage is hard. You don't get everything you want; in fact, it's more about what you commit yourself to giving.

Some of my favorite quotes: p. 43 "We were truly made for one another. Sex has been central to God's idea of humankind from the very beginning." p. 65 "By saying "yes" to marriage, I also said "no" to a long line of other options. I gave up the freedom to "consume," because I chose to love this one person, not simply until the returns began to diminish, but to the very end.
p. 83 "The invitation to forgive is endless because the hurts will never cease. We forgive or our love will die."