What are you pretending not to know?

I copied this from an article in the Huffington Post about the body language between Cindy and John McCain.  The context is: How could John McCain not have known that his wife had a drug addiction?

The article strikes me because I think I (and others I've observed) have a tendency to ignore the obvious.  How many of us have dated someone, only to break up and think later "how could I have been so blind/stupid/idiotic/such a sucker?"  And the mechanics of the mind that make habituation and oblivion (compartmentalizing?) possible for coping are not restricted to relationships.  I remember thinking that when I couldn't walk, my whole body was tingling and I couldn't use my right hand...that I'd just climbed too much, even though I'd had an MRI and the doctor ordered another one because he was concerned.  In hindsight sometimes I say "I always knew something was wrong."  Or, a part of me did.

Super-cliche, but put well below:

"There's a deeper answer, though, to the question of how partners gradually become oblivious to the painfully obvious. It speaks to something every conscious couple needs to know. A few years ago a car passed us with a bumper sticker that had an intriguing question written on it, "What are you pretending not to know?" It's a question that all of us should ask of ourselves on a regular basis. It takes a heroic act of unconsciousness not to notice so profound a thing as drug addiction in one's partner. In our work with couples in devitalized marriages, however, we've found that we humans are highly skilled at sealing out awareness of deep unhappiness from within ourselves. Because we get so skilled at blocking the flow of awareness inside ourselves, we also get good at averting our eyes from the obvious signs of distress in our partners. Eventually, if we continue to look away from our own inner distress and the outer signs of distress in our partners, we gradually dam the flow of intimate contact with our partners as well as ourselves. Without the lifeblood hum of genuine intimacy, the relationship becomes a devitalized shell characterized by perfunctory hugs and chilly smiles in public, and much worse behind closed doors. Any experienced relationship therapist is familiar with the devitalized marriage; we've probably worked with more than 500 such relationships over the past 30 years. In order to be successful in re-vitalizing these relationships, it's essential to help them straighten out a terrible misunderstanding about what love is.

The misunderstanding is caused by a false belief about love. It's the twisted notion that loving someone means that you'll lie for him or her. "