A few days ago I ran into a woman who seemed very stressed out. I had a conversation with her that went like this:
Me: You seem to be feeling a lot of stress, may I ask why?
Her: Yada yada yada ... I’m trying to save my marriage! (Said loudly, with a lot of emotion.) (She starts crying.)
Me: Why?
Her: What?
Me: For as long as I’ve known you, you’ve said that you’re not happy, and now you seem very stressed out. So I’m wondering why you’re trying to save your marriage?
Her: ...
I thought it was a simple question — I thought she might say that she still loved the guy — but it turns out she had no answer for it.
She was crying, and tired of crying, so we talked about something else for a while. Then out of the blue she said, “I think I’m trying to save it because I always thought it was the right thing to do. Or maybe I never wanted to be divorced. But those aren’t very good reasons, are they? He really is a mean, selfish jerk, and he’s making my life miserable.”
