S/O Knowing what you are getting into

[Jaybee]

So it was posted on the Kate Middleton thread that she knew what she was getting into when she married William. I have seen that thought expressed here on the forum quite a few times. But it always makes me think, "Did she really?" I mean, of course she had some idea. But the extent of it and the wearing down of it, etc., I doubt if she knew that fully.

We have warned our adult kids about the consequences of decisions here and there over the years. But I seriously doubt that if they choose to make a decision contrary to our advice, that they would really understand the fullness of that decision beforehand. This could apply to dating/marriage to certain types of people, career decisions, ad infinitum. We have one that needs to do a minor thing that they refuse to do mainly because they can't be bothered. But it might prevent an early avoidable death. Apparently, they do not have the maturity to look into the future and see what that might mean to a spouse or a child, or to themselves.

We have all been told about possible consequences to our own decisions at some point in time. Did we really understand at the time what it meant? Besides, some decisions are generally worth the risk (having children, for instance).

While on the one hand, yes, people make decisions that they should have known better than to make. And there are consequences that may not be very palatable or may even be dangerous. Yet, haven't we all made decisions that were risky in some way or another? Decisions that could have flipped on us or been so much worse than we anticipated. So I wonder...where is the empathy, the human kindness to one in a difficult spot, no matter who they are or what the circumstances?

I'm not starting this as a Kate thread so much as just an exploratory thread into our own thoughts toward hardships or consequences for both ourselves and others.

[maize]

I think it is unreasonable to expect young people to actually understand the implications of their decisions decades down the road; when you are young and your experience of life is limited, there's no way around those two realities. You can listen to the experience and wisdom of those farther along the path of life, but you don't actually have that experience. 

And that's not entirely a bad thing. We are all going to face serious challenges in life. Would we dare step forward at all if we really,  truly knew what trials we would face on the road we step onto?

I've thought about this often with regards to my own life. Would I have chosen to marry my husband had I known and understood all the anguish that his mental illness would bring into my life? Probably not. And yet I have never regretted marrying him and bringing a family into the world together. 

I suspect that some of the greatest shocks come when we think we do know what we are getting ourselves into. When we have tried to control for all the potential pitfalls. There is so much that is outside our control and life is guaranteed to throw us some major curveballs along the way; I have never met anyone who sailed through life without pain and struggles and griefs.

[Jaybee]

1 minute ago, maize said:

I suspect that some of the greatest shocks come when we think we do know what we are getting ourselves into. When we have tried to control for all the potential pitfalls. There is so much that is outside our control and life is guaranteed to throw us some major curveballs along the way; I have never met anyone who sailed through life without pain and struggles and griefs.

Yes, @maize, you get the gist of what I am trying to say, especially in this quote. Plus, things/people/circumstances change over time. We couldn't have anticipated everything (thankfully!).

[Bambam]

There is no possible way to know 100% how anything is going to turn out. Even things we thought and looked like a good idea - they weren't always. 

But we make our choices, and we have to live with the consequences. We don't get to opt out if things don't go our way. We struggle, do what we have to in survival mode. There are no magic wands to remove us entirely from the situation - or to remove the situation/condition from us.  So, we can have sympathy, but often there is nothing we can do outside of listening, maybe offering a shoulder to cry on, and prayer.  Sometimes the grief/trouble is something we brought upon our self by lifestyle choices (or not following medical advice), but more often it seems to be random and out of our control.  And I can have sympathy while realizing that the person did make their choices and do need to handle their consequences - and usually there are a variety of ways to approach/handle those consequences. 

And how we handle those consequences -both good and bad, help shape/define our character. 

I've thought about this as I meet the folks in my MIL's independent living place. Some have had many, many troubles in their lives but still have a positive/upbeat attitude. The variety of health and physical conditions/limitations is amazing - one 90 yo may look to be a good health/moves easily, while a 70-something really struggles to just get to the dining room for meals. We all will face this (getting old) unless we die first, and how we have handled our own choices/consequences/struggles/griefs/joys - that will be reflected in our character. We may not be able to control what happens to us, but we can control how we respond. Will we be positive? or will we be complaining grumps?  Or will we fall in the middle? 

However, I will admit I find it somewhat hard to have sympathy when someone makes a choice that *everyone* tells them is a bad choice, red flags are *everywhere*, and they still make that choice, and then seem surprised (?) when things happened that everyone and all those red flags warned them that would would happen. I do have some, because no one deserved that kind of result, but ?? 

[TravelingChris]

I just asked my dh this- first he said he hates looking back anx would rather look forward.  Then he said he regrets not having a huge workshop cause I haven't won the lottery ( we don't even have thr lottery here do I only play occasionally when in a neighboring stste and even forgot to do that lasr mini vacation in Fl). Then he said, he regrets we didn’t have more time to choose a house to buy ( we had Memorial Day weekend) because it has expensive problems that we didn’t quite know about all of them.

I married youngish and well.  I don’t regret my education even though it meant I wasn't eligible for SS disability.

[livetoread]

I am way more cautious than I used to be about thinking I can read situations and predict how they will turn out. I've seen huge red flags that turn into reasonably happy marriages (for example) and I've seen the opposite. I can look at things and see concerns, but really I have no idea what is actually going to happen. It's helped me with my more controlling tendencies to accept that I don't have the answers, and life has taught me it's a strange journey for all of us.

So yes, as I've gotten older I have way more empathy for those who look around and wonder how "x" happened, even when others cautioned about that very thing. It could have turned out differently - you never know. Which doesn't mean just throw up your hands - we can still go with the odds as we see them - but that's all they are, somewhat unpredictable odds. We make our choices based on all sorts of things, only some of which are based on facts as we see them.

[Harriet Vane]

Yes, we make our choices and have to live with our choices.

Yet we do NOT have to accept limitless burdens or limitless boundaries violations.

It's also true that sometimes we simply cannot see ahead of time aaaaalllllll the ramifications. I say that as a seasoned, experienced, middle-aged foster parent currently grappling with the most difficult placement I've ever had. 

Re Kate--Sure, she knew what she was getting into. But that emphatically doesn't mean it's okay to bulldoze right over common sense boundaries and respect.

[Kassia]

Well said @Harriet Vane and thank you for foster parenting.  ❤️ 

[SKL]

If we knew the full consequences of our decisions, a lot of us would have never made the best decisions of our lives.

So, it's common, normal, and probably good that young people can't predict their futures.

[Heartstrings]

My main problem with the concept of “they knew what they were getting into” is that’s it’s often tied to the concept of “so they can’t do anything about it now”.  Very few things in life can’t be changed. You can’t come back to life, and you can’t un-birth children.  But you can get a divorce, you can start enforcing boundaries where you haven’t before, you can go to school or switch careers.  There will be *consequence* but that doesn’t mean you can’t change directions if you are willing to bear those consequences.  
In Kate’s situation, sure she knew the media would be invasive.  If today she has decided to just do what makes her happy and let the media have a fit, so what. She may have agreed to live her life to please the media but she can change her mind.  If the consequence of that is that she gets torn to shreds in the media, who cares?   Right now she’s bearing the “consequence” of hiding from the media.   Ok?   She is choosing the media frenzy over her hiding instead of choosing the media frenzy tearing her appearance apart.  Sounds like a healthy choice.  
If she were on this board we would be telling her to set boundaries, get therapy, etc.  We never tell people here to just deal, you knew, you made your bed, now lie in it.  

[gardenmom5]

No matter how much we think we know- we don't know everything.  Even if we talk to people who've "btdt", the situations will be different because the people and places are different.

[Pam in CT]

As a general matter: no.

No, when you get pregnant, you don't "know" the consequences of what raising a child with extensive disabilities will entail, even if you theoretically know there is a chance it might happen. No, when you get married, you don't "know" the consequences of how the marital balances will shift with even neurotypical children, with aging/ailing parents, with job loss/ career change, with often-evolving perspectives on fundamental matters of faith and community and politics etc, even if you theoretically "know" such changes are bound to happen. No, when you move locations, you don't "know" the consequences of navigating in potentially very-different communities and cultures, even if you theoretically understand there will be such differences.

But most fundamentally of all, none of us "know" how we will ACTUALLY respond under even-such-ordinary stress, let alone extra heapings of extraordinary stress that a whole lot of people find themselves in over the course of life; nor how our partner will. We may believe, at 20-something, we know.  But we don't know until we're actually there.

 

5 hours ago, Heartstrings said:

My main problem with the concept of “they knew what they were getting into” is that’s it’s often tied to the concept of “so they can’t do anything about it now”.  ...

In Kate’s situation, sure she knew the media would be invasive.  If today she has decided to just do what makes her happy and let the media have a fit, so what. She may have agreed to live her life to please the media but she can change her mind.  If the consequence of that is that she gets torn to shreds in the media, who cares?   Right now she IS bearing the “consequence” of hiding from the media.   Ok?   She is choosing the media frenzy over her hiding instead of choosing the media frenzy tearing her appearance apart.  Sounds like a healthy choice.  

If she were on this board we would be telling her to set boundaries, get therapy, etc.  We never tell people here to just deal, you knew, you made your bed, now lie in it.  

This.

[lovinmyboys]

I associate “should have known what you were getting into” with my army reserve wife days. I hated when people said that to me- because I absolutely did not know what I was getting into. Dh was in the reserves and 9/11 hadnt happened at the beginning. I especially hated it when he deployed and I was pregnant and had ds2. Maybe I should have known, but I don’t think you can really understand the military until you have lived it. And those post 9/11 years used the reserves much more than had been used in any recent history. 
 

I don’t think anyone would really know what they are getting into marrying a royal. 

[Corraleno]

10 hours ago, Jaybee said:

While on the one hand, yes, people make decisions that they should have known better than to make. And there are consequences that may not be very palatable or may even be dangerous. Yet, haven't we all made decisions that were risky in some way or another? Decisions that could have flipped on us or been so much worse than we anticipated. So I wonder...where is the empathy, the human kindness to one in a difficult spot, no matter who they are or what the circumstances?

I think the primary function of victim blaming (which this is a version of) is to reinforce people's beliefs that such-&-such would never happen to them, because they would always make better choices. And it's grossly, disproportionately used against women: If you didn't want to be sexually assaulted why did you choose to wear that dress/go to that party/accept that drink/date that guy? If you don't like being sexually harassed at work, why don't you just choose to accept it as a compliment/learn to take a joke/find a different job? If your partner physically/verbally/financially abuses you, you must have ignored all the red flags (that would have been obvious to me) when you chose that guy, so what did you expect? (Or why did you choose to behave in a way that made him mad?) If you didn't want to be relentlessly stalked, harassed, lied about, have every detail of your body and behavior dissected and criticized, and have your privacy invaded in every possible way, then why didn't you dump the college classmate you fell in love with and marry a nice middle class school teacher instead?

When bad things happen to other people, some seem to find comfort in telling themselves that those people deserved it (or at least should have expected it) because of the choices they made, therefore those things could never happen to me because I would make better choices. And in my experience, the people who are usually the quickest to blame other people's misfortunes on their own choices are equally adamant that when bad things happen to them, it's just really bad luck, totally unfair, they've done nothing to deserve it....