Thank you for your honest and kind reply.
I respect your life journey. Every one has a right to his or her own.
Let me point out, though, that had you been an observant Catholic Christian all your life, you would know what a sacrament is and why the Catholic teaching on marriage makes lots of sense.
Some - not you - might call such a certainty a product of conditioning and brainwashing due to heavy indoctrination. I would counterargue that once we are imprinted by Divine Love in all its expressions - including marital love - one cannot but desire that such a Love lasts forever, and work diligently toward that end.
Love is not intractable, an ideal to aspire too. No, Love is the norm to which we all must attain and in the final analysis, Love is a Person. I would encourage you to seek for this Love and understanding will follow.
~Theo
And thank you in turn for your level-headedness. I appreciate the sober and measured reply. You are of course quite correct that everyone has a right to their own journey, and certainly observant Catholics share in that right, but it seems to me (and this is of course 100 percent subjective) that many, many Catholics are out of step with their church’s teaching. Or, perhaps, that the church is out of step with many Catholics’ true beliefs. This is not to suggest that the church is ipso facto wrong or that there aren’t a significant number of Catholics who very much believe in and follow the church’s teaching on marriage. It just seems to be to be somewhat alienating.