Kathryn’s idea of a “good marriage” runs throughout the novel. She believes that the distance which developed between her and Jack over the years was normal, “a state of gentle decline” (107). The fact that they still had a “good marriage” becomes an assertion that she repeats, even as evidence increasingly proves otherwise.

As the revelations about Jack’s secret life continue to unfold, Katherine begins to see that her assertion is wrong, yet clings to it when talking to others. In her conversation with Father Paul LeFevre, she insists: “It was a good marriage. [...] We were close. I would say that we were in love for a long time, longer than most couples” (147). When he presses her about her meaning, she elucidates: “We passed out of being in love to just loving” (147).

In the end, Kathryn will see how hollow her assertions of a “good marriage” are. Her idea of a happy union shifts: “She had, in fact, thought they had a good marriage. She’d told Robert they had had a good marriage. She felt foolish, exposed for a fool, and she wondered if she didn’t mind that most of all” (226). Throughout the course of the novel, her continued assertions begin to seem more like a rationalization, a desire to believe more than an actual belief.