Annulments/support group

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LaLucia

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I am starting this new Annulments/support group for Catholics who are appyling for a Catholic annulment. I am using the word Annulments so people can easily find this topic.
There are several of us who have applied and gotten our nullity of marriage. Some are still waiting for an answer from their Catholic Tribunal Office.
We don’t know everything about the nullity of marriage but we do know how to answer some questions and be very supportive of your questions and situations.

I want to be helpful to others and this is why I have started this thread. LaLucia
 
Hi John, the first step is to get the annulment questionaire from your Church or the Catholic Tribunal Office in your City. Ask the Tribunal Office to mail you a brocure with the steps or proceedure that you will go through to complete the requirements.

Read books written by Catholic lawyers to help you understand more of what it takes to get an annulment approved. There is no quarantee that the annulment will be approved.
But this thread is about helping you in a positive way to help you along the way.

We don’t need to know all of the details of your situation except that you have to be divorced. Whatever else is happening in your life will not interferr sp with your annulment process. Peace be with you, La Lucia
 
LaLucia said:
I am starting this new Annulments/support group for Catholics who are appyling for a Catholic annulment. I am using the word Annulments so people can easily find this topic.
There are several of us who have applied and gotten our nullity of marriage. Some are still waiting for an answer from their Catholic Tribunal Office.
We don’t know everything about the nullity of marriage but we do know how to answer some questions and be very supportive of your questions and situations.

I want to be helpful to others and this is why I have started this thread. LaLucia
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Thank you for starting this group. The Annulment process is stressful and lonely. I am speaking as the mother of a daughter who sought to marry in her Catholic church. Her fiance had been married before. He was not baptised at the time. It took a long time, he became a Catholic and the annulment was not granted. They married outside the Church. He appealed the decision and it is ongoing. He did not get any support during the process and the decision came by letter with a tear off slip.
 
Yes, the process of filing for an Annulment is a very sad process.

One of the major flaws in filing for an annulment is that people don’t remember or think it is not important to say some personal things about why the marriage didn’t survive.

I learned from others that the person who is applying for a annulment don’t like to say any thing bad about themselves on the questionaire. They put the blame on the ex-spouse.
They need to also blame themselves too.It can’t be one sided. We all have flaws.

Another reason for not getting the annulment approved is not writing as many details as possible. If a person says that the ex-spouse was unfaithful, never intented to stay married, or have children, etc. That is not enough information to ask for an annulment.
You need to give details about the marriage and why you married that person.

You need to show reasons why you married that person for example. you were pushed into getting married because the spouse was pregnant and you had to get married.
The Tribunal calls it a " shot gun wedding. Another example: You were too immature and not ready for marriage. You didn’t get marriage counseling before the marriage.

Some people get married on the spur of the moment…for example; having fun in Las Vegas and you decide to get married without knowing if that is the right person for you.
There are so many examples of why the marriage was doomed.

I am using the word “You”… because other people are reading what I have to say about annulments. You can send me a private message on the problems that caused the failure of the marriage.
Some Looky Loos who have never applied for an annulment will just come here and
blast the person for having gotten married outside of the Catholic church.
I don’t throw stones because my main goal is giving advise and being supportive.

Tell your son-in-law to re-apply if he doesn’t get his annulment.Some people have applied twice and got their annulment.
Peace be with you, LaLucia
 
LaLucia said:
Another reason for not getting the annulment approved is not writing as many details as possible. If a person says that the ex-spouse was unfaithful, never intented to stay married, or have children, etc. That is not enough information to ask for an annulment.
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What I noticed in the questionnaires is that they are extremely thorough in nature. I felt like the same questions were asked several times over, but phrased slightly different, perhaps to engage deeper thoughts about the situations.

However, the Tribunal will/should ask for more information if needed. I read your statement above, and I felt it might panic some people in to believing that the Tribunal just throws out cases that do not provide enough detail. I don’t believe that is the case. In fact, I was asked to fill out a supplemental questionnaire, and was also informed that certain witnesses had failed to return their questionnaires, and was asked to contact them and encourage them to respond.

I always pictured the Tribunal in a positive light and realized that they do everything they can to provide an answer, and they aren’t “accepting applications”, they are “gathering the facts for an investigation”. It is similar to the “innocent until proven guilty” principle, only its “married until proven otherwise”.
 
Yes, it is true that some of the questions do repeat themselves. But if people give simple answers over and over… The Tribunal will need more information if the applicant
doesn’t do a soul searching and writes as much as they can about their marriage.

I had a close friend in my church who gave some simple anwers. I wanted to help her with the questionare but she didn’t ask me to help her. Her annulment was denied. Her main reason that she stated was that her ex-spouse left her and moved to another country years ago with their bank money. She just gave up and didn’t do the Appeal process.

Lots of people don’t understand that when it comes to answering the questions they need to tell all so the Tribunal has a better picture of the parties envolved.

What canon lawyers do is to try to find out which canon law the person falls under. If you get a canon lawyer… that lawyer will look for a canon law that your case fits under. They will dig deep to find out what caused the marriage to fail.

When I filed for my annulment … my priest advised me to write as much as possible on each question. I mostly put the blame on myself because it was my fault the marriage didn’t work out.
Plus, my mother wanted me out of the house when I became 19yrs. old. It was her idea for me to get married. I was in a severe depression state of mind and I also wanted to leave my abusive parents’ house. My ex-spouse was in a similar situation as mine… he was tramatized by his parents even more than I was. His dad was an alcohoic. All of the bad childhood memories should be written down.

There were several canon laws that I fit under. I did a search of canon laws and I felt I had a good case. I didn’t have any kind of support from my family members when I applied for my annulment. Some people told me I didn’t have a case and I would not get my annulment.

My advise is to not give up if many brick walls are put in front of you. Just jump over the brick wall and go foreward with the annulment.
 
mamaslo said:
LaLucia,
Someone just started a support group for this kind of thing. You have to join the group though…and she also has a canon lawyer involved in the group so people can ask their questions for the legal side of things…
forums.catholic-questions.org/group.php?groupid=958
:cool:
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Thank you for mentioning this mamaslo - if anyone wants to join this group just click the above link or click the link in my signature below. Also if you would like to streamline the process please send me a message letting me know how you are associated with the divorce/annulment process so I can approve you more quickly as the group is only open to those who are going through, have gone through, or are very closely associated (ie civilly married) to someone who is going through the divorce/anullment process. Thanks and God bless.
 
LaLucia
I feel I need counselling about this as I feel bitter about it. How do I message you privately as I don’t want to say so muchhere in public so that the parties are recognisable?
 
Hello Marion, I have sent you a private message on this website. My message will be e-mailed to you. I totally understand how you feel about keeping your personal business private.
 
Hi LaLucia,

I have benefited so much from all of the annulment info posted here over the last two years. My boyfriend got his 2nd instance affirmation of nullity a couple days ago and I now know more about annulments than I ever thought I would LOL!

NOW, my question is about the Pauline Privilege. Do you know anything about it? I need to get this started for my own previous marriage. That marriage involved my exhusband and myself, both unbaptized for the duration of the marriage. I am now Catholic and he is not but we were both unbaptized when we were civilly divorced 6 years ago.

I will be meeting with my priest about this in the next couple of weeks but do you have any idea on estimates concerning duration? I know they are much shorter than annulments. Any experience with this??

Thank you and God bless!
 
Hi CopyKat, I am sorry but I don’t know about the "Pauline Privilege"information. Peace be with you. LaLucia
 
I am answering the questionaire for marriage annulment. I am in the courtship section and it is about 30 pages. I still have about 30 or more questions to go. I might have about 60 or more pages by the time I finished answering the 62 questions. Did anybody have that many pages? I am getting into details telling stories of my relationship with my former spouse.
 
Wolfpac said:
I am answering the questionaire for marriage annulment. I am in the courtship section and it is about 30 pages. I still have about 30 or more questions to go. I might have about 60 or more pages by the time I finished answering the 62 questions. Did anybody have that many pages? I am getting into details telling stories of my relationship with my former spouse.
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Wolfpac - I do not mean to be rude or offensive but have you also stopped to look at your part in all of this?
 
CopyKat said:
…NOW, my question is about the Pauline Privilege. Do you know anything about it? I need to get this started for my own previous marriage. That marriage involved my exhusband and myself, both unbaptized for the duration of the marriage. I am now Catholic and he is not but we were both unbaptized when we were civilly divorced 6 years ago.

I will be meeting with my priest about this in the next couple of weeks but do you have any idea on estimates concerning duration? I know they are much shorter than annulments. …
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Hello CopyKat,

This is a pretty simple process. If you click here, read #'s 1143-1147: vatican.va/archive/ENG1104/__P44.HTM

That’s the basic process. In a nutshell, what you need to do is: 1. Prove that you and your spouse were not baptized at the time of the wedding. 2. Prove that the other party is still not baptized, does not want to be baptized, and does not want to resume marital life with you. 3. Prove that you, after baptism, did not cause the break-up of the marriage. When this is done, the diocese will let you know that you are allowed to marry again, this time to a baptized person. When that wedding takes place, the bond of this previous marriage will be dissolved.

Timeline: it depends on how quickly you can prove these things. Proof is obtained by your testimony, the testimony of your (ex)husband, testimony of parents, relatives, friends. If the other party does not participate, this process can be more difficult and lengthy. This can be done in a month…or it can take longer. While it mostly depends on how quickly you can get the evidence, the people at the tribunal/chancery can also be delayed, obviously.

Dan
 
My wife and I divorced 3 years ago because of her unfaithfulness. We were not married in the Catholic Church because she is a baptist, but the marriage was con-validated by my parish priest. I have a 5 year old daughter that we have joint custody with. My ex-wife currently lives with her boyfriend. My question is how difficult will it be to get an annulment if I decide to marry again? Also, I have heard annulments cost money, is this true?

Thanks for any responses
 
Wolfpac, it looks like you are doing a great job of giving lots of details on your questionaire.

Make sure you show a lot of problems of your own when you were a child or teenager or just before you got married. Try to retrive information that you have forgotten about yourself. Look for the flaws within you. We all have flaws or reasons why we ourselves caused us to get divorced.
If you can’t find any flaws within yourself or within your family/parents members it will be hard for the Tribunal to grant you an annulment. Sometimes our parents do affect our reasons for getting married. For example; I just wanted to get away from them.lol.

Keep up the good work of writing and writing. Keep me informed if you have any more questions. Peace, LaLucia
 
Brian2944 said:
My wife and I divorced 3 years ago because of her unfaithfulness. We were not married in the Catholic Church because she is a baptist, but the marriage was con-validated by my parish priest. I have a 5 year old daughter that we have joint custody with. My ex-wife currently lives with her boyfriend. My question is how difficult will it be to get an annulment if I decide to marry again? Also, I have heard annulments cost money, is this true?

Thanks for any responses
Click to expand...
When my ex decided he no longer wanted to be married, I made an appointment with my pastor to talk about it. He advised me to seek an annulment as soon as the divorce was final which I did. This was back in 1999 and I recall that the fee was about $450. or so, and I was told that I could pay some or all of it because of financial hardship, but I chose to pay it all. It just seemed like the right thing to do.

I have no idea about your situation or whether it will be difficult or not. It is different for everyone, I think. My pastor knew of the particulars in our case, and our personal histories, and he felt strongly that the annulment would be granted. It was fairly quick, I think it was granted about 5 months after presenting my case.

In any case, I am glad that I did it then. It was a tremendously healing experience.
 
Sometimes people choose the wrong person to marry without noticing the flaws of that person. Or notice their own flaws that will cause the marriage not to be valid.

When I was dating my ex-spouse I didn’t notice that we were not really compatiable in many ways. All I saw was that he was nice, presentable, clean, and was an easy going person. After we got married I started to notice that we were not compatiable at all.
I also was not that great of a person myself. I was severely depressed all the time in the 1950’s when people thought that psychological problems should not be discussed.
My ex-spouse turned out to be a pathological liar that was caused by a controlling alcoholic father. That created a loneliness in my heart because we couldn’t have a decent conversation without him telling me lies. Time stopped for me… as the years passed.
I started to feel like I was going to go insane if I stayed in the marriage. I felt I was dying inside of me. I was only 19yrs. old when I got married. It wasn’t until I decided to attend college that the world opened up to me and my spouse didn’t want to attend college with me. I moved on without him. I went for psychological counseling for many years. I would spend most of my time talking about my mother and how she was mean to me.

My mother is now 89yrs.old and she is still being mean to me but I am able to not let it affect me anymore. I am a single mature woman now and not depressed anymore.
My annulment was an eye opener for me because I realized that it was my mother who pushed me into marriage before I was ready for marriage. This is why I got a “Defect of Consent” annulment. It feels so good to be free of the guilt of my defective marriage.
 
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