Review: The Course of Love

Author: Alain de Botton

I have liked Alain de Botton as a philosopher for sometime, so when my wife’s book club assigned this as the book of the month, I decided to read it too.

The book investigates marriage, describing the evolution of a marriage between two subtly damaged individuals.  As I was reading it some of the battles were familiar, and some foreign, but on the whole it was a good catalyst to reflect on my own relationship with my wife.  Its description of the absurd pettiness that marriage can descend into was reassuring that we are not unusual.  I agree with the author that “There is no one more likely to destroy us that the person we marry”.

I found a number of gems within the book, such as “Cynics are merely idealists with unusually high standards” reflect my own saying (mainly about myself) that in the heart of every cynic, is an idealist whose deepest wish is to be proved wrong.  I can only know this from being both a cynic and an idealist.

I empathised with “At a conference, he might spy an attractive woman and want to throw away everything for her sake, only to recognize two days later he would prefer to be dead than without Kirsten”.  How my first instinct is to idealize that which I do not know, thankfully with age has come wisdom that my first instincts can be wrong (See – I am cynical about myself!).  

“We can claim to have begun to know someone only when they have substantially disappointed us.” – I have come to this view as well.  It is only when you have adversity and disagreement and can find your way past that that a deeper relationship can mature and develop.  I guess this is central to the book.  How does romantic love evolve in a mature marriage.  Romantic love is easy, being married is much harder.

My wife and I have a fairly awesome “romantic love” back story.  Having this story is cool, and might have sustained us through some of the difficult time (especially early in our relationship).  I wonder if it were not for the back story whether we would have made it this far.  My wife and I are at the stage where the book concludes.  The book is more about the struggles of being in a relationship, the stuff that no one makes movies about.  It intimates that our strongest and most desirable character strengths are also our biggest weaknesses within a relationship.  How we resolve this conflict within the context of a loving relationship (if we are able too) defines the “success” of the relationship.

In summary.  I enjoyed the book it made me think and reflect about my marriage.  I am looking forward to my wife reading it so we can discuss it together.