Afraid to bring up convalidation with my wife

[Back2Church]

I’m a cradle Catholic, but left the church when I was 15. 20 years later, I return to the church a married man. My wedding was wonderful, and God was definitely a part of it. There were things that happened leading up to the marriage and even things that happened on our wedding day itself that my wife and I still see as miraculous. There’s no doubt in our minds that God was working in our marriage.

So now I’m back in the church. My wife is fully supportive of me returning. I even talked her into attending the Catholicism series sessions (Fr. Baron video series) at my parish. But she is still not interested in the church herself. She’s still cautious of the church, due to her Southern Baptist upbringing. We have two children, 6 and 1, and I talked my wife into letting me enroll our 6yo into faith formation. She’s not sold on baptizing the kids yet, but I’m working on it.

So I found out my marriage isn’t valid, and need a convalidation. But I cannot bring myself to talk to her about it. I know my wife. The second I tell her the Catholic church considers us unmarried and living in sin, she’ll go from being uneasily neutral to hostile towards the church. She’ll hate it, and she’ll be extremely hurt and angry that I am wanting to be a part of a church that says this about our marriage. She won’t stop me from going to church, but she won’t like it at all. She’ll likely not be supportive of me bringing the kids into the church anymore, and I can kiss baptizing the kids with her blessing goodbye. While I don’t think it would break our marriage apart, it would definitely put a crack in it.

I keep putting it off because I’m afraid of the outcome. But I’m also anguishing over the fact that I cannot receive the Eucharist or proceed with my confirmation until I get this fixed. I’ve read about getting a radical sanation, but from what I’ve read I’m getting the impression that it’s not something given out very often and I would be told to at least try to talk my wife into a convalidation first. But it’s the telling her about this that might hurt everything. I haven’t spoken to my pastor about all this, although he does know I need a convalidation. I just don’t know if the “mere suspicion” of my wife’s reaction is enough to request a radical sanation or not.

I’m going to talk to my pastor this week about it. I’m just really distraught right now. I feel like I’m stuck between a rock and a hard place.

 

[underacloud]

Try to think of it as a positive rather than a negative. Rather than focusing on how the Church doesn’t recognise your marriage as valid, why not focus on how the Church wants to bless your marriage and call special graces upon it (ie make it sacramental in the Catholic sense). So describe it to your wife in that positive way.

And don’t focus on what was wrong before, but on how this helps you return to the faith as fully as possible, and this is a practical way for your wife to support you in that. It is essentially about you and your relationship to the Church, not so much about her.

In truth, there is little required of her, other than giving her consent to marriage. Technically it’s not a renewal of vows, but arguably there’s no real harm in her viewing it that way. I’m sure your priest can help you work out how best to approach it.

I’m sure you’ll be able to resolve this.

 

[PaulfromIowa]

The second I tell her the Catholic church considers us unmarried and living in sin, she’ll go from being uneasily neutral to hostile towards the church…

I certainly wouldn’t use that terminology.

 

[Dorothy]

Try to think of it as a positive rather than a negative. Rather than focusing on how the Church doesn’t recognise your marriage as valid, why not focus on how the Church wants to bless your marriage and call special graces upon it (ie make it sacramental in the Catholic sense). So describe it to your wife in that positive way.

And don’t focus on what was wrong before, but on how this helps you return to the faith as fully as possible, and this is a practical way for your wife to support you in that. It is essentially about you and your relationship to the Church, not so much about her.

In truth, there is little required of her, other than giving her consent to marriage. Technically it’s not a renewal of vows, but arguably there’s no real harm in her viewing it that way. I’m sure your priest can help you work out how best to approach it.

I’m sure you’ll be able to resolve this.

Great positive advice!

 

[Usige]

If you basically believe that the only impediment is that you were married outside the Church without a dispensation you could always petition for a radical sanation. Since it retroactively acknowledges the marriage from the time of the original vows there is no reason for her to have to give her consent again as she would with a convalidation. It is a possible solution for a person who’s spouse might be hostile to convalidating their marriage. You can read more about it here.

 

[Back2Church]

Try to think of it as a positive rather than a negative. Rather than focusing on how the Church doesn’t recognise your marriage as valid, why not focus on how the Church wants to bless your marriage and call special graces upon it (ie make it sacramental in the Catholic sense). So describe it to your wife in that positive way.

And don’t focus on what was wrong before, but on how this helps you return to the faith as fully as possible, and this is a practical way for your wife to support you in that. It is essentially about you and your relationship to the Church, not so much about her.

In truth, there is little required of her, other than giving her consent to marriage. Technically it’s not a renewal of vows, but arguably there’s no real harm in her viewing it that way. I’m sure your priest can help you work out how best to approach it.

I’m sure you’ll be able to resolve this.

Thanks for the advice.

I definitely look at it as a positive, and I’m sure I could manage to present this to her in a positive way. I’m just worried that my presentaion of convalidation won’t hold up if she decides to look it up herself, which I know she is very likely to do.

I certainly wouldn’t use that terminology.

I certainly don’t want to use that terminology and have no plans to do so. But I’m pretty sure she’s going to look it up and discover it for herself. It’s not that she wouldn’t question my discription of it. She’s just naturally inquisitive and likes to look things up. I’m sure at some point during the process she’ll google it up.

And now that I think about it, I wonder if she would be more upset if she found out about it that way over me directly telling her. She might be additionally upset due to me trying to spin it into something that’s not the complete picture. We have about as honest of a relationship as it gets, so I could see her being surprised and possibly hurt that I wasn’t completely forthcoming on the issue.

Anyways… I know I’m sounding over-dramatic here, but I’m just kind of letting out my worries and thinking “out loud”, so to speak. I imagine my pastor has experience with this and has probably dealt with similar situations. If anyone knows how to present convalidation to someone in the best way, it’ll be a priest, right? Heh

I just don’t want to botch this up. It may take years, decades even, but I hope that my wife will eventually enter the church. I’m doing my best to be a better husband and father every day, and I hope that helps to bear testimony to the fruits of the church. I simply don’t want her to get hit with the knowledge of the church’s view of our marriage and end up too bitter for her ever entering the church to be a possibility.

 

[KellyPalmer]

I think you should give her a chance. It almost sounds like the thoughts you are having are a desolation. Unless there are bigger problems, your wife should be able to accept this even if it does upset her, at first. I think you can engage in a dialogue with her tha will allow her to be ok with it in the end.

I would stress that this has nothing to do with whether God was present in your wedding but rather the obligation you had as a baptized Catholic to marry within the Catholic Church or get a dispensation. If you had both been southern baptists born and raised and you were entering the Catholic Church, your marriage would be considered valid in the eyes of the Church. Don’t you think this would be a consolation to her? You can go on to explain why, that the reasons these rules exist is to ensure you are aware of what the Sacrament means and how that should be played out in daily married life (no contraception, etc) and for the raising of children. Obviously, that didn’t happen (raising children Catholic) at least not yet.

I speak as someone who had their marriage convalidated after 13 years of marriage. I wish I had married in the church in the first place because I would have been given the information that prevented me from initially raising my children in accordance with the Catholic Church. And I would have been given information about the sacrament of marriage and love and sex per the teachings of the Church that I had no idea about until more than a decade into my marriage.

My husband was also raised Southern Baptist so I understand your concern. My husband was able to understand, accept and support the need for a convalidation. It helped him to know that it was me, not him – ha ha. It was because I my obligation as a baptize Catholic and nothing more.

 

[maryjk]

I’m a cradle Catholic, but left the church when I was 15. 20 years later, I return to the church a married man. My wedding was wonderful, and God was definitely a part of it. There were things that happened leading up to the marriage and even things that happened on our wedding day itself that my wife and I still see as miraculous. There’s no doubt in our minds that God was working in our marriage.

So now I’m back in the church. My wife is fully supportive of me returning. I even talked her into attending the Catholicism series sessions (Fr. Baron video series) at my parish. But she is still not interested in the church herself. She’s still cautious of the church, due to her Southern Baptist upbringing. We have two children, 6 and 1, and I talked my wife into letting me enroll our 6yo into faith formation. She’s not sold on baptizing the kids yet, but I’m working on it.

So I found out my marriage isn’t valid, and need a convalidation. But I cannot bring myself to talk to her about it. I know my wife. The second I tell her the Catholic church considers us unmarried and living in sin, she’ll go from being uneasily neutral to hostile towards the church. **She’ll hate it, and she’ll be extremely hurt and angry that I am wanting to be a part of a church that says this about our marriage. ** She won’t stop me from going to church, but she won’t like it at all. She’ll likely not be supportive of me bringing the kids into the church anymore, and I can kiss baptizing the kids with her blessing goodbye. While I don’t think it would break our marriage apart, it would definitely put a crack in it.

I keep putting it off because I’m afraid of the outcome. But I’m also anguishing over the fact that I cannot receive the Eucharist or proceed with my confirmation until I get this fixed. I’ve read about getting a radical sanation, but from what I’ve read I’m getting the impression that it’s not something given out very often and I would be told to at least try to talk my wife into a convalidation first. But it’s the telling her about this that might hurt everything. I haven’t spoken to my pastor about all this, although he does know I need a convalidation. I just don’t know if the “mere suspicion” of my wife’s reaction is enough to request a radical sanation or not.

I’m going to talk to my pastor this week about it. I’m just really distraught right now. I feel like I’m stuck between a rock and a hard place.

Our stories are very similar. I was raised Catholic, wandered away, and came back after I was married.

My husband isn’t a practicing Catholic. And we needed a Convalidation. So, I know where you are coming from.

I highlighted two of your statements. One is that she is fully supportive and one that she will be extremely hurt and angry.

So, which is it? If she is fully supportive then she will listen to what you need and go about taking care of her part of it. I would be very matter of fact. “I need a priest to convalidate our marriage.” Explain why. Don’t hide anything. If she flies off the handle, explain that this is very important to you and that you would appreciate her support. There isn’t anything to get angry about. No reason to be hurt. For her, it is a procedural matter.

 

[1ke]

Your pastor should be able to assist with convalidation via radical sanation.

Go talk to him ASAP.

 

[BlueEyedLady]

If you basically believe that the only impediment is that you were married outside the Church without a dispensation you could always petition for a radical sanation. Since it retroactively acknowledges the marriage from the time of the original vows there is no reason for her to have to give her consent again as she would with a convalidation. It is a possible solution for a person who’s spouse might be hostile to convalidating their marriage. You can read more about it here.

I’m going to go ahead and caution against this. The idea of going behind your spouse’s back to get your marriage made “real” seems dangerous to me. If I ever found out that my husband did that we would have some very serious issues that would at the very least require counseling, if not a temporary separation.

 

[1ke]

I’m going to go ahead and caution against this. The idea of going behind your spouse’s back to get your marriage made “real” seems dangerous to me. If I ever found out that my husband did that we would have some very serious issues that would at the very least require counseling, if not a temporary separation.

It isn’t “going behind” anyone’s back. RS is a method of convalidation that recognizes the original consent-- which is what the OP indicates his spouse would object to, new consent.

Simple convalidation requires new exchange of consent-- which the OP does not want as his wife views the original consent as valid.

 

[Back2Church]

I highlighted two of your statements. One is that she is fully supportive and one that she will be extremely hurt and angry.

So, which is it? If she is fully supportive then she will listen to what you need and go about taking care of her part of it. I would be very matter of fact. “I need a priest to convalidate our marriage.” Explain why. Don’t hide anything. If she flies off the handle, explain that this is very important to you and that you would appreciate her support. There isn’t anything to get angry about. No reason to be hurt. For her, it is a procedural matter.

She’s fully supportive of me returning to the church, but she’s still a bit dubious of the church itself. She was only moderately ok with me putting our daughter in faith formation. I haven’t sold her on having the kids baptized yet, but I’m working on it.

What’s wild is that when I just came home a few minutes ago, she was asking me about the rules on marriage in the Catholic church if one of the people had a previous marriage and divorce. One of her employees was telling her that he and his wife of 20 years wanted to get remarried in the church, but since he had a previous marriage there were complications. She was asking me what the rules on that were and why. I did my best to explain how the church takes marriage very seriously, not something you can just jump in and out of, and how he would have to settle his first marriage with the church (not just a legal divorce) before they would let him have a Catholic wedding with his current wife. Her response was “That’s just stupid. If he wants to renew his vows he can go to any of those other churches and have it done. They’ll marry anybody.” So can you see what I’ve got to work with…

The timing of the conversation couldn’t be more uncanny, though. I’m still running that through my mind. A sign? If so, is it telling me to talk to her about it, or warning me not to, lol. Or just a coincidence? Either way, talk about timing.

I’m just afraid this could open up a rift between her and the church, which I know would affect our marriage. Nothing as severe as divorce, of course, but it would definitely affect some aspects, since I am getting more and more involved with the church and am getting the kids involved as well.

I have an appointment with my pastor this thursday, so however it’s going to happen, I’m definitely getting the ball rolling this week. I just hope it goes better than I think it might. I would be delighted to learn I was simply overthinking my wife’s reaction, lol. I know her, though, and I can’t see her accepting this as simply procedural. She’ll take the church’s view of our marriage personally. Of that I’m confident.

 

[BlueEyedLady]

It isn’t “going behind” anyone’s back. RS is a method of convalidation that recognizes the original consent-- which is what the OP indicates his spouse would object to, new consent.

Simple convalidation requires new exchange of consent-- which the OP does not want as his wife views the original consent as valid.

Would she be informed of it beforehand?

If it was done without my prior knowledge it would severely and maybe irreparably harm my marriage. If I was told about it beforehand and told that my objection did not matter there would still be enormous problems, but I think it would be less likely to tear us apart.

 

[1ke]

Her response was “That’s just stupid. If he wants to renew his vows he can go to any of those other churches and have it done. They’ll marry anybody.” So can you see what I’ve got to work with…

Strange coming from a Southern Baptist. Perhaps she is unaware of the SBC resolutions on divorce and remarriage. And, just because they will “marry anybody” does not mean it is right.

Frankly, I would call her on it. Is the SBC position also “stupid”?

Regarding the friend, I suggest the book Annulment: The Wedding That Was by Michael Smith Foster if she wants to passon a recommendation to help them understand the process and what it is and is not.

 

[1ke]

Would she be informed of it beforehand?

It is not required.

If it was done without my prior knowledge it would severely and maybe irreparably harm my marriage. If I was told about it beforehand and told that my objection did not matter there would still be enormous problems, but I think it would be less likely to tear us apart.

If it was done without your knowledge, you would not know about it. So it would not impact you at all.

 

[BlueEyedLady]

It is not required.

If it was done without your knowledge, you would not know about it. So it would not impact you at all.

Things have a habit of coming out.

I have a hard time believing that the catholic church would think it’s ok for one spouse to unilaterally change the meaning of their marriage behind the others’ back. Thats wrong and sad.

 

[Rence]

I’m going to talk to my pastor this week about it. I’m just really distraught right now. I feel like I’m stuck between a rock and a hard place.

Let us know what he says.

As for your situation, why not keep it to a simple truth without the negativity of it’s implications. Simply tell her that because you are a baptized Catholic, the Church doesn’t recognize anything but a Sacramental marriage, and that being Catholic, you would like the Church to recognize your marriage as a Catholic one, and would she consider convalidation. If this is her first marriage, there should be no problem with it. You don’t need to go into the judgement of it being “living in sin”, or “fornication” or anything like that.

Many entities don’t recognize something that doesn’t originate from it, or follow it’s rules or procedures. To an outsider looking it, that’s what it looks like in this type of situation. So just keep it simple without judgment implied. Because she is not Catholic, she won’t give a hoot what the Church thinks. I would concentrate on it being important to you that the Church recognizes your marriage rather than what the Church doesn’t say about invalid marriages. The Church doesn’t go into all the “living in sin”, “fornication”, “hellbound”. People do. The Church simply says that not doing something according to canon is invalid and needs to be validated. Period.

But if you think it’s going to push her further from the Church, and undo all what you have done so far, then I would just have it validated with radical sanation. It makes no sense to alienate her from the Church, when you are working so hard in steps to bring her to the Church. You’ll not only risk alienating her, putting a crack in your marriage, but also risking the future education in Catholicism of your children. It won’t help anything, but it could definitely hurt.

 

[Rence]

Would she be informed of it beforehand?

If it was done without my prior knowledge it would severely and maybe irreparably harm my marriage. If I was told about it beforehand and told that my objection did not matter there would still be enormous problems, but I think it would be less likely to tear us apart.

I really think too much emphasis is being made on the negativity of this situation, rather than the simple facts. What the OP is looking for is a way to have his marriage recognized by the Church, being that he is Catholic, and that’s it. It’s important to him. It may not be, and probably isn’t, important to his wife. As long as she doesn’t have to do anything, there really should be no issue.

This is the Catholic Church we’re talking about. The Church has lots of rules and laws, and when things aren’t done according the Church’s rules and laws, then it has to be corrected. To an outsider looking it, the Church is like any other entity that doesn’t recognize things done in accordance with said entity’s rules, procedures and laws.

IMOHO, the situation the OP is in has a very easy fix. People have to practically move mountains to fix other situations. He should be thanking God that there weren’t any “impediments” that would make it far more difficult, heart-wrenching, tedious and stressful to fix that could truly put a divide between him and his wife.

If he sticks to Catholic teaching, and not emphasize on what a gossiping layperson might say, I think he’ll be okay. If one says, “the Church doesn’t recognize marriages for Catholics that are not done within the Church, so the Church doesn’t recognize us as married. So I’d like to have the Church recognize us as married”, everything else is implied to the reasonable person.

 

[Rence]

What’s wild is that when I just came home a few minutes ago, she was asking me about the rules on marriage in the Catholic church if one of the people had a previous marriage and divorce. One of her employees was telling her… I did my best to explain how the church takes marriage very seriously, not something you can just jump in and out of, and how he would have to settle his first marriage with the church (not just a legal divorce) before they would let him have a Catholic wedding with his current wife.

To me, that’s a good and timely opportunity to tell her that you would like the Church to recognize your marriage to her.

I’m just afraid this could open up a rift between her and the church, which I know would affect our marriage. Nothing as severe as divorce, of course, but it would definitely affect some aspects, since I am getting more and more involved with the church and am getting the kids involved as well.

Yes, it probably will. Try the more positive approach, and spend less time on the negatives.

I know her, though, and I can’t see her accepting this as simply procedural. She’ll take the church’s view of our marriage personally. Of that I’m confident.

But it is procedural. A Catholic has to do things the way the Church prescribes it to be done. If it’s not done by way of approved procedure, it has to be corrected.

 

[rayne89]

I would be factual. You were raised Catholic. Catholics are required to be married in the church or receive a dispensation at the time. Since you have now returned to your faith you would like to adhere to all its teachings -which requires you to have your marriage convalidated since no dispensation was sought at the time of your marriage. You can also say it gives you a wonderful opportunity to once again declare your love and commitment to your dear wife. (And your wife to show her support of your faith journey.)