Marriage Mistake: What To Do When A Spouse Embarrasses You?

What should you do when your spouse embarrasses you in public? And what makes their behavior so humiliating at times?

That's the question tackled by Wall Street Journal columnist Elizabeth Bernstein in a recent post.

And in a segment for WSJLive, Bernstein elaborated on why we're so sensitive to our spouses' public actions.

"The first reason is we feel for them; if they embarrass themselves, we love these people and we feel badly for them," she said. "But the larger reason it turns out is that they represent us. We feel embarrassed for ourselves because we start thinking, 'Are people wondering how did I marry this person? How do I put up with this clown?'"

So how should you respond to embarrassing behavior?

"Start by asking: Is it really that bad? Remember, everyone's partner eventually says or does something humiliating. And most of the time, we are way more self-conscious about our spouse's foibles than others are," Bernstein writes.

Check out the segment above to hear more from Bernstein, and for a particularly embarrassing story that she highlights in her piece. Then, click through the slideshow below for embarrassing celebrity TMI moments.