Siege

A marriage or LTR might be done, over, cooked and stinking up the joint, but no-one is allowed to say so until one or other of the participants says it first.

This public defense of the widely held private opinion is the same mentality that those under siege take. Stalingrad in World War II springs to mind, or Boston in 1775/6.

Gradually the food runs short, so less and less to eat becomes acceptable. (Marriage equivalent: progressively less communication.)

Gradually the fuel runs short, so colder days and nights are taken for granted. (Marriage equivalent: sex becomes less frequent, more perfunctory.)

Gradually the participants daydream about better times, willing the reality to be different. (Marriage equivalent: resorting to drink or drugs or anonymous sex outside the relationship.)

To outside observers this is as obvious as Mick Jagger's lips. We know what's happening in the lives of those close to us nearly as soon as they do, and acknowledge it (out of their hearing) much sooner.

No-one outside a relationship can ever know all the ins-and-outs, but dispassionate onlookers have the advantage of perspective. Nature apparently sets us up to defend indefensible positions - or nearly indefensible, because although the Americans won the siege of Boston, the Germans failed to take Stalingrad. But do you really want to go through that kind of epic horror?[link]





Revolutionary War spy pic from here [link]