I suppose to understand it you would have to understand the circumstances.
I was, to put it bluntly, sleeping around and got pregnant accidentally due to a conflict between the Pill and a medication I was on. I didn’t know my ex very well and what I did know I didn’t like, but I didn’t need to like him to sleep with him. It was supposed to be a casual no strings thing. Once I had my daughter I felt like I should marry her father to legitimize her, for appearances, and because I wanted her to feel secure in her formative years. I’d read that 80% of a child’s development happens before age 5, so I figured 5-6 years and I’d get a divorce and move on. Plus, my mom was in poor health and I knew it would make her feel better if I appeared married and settled. She wouldn’t have to worry about me and her first grandbaby in her last days. (She died a little over a year later)
The marriage ceremony was meant as a legal and social convention. Nothing more. I didn’t think being legally married should change my life at all. Why not keep dating? I was still looking for a permanent mate, so why risk passing up the right man just because I was technically married to my daughters father? Why not continue having emotional and physical relationships with other men when I had no emotional attachment to my legal husband? I didn’t feel I owed him anything.
My ex and I pulled on some clothes, drove to Toledo, Ohio because they have no waiting period, got a marriage license, had a courthouse ceremony immediately, drove back to MI, and then I dropped him off so I could go to work. No muss, no fuss, social convention complete.
My ex and I lived separate lives, but sometimes would end up at the same party. The first such party thrown by mutual friends was about 2 weeks after the marriage ceremony. I was there with my then boyfriend J and his friend P. When I realized my legal husband was going to be there I and I’d probably be expected to introduce him to people he didn’t know and explain the situation I thought I’d make it fun. So, at that party and every party he attended that I happened to be at, I’d introduce him as “My first husband, S.” Then I’d be asked who my second husband is and I’d say “I don’t know. Haven’t met him yet.”
When I told the guy I was dating at the time of the marriage that I was marrying S he asked me if that meant we could no longer see each other. I blinked and asked why he thought me getting married would mean we’d have to end our relationship…
I introduced my boyfriend as my boyfriend when we were out together even if my legal husband was there. That’s what he was and he was who I spent my evening with. No reason to try to pretend otherwise when anyone who saw us together would immediately see what we were to each other. Who the boyfriend was changed over the years, but I was rarely without male companionship. I spent most of my weekends sleeping over at the home of whoever I was dating. Some weekdays here and there, too. My ex knew, sometimes he’d drop me and the baby off so he could use the car to go do whatever he was into at the time.
My ex also had his women. Some of them I met and some I didn’t. No skin off my nose.
The whole concept of marriage as taught by the Church was foreign to me then. I wasn’t Christian. To me, if you were legally married you were in whatever you wanted to make of the marriage and if you were divorced you were no longer married. Period. divorce dissolved marriage, end of story. There was not even a vague idea of marriage being for life or requiring fidelity or of the idea that children are a natural part of marriage.
The Church says that a couple has to freely consent to marriage as taught by the Church for the marriage to be valid. One cannot freely consent to something they don’t understand and/or do not believe to be true. What we consented to during that ceremony was not a marriage. I know I had no idea what a marriage was back when I was 19 and I am pretty sure my ex didn’t, either.
I left S in December 1999, 5 years and 3 months after the marriage ceremony, and never looked back. I started dating the man I wanted to be my permanent mate shortly after. A year and a half later I moved in with him and we began saving to pay for my divorce. I filed for divorce July 2002 and the divorce was final in October 2002. I was remarried to my DH 6.5 weeks later. 10 years after that my DH decided to return to the Church and I began to research his faith. The more I learned the more I liked. I went to Mass with him to watch him sing with the choir and just knew I was meant to be there and that I would convert. The Holy Spirit truly entered my heart that day and I became Christian for the first time in my adult life. The rest, as they say, is history.
