This was a scenario that my therapist brought up several months ago.

Imagine a 16 year old kid. He's a good kid, does well in school. On his 16th birthday, he gets his driver's license. And he asks his parents if he can get a car.

They tell him no, not right now, but we'll see. But they don't want to tell him, that cause they love him so much, they are planning on buying him a brand new car for his graduation, and they don't want to tell him because they want to surprise him with it.

(now I'm finishing the scenario)
But the kid doesn't know this. And he feels very angry and HURT that his parents said no.
He notices his friends' parents are buying them cars. He doesn't want anything fancy, like a sports car or anything.

But he feels so hurt and angry about it. Cause he was really looking forward to getting a car. That he says to himself, fine, I'll just take the bus and walk everywhere. I don't care any more. He starts even coming to hate anything to do with cars. And he even cuts up his driver's license and says screw it, I'll learn to become acclimated to using public transit for the rest of my life, cause not having a car really hurts that much. I want nothing to do with cars at all, and I'll stop caring about it.

So graduation day comes. He did well in school even. And he comes home and his parents surprise him with a brand new, nice car, all paid for, and hand him the keys and tell him they're proud of him.

But he never told them that he felt so HURT by what his parents told him 2 years before, that he cut up his driver's license and decided in his anger (cause he was so hurt, and he's stubborn) that he will never drive a car ever again.

His parents handing him the keys brought back all that hurt and anger, and he gives the keys back to his parents and tells them to just take it back, he doesn't want it any more. In fact, it hurt so much not having it before, that he stopped wanting it altogether so it wouldn't hurt any more.

So he refuses the car, and in his hurt (and stubbornness, but he can't seem to get passed the hurt), he decides to just take public transit the rest of his life.

That's how I feel about marriage, and that's the scenario my therapist brought up before. I just finished it was all.