But no one really enters into such a commitment "frivolously". They believe at the time that they are ready and willing to honor it. But then they find out that honoring it entails more than they'd realized, or they change as everyone does, in time, or they discover that more was expected then they were prepared to give. These things happen often, and what then?
I'm not so sure that no one enters into such commitments frivolously. A lot of people marry out of lust. Many have gotten married due to unexpected pregnancy. Shotgun weddings. There are people who get married and divorced multiple times.
I would agree that people
shouldn't get married for frivolous reasons, but that doesn't mean they don't. The fact that some people are ready to ashcan their relationships over trivial reasons proves that their heart was never in it to begin with.
If we truly love them, as we claim, it seem to me that we would want them to be happy, and fulfilled, even if that means they find it with someone else. Whereas if we blame them and condemn them for being who they are, then we're really just angry because they did not become or remain who we wanted and expected them to be. That's perhaps understandable, but it's also not love. At that point it's selfishness calling itself love.
As far as "being who they are," some people change in life. I realize every situation is different; every individual is different. But I get what you're saying. It's just like the song lyric, 'if you love someone, set them free.' But what does that say about the measure of the other person's love? Was their heart ever in it to begin with, and if so, what changed? And if not, why bother making any kind of emotional investment at all?
It could have been much worse, and it could have been much better. This was the hand you were dealt. And you can't do anything about that. So the question to you then becomes, how are you dealing with it now that you understand it? And who are you becoming as a result of your own choices? We have very little control over other people. Especially when we're kids. But as we grow up, we do gain the ability to control ourselves. To choose our actions and reactions in a world that we don't otherwise control.
I can understand it a lot better now than I did as a kid. I recognize it for what it was - and what it is. The fact that I couldn't change it and had to deal with it doesn't change what they did. Nor does it mean that any of the frivolous, whimsical choices made by couples in such situations are the correct choices to make for their families and children.
True, we may not be able to control the world, but we can comment on it. We can observe that actions have consequences and learn from those consequences. Earlier you spoke of "reasonable expectations," but I believe a reasonable expectation would also mean that people would carefully consider their actions and gauge how it might affect other people.
You quote the word "happiness" as if it were not real. As if it were not really important. But of course it is very important, to all of us. And to love someone, anyone, is to want them to be happy. And often that means that they will seek that happiness and find it in ways that WE would not choose, nor wish them to choose. But their lives are their own, not ours to live. And often learning to love others involves our learning how to honor their right to be 'wrong'.
I quote the word "happiness" because it is a fleeting emotion. No one can expect to be happy
all the time, and every relationship is going to have difficult times and periods of unhappiness. If someone is ready to bail at the first sign of trouble, then I would find that questionable.
