Sitting in the Catbird Seat

I awoke this morning to the sound of my puppies' tails madly thumping against something.  Except the sound wasn't my puppies and it wasn't a tail.  It was a catbird pecking at my living room window.  Now, it's late afternoon, we shooed the catbird away, and....he's pecking at my neighbor's living room mirror.  It's mating season, and the catbird sees what he thinks is another male catbird in his reflection in the window.  This is his territory, so he's anxious to run the interloper off, hence the pecking at the reflection. If anything was going to remind me of the Trenches, the catbird would be it, on a couple of different levels.
First, that darn bird has been out here all day.  He has been engaging in the exact same behavior for the last 8 hours.  It wasn't successful when he started (that darn bird is still there!), but he figures that if he just keeps at it long enough, eventually, he'll be successful.  Here in the Trenches, we see that kind of behavior all the time.  We see it in the spouse who was told their spouse wants to end the marriage, and figures if they just do more of "X", their spouse will change his or her mind.  Unfortunately for them, "X" is usually the behavior that drove their spouse to divorce in the first place.  Sometimes we see it when the spouse figures that if they just tell their spouse's attorney all of that person's failings in the marriage, the attorney will come to realize their client is "wrong," and urge them to make the changes that will allow the marriage to continue (really, this has actually happened, and more than once.).  These folks have about as much success as our catbird friend.
Second, that darn bird has been out here all day (yes, I know I'm repeating myself).  His behavior has been completely unsuccessful.  He doesn't care.  He doesn't stop and reflect about why it has been unsuccessful.  He doesn't try to change his behavior.  He just figures that persistence will pay off.  So, when we chase him away from our house, he goes to another.  Some of our clients are like that.  They made mistakes in their relationships that led them into the Trenches.  Rather than thinking about what they could do differently in the future, and what got them to where they are, they just figure it was the other person's fault, and go blithely on their way.  These folks come back to see us because nothing's changed, like the bird in the window.