People seem emotionally moved when they read or hear about a single man or single woman who pursues a person of the opposite sex who has little interest in them until the resisting person crumbles and falls in love. We hear stories like of that, we watch movies with story lines like that. Maybe your marriage started that way.

However, so often when a marriage gets in trouble, and one partner makes it clear that they want out, it often seems like the conventional wisdom is that the partner who wants to stay married should just give up and accept the other person’s decision. This whole thing puzzles me.

It puzzles me when sometimes the partner who says they don’t want a divorce, caves so quickly in face of legal threats or just rejection.

Why doesn’t there seem to be as much passion and excitement to persist in saving a marriage as there is to start one?