Modern Love Is Failing: Only Ancient Virtues Can Save It

We live in a culture full of quick hacks, viral reels, and endless online advice about love and relationships. But let’s be honest—most of it doesn’t stick. It feels good in the moment but rarely transforms the way we actually live, love, and connect.

In this episode of The Voyage Cast, Eddie Eccker, licensed marriage and family therapist, husband of 20 years, and guide for the messy middle of life, pushes past the noise. He challenges the modern experiments in love (hookup culture, ghosting, phubbing, even artificial intimacy with AI) that promise freedom but leave us more anxious and alone than ever.

Drawing on psychology, cultural data, and timeless wisdom, Ed calls us back to the virtues that actually sustain relationships: humility, patience, forgiveness, and fidelity. As C. S. Lewis once wrote in Mere Christianity, “Virtue—even attempted virtue—brings light; indulgence brings fog.” These ancient virtues are not flashy, but they bring clarity and healing where shortcuts only create confusion.

Listen in to learn:

• Why hookup culture, ghosting, and AI intimacy undermine secure attachment.
• The surprising paradox: why the “burdens” of trust, marriage, and family are actually paths to growth.
• How practicing even one virtue this week can begin to transform your relationships.

If you’re tired of easy answers and ready to take responsibility for real love, this episode is for you.

Keywords for SEO: relationships, marriage advice, family therapy, humility, patience, forgiveness, fidelity, C. S. Lewis, Mere Christianity, attachment theory, hookup culture, ghosting, artificial intimacy, Christian marriage counseling, personal responsibility in relationships.

Transcript

It’s a little ironic that I’m here on a podcast giving you relationship advice—because I’m the guy who usually rolls his eyes at the endless stream of advice people scroll through online. You know the kind: 30-second reels, quick hacks, oversimplified psychology. That kind of “wisdom” gives you a dopamine hit, maybe a clever line to throw at your spouse, but it doesn’t actually change how you live.

But here we are—this is how people consume wisdom now. Short clips, quick takes, bite-sized thoughts. And if I want to reach you, this is the world I step into.

The problem is, most people don’t want change—they want consumption. They want advice that feels good but doesn’t demand growth.

So let me be clear: what I’m about to share with you isn’t a hack, it’s not fun, and it won’t make your life easier overnight. It requires something that’s in short supply these days: responsibility. The kind of responsibility that grows you up, heals wounds, and builds the kind of secure love most of us are desperate for.

If you want relationships that work, you’re going to have to grow up.

That’s not popular advice—but it’s the kind that actually saves marriages, families, and souls.

Hey, this is Ed with The Voyage Cast, bringing you help beyond the office for the days when you need more than a session.

We live in a culture that treats relationships like experiments: do whatever makes you happy, redefine commitment, bail when it gets hard. It sounds liberating. On paper, it looks like progress. But the numbers tell another story.

As of 2024, only about forty-six percent of women aged twenty to forty-four are married—down from fifty-seven percent just two decades ago. Fertility rates have dropped to one-point-six children per woman, the lowest in U.S. history. People are marrying later, having fewer kids, and in many cases avoiding family altogether.

What’s the result? A loneliness epidemic, skyrocketing anxiety, and a generation less secure in love than ever before.

Why? Because these experiments go against the grain of how human attachment actually works. We’re wired for consistency, sacrifice, and reliability. Love grows when someone shows up again and again—especially when it’s inconvenient.

But modern alternatives keep promising the opposite.

Hookup culture promises freedom. In reality, it trains your brain for detachment. Hookup culture doesn’t build trust—it trains detachment.

Digital dating gave us ghosting, breadcrumbing, orbiting—all words for disappearing instead of staying. Ghosting and breadcrumbing don’t just kill relationships; they kill your ability to rest in love.

Phubbing—checking your phone while your partner sits across from you—seems small, but it corrodes trust. Phubbing is modern betrayal—it tells your partner a screen matters more than they do.

Artificial intimacy—AI chatbots acting like companions—offers a counterfeit safety that never transforms you. Artificial intimacy gives you the illusion of connection, but it robs you of transformation.

Even attachment theory has been stripped down by social media into excuses instead of growth paths. TikTok didn’t ruin attachment theory—but it turned it into an excuse instead of a path.

All of these avoid weight, sacrifice, and responsibility. That’s why they fail.

Now, I can already hear the pushback.

But I can’t trust people.

Marriage is too risky.

Kids are too much of a burden.

And let’s be honest—those fears aren’t irrational. Trust is risky. Commitment is demanding. Family will stretch you further than you think you can go.

But here’s the paradox: the things that feel like burdens are actually the paths to growth.

Yes, trust is risky. Yes, commitment is hard. But the alternative isn’t safer—it’s emptier.

You don’t get the reward of love without the risk of vulnerability. You don’t get legacy without sacrifice. The deepest parts of life will always involve risk, and trying to avoid that risk leads not to safety but to loneliness.

The so-called burdens of family are actually the pathways to growth.

C. S. Lewis puts it plainly in Mere Christianity: “Virtue—even attempted virtue—brings light; indulgence brings fog.” That’s not a call to perfection; it’s a call to start. Even the attempt at humility, patience, forgiveness, and fidelity clears the air. Indulgence may feel good, but it clouds your vision.

So if shortcuts don’t work, what does? Not another app. Not another phrase. Not another dopamine hit.

What works are the same virtues that have shaped human love for thousands of years. They’re not flashy, but they’re solid.

Humility ends the endless blame game. It says, “I might be wrong. I might need to change.” Humility is the death of ego—and the birth of reconciliation.

Patience keeps love alive when healing takes longer than we want. Patience is what keeps love alive long enough to grow.

Forgiveness frees us from resentment that slowly poisons intimacy. Without forgiveness, every relationship suffocates.

Fidelity isn’t just about sexual faithfulness. It’s covenant loyalty. It says, “I’m not leaving, even when the shine wears off.” Fidelity is not a contract. It’s covenant. And covenant is what makes intimacy possible.

Compare that to artificial intimacy. A chatbot won’t betray you, sure—but it also won’t shape you into someone capable of real love. A chatbot might never betray you, but it will never make you human.

So here’s the choice: keep scrolling for easy answers, or grow into the person love requires.

Pick one virtue this week—humility, patience, forgiveness, fidelity—and practice it in real life. Not in theory. Not in a journal. In the middle of conflict, silence, or temptation.

Maybe humility means admitting your defensiveness. Patience means staying when healing feels slow. Forgiveness means laying down a grudge you’ve been carrying too long. Fidelity means showing up when you’d rather check out.

It won’t be flashy. It won’t be quick. But it will be real.

Stop outsourcing your maturity to algorithms.

If you want real love, you’re going to have to grow up.

The choice is yours: responsibility or decay.