I recognized the author’s name from a previous book I had read (What Should I Do With My Life?) and thus ended up with Why Do I Love These People? in my hands during a road trip several weeks ago. The byline on the front cover, Honest and Amazing Stories of Real Families, demonstrates what I often look for in a nonfiction book: other people’s life stories. The real-life element, paired with Po Bronson’s gift for writing, makes a highly readable, interesting and thought-provoking book.
Bronson states that the word fashion is not normally associated “with a time-honored core like family, but the pairing is apt. Many of the ways we think about family are really just fashions, fabrications for the sake of aggrandizing the present day” (p 14). The author continues on the following page of his introduction by taking a glimpse into the world of love, and how it has been fashioned with fairy tales:
To quote a wise woman from a future chapter, “Real love is not a primitive biological response that any schoolboy can have.” Nor is real love formed on a first kiss; rather, that is a mere starting point. But thanks to fairy tales, we indulge in an overly romantic ideal that only sets us up for disenchantment. We believe the right spouse can be chosen out of a lineup, and that this “rightness” is inherent to the chemistry of two personalities – that it is fully formed right away, as if at first sight, rather than formed over years and decades of living together. We are afraid of commitment because we think everything has to be “right” before we commit. We believe that by picking someone who wants the same things as we do, those things will actually happen. Having chosen each other on the basis of similarity, we have no skills to resolve the differences that inevitably emerge between any two people. Our romantic spirit is crushed as easily as a paper bag. We avoid conflict when we should be training ourselves on its barbs. We’ve come to think compromise is a dirty word, when in fact you can get nowhere in real life without it. We look for partners who give us no problems, rather than partners we are good at overcoming problems with.
I found the theme of the entire book wrapped in this one sentence, “The test is not whether we have problems, but how we deal with them” (p 19). Every family, every relationship will be tested by problems, and there seems to be a million different ways to overcome isssues. I found Bronson’s real life stories to be a breath of fresh air as I struggle with being a black-and-white kind of girl in a gray kind of world.
11 Comments
Mom L Jul 21, 2006 4:13 PM
Preach it, Honey.
Kerri Jul 21, 2006 5:34 PM
It is always amazing to me how we continually strive to have peaceful, no-stress, no-problems lives….and yet it is through the working out of these things that God is changing us and causing us to grow more like Him. Isn’t *that* what I want? Sadly, it seems I want no conflict and smooth sailing more.
Relationships, particularly marriage, seem to be more about being more of the “right” kind of person (or at least striving to be) rather than choosing the “right” person. It’s two sinners living together–there WILL be conflict. The question becomes, how do you deal with that in a positive, growing -together way?
Bethany Jul 21, 2006 6:16 PM
I think the only fight Andrew and I will ever have is what video to rent on Saturday night. :)
sarah k. Jul 21, 2006 8:07 PM
“well, who fights about that?”
oh, “you’ve got mail” is applicable to every area of life.
ps-thank you for this post, RT…very good to read/think about…
RT Jul 22, 2006 5:18 PM
Sarah, I deleted your extra posts… However, the answer to your last question is: There can never be too many Koenig’s commenting! : )
B… Oh baby, you keep thinking that. Stay in the happy place. ; )
Bethany Jul 22, 2006 10:50 PM
RT, I couldn’t resist…the opportunity to appropriate that line from “You’ve Got Mail” was just too perfect. ;) I think the opportunity of a life free of disagreements other than over video rentals has already passed us by. :)
RT Jul 22, 2006 11:48 PM
Sigh… I’ll never be the movie-quoting equivalent of a Koenig.
Bethany Jul 23, 2006 11:16 PM
It’s okay, RT… So much of what I see reminds me of something I saw in a movie, when shouldn’t it be the other way around? ;)
sarah k. Jul 24, 2006 5:01 PM
haha!
charity Jul 25, 2006 4:37 AM
i have totally forgotten that i read Bronson’s other book, but now that you’ve reminded me of it, i remember that i really enjoyed it — wasn’t it a Bookmobile find?
His comment on the need for compromise rings true, yet when is it not about trying to find a compromise and rather dieing to self. Perhaps dieing to self is first, which sometimes means compromise (giving up part of what you want) and other times it means giving up all of what you want. Just wondering out loud…
Kerri Jul 25, 2006 11:04 AM
I think the crucial thing to remember is that we are to be ministering to others and dying to self, as Charity mentions. If I have a ministry mindset instead of a “this is what I want and demand to make me happy” mindset, it really changes the way we interact with one another. The great thing is that this doesn’t give the other person carte blanche to be selfish or walk all over you; if you allow them to do that, you are not loving them in the way they need to be loved. If we really want someone to be more like Jesus, then that will mean confronting lovingly, and not allowing sinful patterns to flourish.
That will mean dying to my selfish desire to avoid conflict, or dying to wanting to have my own way, or whatever other desire I am putting above my desire to be like Christ, and to love others well. Not always (ever?) easy.