My lack of sympathy

I've been reading Jane Eyre lately (yes, I know, it's taking me 10 years to read it, I just have trouble finding time for it), and I've finally come to the part where the truth comes out about Mr. Rochester already having a crazy wife that he keeps locked in the attic. You do feel bad for the man, living in an age where arranged marriages were the norm, not the exception, not knowing about the tendency to go crazy in his wife's family until after they were married, falling victim to the problem of money, etc. I have some sympathy for him. But you know, not nearly as much as I think I had the first time I read the book. I am not sure if it's because I'm an adult now, or if it's because I'm married, or what, but I just have little sympathy for the "but I love someone other than my wife" excuse. The fact is, he's married. You can't just go marry someone else if you want to, especially if you are concealing your first marriage from your future wife. And how about this: he lives in England. I am 100% sure that he lives after the time of King Henry VIII. So I am 100% sure that divorce is allowed in his country. So just divorce your first wife, you can still take care of her if you feel bad, and then you are free to marry whoever you choose! My small amount of sympathy for him diminished even further as he described his travels in Europe, living with his many different mistresses, a few months with the Parisian, a few months with the Italian princess, etc. Um, right, so he already seemed to have a solution to his problem, go sleep with whoever you want to. And I love that he is telling all of this crap to Jane. I am pretty sure that on the day I was supposed to get married, after it comes out that my fiance is already married, I don't want to hear about his long string of mistresses, especially knowing that I would have basically been another one on the chain. Ridiculous.

And you know, I think I feel this way about a lot of movie plots, books, etc. We can rewind to the time we saw Tristan and Isolde. I had no sympathy for their situation at all. For those who may not know the basic story, they fall in love, and then through bad luck, she ends up marrying his uncle. So sad. Too bad. Either you say something before the marriage, or you just move on. None of this sneaking around, having an affair. You do whatever it takes to move on. One of the people who was there with us was crying, saying how sad and tragic the whole thing was, but I didn't feel that bad for them. You make poor choices, you deal with the consequences. That is life. Welcome to it.