“There’s more than one way to shatter a perfectly good relationship.”

The word “prodigal” has gotten a lot of attention. There was even a Fox show called “Prodigal Son” that explored a father-son crime franchise. Most people assign “prodigal” meanings it never carried, such as a “disobedient” person or a “feisty teenager” or a “lost or broken person.” While a “prodigal” may be any of those things in addition to his or her prodigal nature, none of those define the actual meaning of “prodigal.”

A prodigal is someone who behaves extravagantly, a wastrel you could say. Someone who does something lavishly or over-generously, who behaves in an “over-the-top” kind of way. Most of the time, we refer to that person in terms of extravagance of a financial nature, although the word doesn’t have to be o…