A very good point and a reason why that wouldn't necessarily be a good idea, but it's still a fairly common idea people have - witness the columnist suggesting it - and one of the things I would have imagined would occur to her.

Like, she didn't really try ANY reasonably obvious concrete steps before writing to an advice columnist hoping for a cheat code that would allow her to keep the guy but not upset him enough for him to sulk or give her the silent treatment, since those are apparently his KO moves with her. Sort of, "We've tried nothing and we're all out of ideas!"