People remember things differently, especially when the topic is so emotionally charged. For example, my older sister and her husband were married, then divorced, then married again, then divorced again, then married yet again, all to each other, over a period of about twelve years. (I think I have that sequence correct.) But the narrative and the time line was different depending on the teller of the tale. I was four when she got married the first time, so I don't have a real clear memory of those early years, but I do remember my father shaking his head in amazement at their behavior on any number of occasions. And my folks didn't tell the rest of us everything that was going on. We had to find it out for ourselves, which also meant that the story got a little twisted depending on who was telling it.
So all of the observations about Sam and Ellen's marriage could be completely honest and subjectively true, depending on who was telling the tale. Maybe Sam's actions broke the family when Ellen and Lois chorused the "fifteen years ago" line, but his permanent departure and the divorce didn't take place until many months later. People are funny that way.
Besides, Woody's comment about continuity was not only quite funny but quite apropos. Just look at the original Star Trek. In one episode ("The Squire of Gothos"), they gave the current date of the series as nine hundred years after the European Baroque period, which would put them in the 28th century. But later on, the producers settled on a 200-year time gap between the 1960's and the original Enterprise time period, and they kept that timeline all through the shows that followed it.
Once you get past Superman flying and focusing enough energy through his eyes (heat vision) to burn out his cornea and lenses in an instant, then a little timeline juggling isn't so hard to accept.
