As Mrs. Lee walked toward the door at the end of her session, she stoped and asked me, "Is singing at a karaoke bar okay?"

It stuck me as a funny question. "Sure, singing is good for most people," I replied.

During the following session, Mrs. Lee talked about her resentment and frustrations with her husband’s tendency to depend on her, even with little things he was capable of handling.

"I just hate him," she said. "The other day, he asked me to answer his business call, so I arranged it and gave the caller an appointment. He agreed with everything when I told him, but he didn’t show up at the appointed time to do the work. The caller was really upset with me, and I ended up apologizing for my husband. This has been a repetitive pattern that makes me sick." She was still irate with him even though she was talking to me.

Then, in the middle of her complaints about her spouse, she said, "I have something to confess." She was smiling but covered her mouth and turned her face away from me.

"Confess?" She caught me by surprise. So I told her that she should not say anything that I didn’t need to know, and this was not a confessional.

"Oh, No. It’s not a confession," she said. "Actually I was going to ask you about this last time. Do you remember me mentioning singing?" Then, she told me her story.

A few weeks ago she went to a bar with two girlfriends to have "a good time." While they were laughing, singing and having a good time, the waitress at the bar brought them a message. The message came from three middle-aged men who were seated at a table next to them. These men were checking out the possibility of joining Mrs. Lee and her friends since they appeared to be having a wonderful time.

"Well, we thought why not?" she said. "When they came over to our table, we all agreed to one condition. Not to ask each other about anything, but just to have a good time together. We had a really fun time singing together." Mrs. Lee was still smiling.

"But, there’s more than that," she continued. "We met three more times after that. The problem was I enjoyed the meetings very much, especially when we went to the karaoke bar and sang together," she said.

"Why was it a problem?" I asked her.

"No, I didn’t do anything. But I began to worry about it. I thought it was fine to have some fun in the beginning. Then, I found myself waiting for those men to call me. It has been feel like an addiction. I was enjoying going out secretively."

She was, at least, honest about it. I thought.

"Does your husband know?" I asked her.

"How could I tell him? He will be furious," she said.

"Why not? You said it was okay to have fun, and you didn’t do anything," I said.

"It will be a big disaster if I tell him about it," she said.

"I am wondering why you used the word ‘confession.’ Were you feeling guilty?" I said.

"No, I don’t feel guilty. I don’t really know why I said ‘confession’. Maybe I do have a little guilty feeling. Actually, this bothered me. So, on the way here today, I decided to talk to you about this."

Mrs. Lee, a middle-aged housewife, has been suffering from depression for the last two years. She believes her depression is the result of an unhappy marriage and financial difficulty.

Whenever we experience feeling of depression and frustration in mundane daily routines, we often become anxious. We try to avoid depression and frustration by running away from reality, and sometimes we try to fill our lives with busy activities. We also blame ourselves-thinking something is wrong with us. By doing so, we become less resourceful and seek external solution instead of reflecting and attuning to ourselves.

According to a recent research on human behavior, people become uninhibited and exceptionally courageous to engage in unusual activity when their identity is protected. People behave carelessly and irresponsibly when no one knows who they are. Additionally, a group of people can do something out of the norm whereas one person can not do individually.

If we are free from being responsible for our actions, society can become confused and chaotic. The study suggests that our assigned roles in social environment guide us to be appropriate social beings. Most people work hard to meet certain expectations that are given to their roles.

Like Mrs. Lee, it became much easier to go out of her norm as a married woman because her identity would not be revealed under the "don’t ask" agreement. However, it slowly became a mind-bugging issue for her. Until we discussed her selection of the word "confession," she didn’t think anything was wrong for her to engage in anonymous fun. Even though she had experienced internal dissonance and a sense of guilt, it was easier for her not knowing it as she later recognized during the therapy session.

We have to understand and remember senseless and irresponsible behaviors may invite disastrous results. As an old proverb reminds us, when a person plants a wind in the spring, he will face a storm in the fall. And, we have to remember that impromptu fun activities are not the solutions for her long-standing depressive self-emptiness.

Mrs. Lee told me that according to her sister who recently immigrated to the United States there are all kinds of "don’t tell," "don’t ask" dating services in Seoul. And some even go out of the country without knowing with whom they are traveling.

What is the driving force? I wonder.