““I asked why we kept trying for so long, why we even came to Paris, if we both knew we never really stood a chance. “Because that’s what you’re supposed to do,” he said. “You’re supposed to keep working on your marriage.” It was awful to me, this idea that keeping a marriage together was like laying pipe or digging a ditch. But he was right: it was what people had told us we were supposed to do. We had listened to sentences containing words like “salvage” and “repair” and nodded dumbly, pretending we didn’t know any better. It was an affront to everyone involved.””
