Annulment advice

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Davro5

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Hope someone can help with annulment procedures for my fiancé.

We are both catholics and looking to marry in our local church.
My partner divorced from her 1st marriage in 1999.
Her ex husband was not a catholic.
We hope to marry in the summer of 2021.
Has anyone went through this since the change in 2015?
How easy is it to get an annulment?
How long should it take?
What costs are involved?

Any help or advice would be great.

D
 
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My best advice is to contact your archdiocese, as they have Canon Law attorney(s) on-staff or available, as well as a marriage tribunal. They can provide an authoritative answer.
 
Once all of my witnesses sent in their packets it took less than a month. There was no cost. There is a lot of postage so maybe give a donation for that. I would not use my timeline as an expectation. My marriage was pretty clearly defective and short.
 
Exactly. Your pastor will likely be your advocate so you’ll have to go through him.
 
Google your Diocese and “Tribunal”. I’ve yet to see a US Diocese that does not have an informative website.

Do understand, a decree of nullity is not a guaranteed thing. They may find your boyfriend is not free to marry.
Bushum said:
Exactly. Your pastor will likely be your advocate so you’ll have to go through him.
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In my Diocese, advocates are never priests. They are sometimes Deacons and most often lay volunteers.
 
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You will be given a lesson in patience. Persevere. It is worth it.
 
In my Diocese there was no charge. Every case is different. Mine took almost a year.
Please contact a parish near you and speak with a priest or the person in charge of annullments.
 
My annulment was gut wrenching having to relive many painful moments when answering the questions and going thruogh the process. The Deacon who assisted me told me not to leave anything out, so mine was like writing a book, a horror story. I took the time to be very thorough not wanting to chance an annulment denial. Heaven help the Priest and the tribunal that had to read about the garbage in my life!

My anxiety was off the charts, I was so afraid because the fate of my wife entering the Church was riding on my terrible past. I was afraid of denial but also how long it would take. It was a demonic attack that led me back to the faith and to my wife wanting to enter the Church, so the anxiety was amplified even more. We had already been married 11 years (secular) so we also restrained from an intimate relationship as to not commit adultery. After the demonic attack we both knew and understood just how serious mortal sin was, we were not about to live in sin after that.

The process took months. But let me tell you, those months truly healed a lifetime of pain that had made it’s home in my heart. I had always been one of those “I want it now” person’s, but this time I put it in the hands of the Lord and said “Your will be done!”

Two days before the cut off date for Church marriages due to Holy Week, as I was picking up the phone to call our priest (3:33 pm) he was calling me at that exact time to let me know it was approved. The next day we got married in the Church. It was beautiful as a storm blew through, the sound of thunder and the lightning lighting up the stained glass windows. Afterwards as the priest exited the rear door of the Church he came back in and said you two need to come see this… It was a double rainbow right behind the Church!!! The sign of a New Covenant! True story and got the pictures to prove it lol.

Sorry for long post, but I guess I just want to give this advice, trust in the Lord with all your heart, let the Lord heal the past in His time, spend time reflecting on how your new and everlasting marriage will be a true Covenant with God. And ahhhh man how good it was too finally receive the Holy Eucharist worthily with my beautiful wife!! Well worth the wait and enduring the pain and anxiety of that waiting time! God is good and God is merciful!!

God bless and you two will be in my prayers.
 
You mentioned non-Catholic, but the real issue becomes if they are Christian.

If both are Christian and have consummated the marriage, then proving that the marriage is dissoluble lies in the four elements of a marriage: free to marry, freely consented, intention to marry for life, and be open to children.

If your fiance’s former husband isn’t Christian, then maybe the Petrine Priviledge can apply.
 
rightness said:
If both are Christian and have consummated the marriage, then proving that the marriage is dissoluble lies in the four elements of a marriage: free to marry, freely consented, intention to marry for life, and be open to children.
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There’s more than that. (Really, it comes down to “consent”, “lack of impediment”, (and, in the case of Catholics), “form”.)

There are many relevant considerations that the OP didn’t mention. Was his girlfriend a Catholic at the time of her first wedding? Was the marriage celebrated in a Catholic Church? (If not, then this might be an easy case known as “lack of form”.) Was this her ex’s first marriage? Etc, etc, etc.

The best advice we can give @Davro5 is to make an appointment for his fiancee to meet with her pastor, and begin the process.

@Davro5: each case is different, since each person’s situation is different. It’s impossible to say whether it will take long or be a relatively short process; it’s impossible to say what the outcome will be. Ask your fiancee to set up an appointment with her pastor! (I’ll be praying for ya’ll!)
 
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Davro5 said:
Her ex husband was not a catholic.
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May be cause for annulment on the grounds of lack of form. However, you simply say the other party was not Catholic. You do not say whether the marriage took place in the Catholic church, another non-Catholic Christian church, a non-Christian faith or was a civil ceremony. If it didn’t take place in the Catholic church your partner may have had a dispensation from canonical form from the bishop.
Davro5 said:
We hope to marry in the summer of 2021.
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You’d be better waiting to see what happens. First, an annulment is not a right and one may not be granted. Secondly, the time it takes can vary from tribunal to tribunal and the nature of the case.
Davro5 said:
How easy is it to get an annulment?
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It all depends on the nature of the case, what documents the tribunal requires, what witnesses the tribunal wants, how long people take to reply to them, and lots of other factors.
Davro5 said:
How long should it take?
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It will depend on how many cases the relevant tribunal is already handling. It will depend on how complex the case is. It will depend on how quickly documents the tribunal asks for are sent. It will depend on how quickly witnesses respond to the tribunal. There are a lot of things that can delay the process.
Davro5 said:
What costs are involved?
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Diocesan tribunals usually ask for a payment but this is not to provide the annulment. It is to help meet the tribunal’s costs. You need to contact the tribunal handling the case and ask what they usually charge. No tribunal will refuse your case if you have little or no funds. They may reduce the cost for your case or may completely waive it. They may reasonably ask you to provide proof of your financial circumstances.
 
You definitely should talk to someone at your parish or someone at the diocesan tribunal office. There are way too many variables that go into it for anyone here to be able to give you an accurate guess as to how the process might look for you. Your parish Advocate, or someone in the Tribunal office will be in a much better position to offer you that feedback.

It does generally go a little quicker since the 2015 changes because Pope Francis eliminated having cases automatically going to the court of second instance (i.e. having the case automatically “appealed” and sent to a second archdiocesan tribunal office for review).

But how quickly the case goes for your partner depends on the grounds for annulment, the complexity of the case, how quickly witnesses send in their paperwork, whether the ex is cooperative or not, how many cases the tribunal office is juggling, etc. The best thing to do is just get the ball rolling as soon as possible.
 
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Gorgias said:
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rightness:
If both are Christian and have consummated the marriage, then proving that the marriage is dissoluble lies in the four elements of a marriage: free to marry, freely consented, intention to marry for life, and be open to children.
Click to expand...
There’s more than that. (Really, it comes down to “consent”, “lack of impediment”, (and, in the case of Catholics), “form”.)

There are many relevant considerations that the OP didn’t mention. Was his girlfriend a Catholic at the time of her first wedding? Was the marriage celebrated in a Catholic Church? (If not, then this might be an easy case known as “lack of form”.) Was this her ex’s first marriage? Etc, etc, etc.

The best advice we can give @Davro5 is to make an appointment for his fiancee to meet with her pastor, and begin the process.

@Davro5: each case is different, since each person’s situation is different. It’s impossible to say whether it will take long or be a relatively short process; it’s impossible to say what the outcome will be. Ask your fiancee to set up an appointment with her pastor! (I’ll be praying for ya’ll!)
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Oh yeah, I’m aware of those items. I was asking about the ex’s religion because the Petrine Priviledge could apply which, I’ve heard from people in similar cases, makes it easier to get an annulment.
 
I did not get any healing at all from my
annullment. It brought me no peace.
 
rightness said:
Oh yeah, I’m aware of those items. I was asking about the ex’s religion because the Petrine Priviledge could apply which, I’ve heard from people in similar cases, makes it easier to get an annulment.
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It’s either Petrine privilege OR annulment. One dissolves a valid marriage, the other recognizes that no valid marriage ever existed.
 
Thank you so much for sharing your wonderful story. Can’t tell you how amazingly similar it is to my own. My current wife and I have been married for 14 years, and it was also an attack that has led me back to the Catholic Church. I fell away many years ago after getting divorced. We’re currently waiting for both annulments to be declared (she was married before as well) and we’re also refraining from any intimate relations. I attend daily mass and each tome during communion I feel the longing to receive our Savior, and I know how unbelievable it will be when that day comes. Hope you will keep me in your prayers.
God bless.
 
Maybe not everyone needs or gets healing in the annulment process, but I certainly know it was God’s grace that was healing me through mine. A friend used to say “You can’t polish a turd.” Well, I guess that’s true, all we can do as humans is to try to cover it up, but God, he can turn a turd into a diamond!

There can be alot of baggage involving ex spouses. In my case there was. It was only God who could take that baggage and heal the battle wounds. It was very hard answering the questions and reliving the past in my annulment. My faults, my sins, my bad decisions, they all had to be revealed to the Tribunal if I was going to be completely honest with God in determining if any of my past marriages were valid. Being honest with God, to me that was part of the healing process, receiving mercy and understanding from God through that honesty, that completed the healing.
 
You had more than one past marriage?
My marriage was 1981 - 1985.
A divorce was like a death to me even
if the marriage was bad, so I still have
remorse after all these years. I have never remarried. We had 1 son together.
 
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