Or, what if people are individuals and how one person reacts is not the same as the next. It's almost like our personalities and experiences make our responses to similar situations, differ.

I spent years with my first wife trying to keep her from leaving. I waited on her hand and foot. Did everything I could. Gave up friends. Stopped talking to my family. Quit hobbies. Every insane thing she demanded, I did in hopes that it would make her happy. In hopes she would stay. Then one day, very alone, very broken, she made another demand that I give up the last little thing that I enjoyed that I had, to that point, managed to keep for myself. I refused and that was that.

I love my current wife very much. My life has improved tenfold since she's been in it. I love my life now. But if she told me she wanted to leave, I wouldn't fight her. I wouldn't try to talk her out of it. I'd probably talk to her about everything it would mean both short and long term for all involved parties but based on my experience, once you bring divorce up, you've been considering it for a long time, your mind is pretty made up. There's no use "fighting for" a lost cause.

As much as it would be completely devastating, I'm not fighting someone to make them be with me. That's fucking stupid. You want to be with me or you don't. That doesn't mean we don't talk about things each of us needs from the other and work on those things but that line of "I'm thinking about divorce" is the line that imo you can't cross back over.