Dearest gentle readers, greetings! I want to talk about a very controversial topic today. I do not mean to throw shade at anyone; rather, I'm just expressing my perspective.
Human beings over eighteen years of age are believed to be adults who can decide what they want for their lives in certain regards. An adult over twenty-one years old can most certainly drink, travel alone, have children, and do a lot more in life without being questioned.
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However, it is bothersome when adults intentionally marry people they know, deep down, are not the right fit for them.
Why do people marry the wrong person?
I might sound like a broken record with this question, which may seem, to a majority of people, like a situation beyond anyone's control.
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In today’s world, most ladies marry in their mid to late twenties, while men marry in their early to mid-thirties. To me, that is mature enough to know who is right and who is wrong for spending the rest of your life with or for having children.
I am not proud to admit this, but I will: I grew up in a family where most people have divorced and remarried. Not once has the divorcing party failed to admit their mistake in marrying someone based on societal standards, thinking that whatever flaws they noticed at first were not that significant. Who marries people for shallow reasons, if not those with low self-esteem, believing they could change others' characters while failing to change their own?
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I couldn't believe my ears when one of my uncles divorced his wife of over ten years. When asked why he married her in the first place, he said she was just the available option when the person he really wanted to marry needed him to visit her parents, but he was too busy to go. Like, seriously? My uncle and his now ex-wife had two children, and both parents resent the children because of their resemblance to each of them. Seriously???
For some people, they had no say in whom they married because it was an arranged marriage. In this case, there is an exception. For those who meet on neutral ground—whether through introductions or otherwise—you have a duty to vet your partner and determine if they are a good choice for you.
It might be easy to divorce a partner when the marriage no longer works, but what happens to the children born of that union when both parties go on to marry other people? I have seen a few examples: the children grow up uncertain about many things; they neither belong to the mother nor the father. No matter how well ex-partners think they are co-parenting, it is not the same as growing up with both parents in the picture as a couple.
I have many cousins who are constantly hanging in the balance, suffering the consequences of their parents' mistakes, and it is so sad to witness.
I always blame people who marry the wrong person because if they choose to be truthful, they married the wrong people for selfish and very shallow reasons. Everyone sees the red flags, but they always choose to interpret them differently.
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Another disappointing aspect of broken marriages is the families involved. Imagine being an ordinary member of the family and not being able to further your friendship with another family because certain couples ended on bad terms. It is exhausting, for real. We need to do better. When you see red flags, either tackle them or end the dating situation. Your selfishness is not worth destroying innocent lives over.