Another 'Am I married in the eyes of the church' thread

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Jay3gsm

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I’ve tried looking through the archives for an answer to my question and I cannot locate what I am looking for. As brief as I can;

When I got married, I was not a practicing Catholic, in fact I was not practicing anything to do with God, or religion.

I married in a registry office in the UK. My wife had five affairs (that I know of) during the last two years of our marriage and I had to leave. I lost the desire to try and save the marriage. We were married for 10 years.

I am not sure, had I stayed in the ‘marriage’ that I would have been receptive to God when He found me. Now I am following the Catholic faith. I attend mass faithfully, and I have found myself again. I am what I used to be. I have forgiven my wife for the pain caused. Without God’s support, that would never have happened.

My wife divorced me, for unreasonable behaviour. No joke. She committed adultery, and divorced me for unreasonable behaviour because I left her. I’m not sure whether it makes a difference that she divorced me? I never contested the divorce. I just received a letter one day in the post confirming the divorce.

So, to my question. I am curious, to the Catholic church, am I married? As the marriage took place outside the church, is it valid?

I have no desire to re-marry, but I would just like to know a definitive answer.
 
The only way to get a definitive answer to this question is to begin the process of having your marriage examined by competent diocesan officials.

You do not mention some pertinent info including whether you were baptized Catholic at the time of the marriage, what year the marriage took place in (which matters regarding the Code of Canon Law you would fall under, pre-1983 or post-1983), whether or not it was your ex-wife’s first marriage, and likely other details that are relevant to the process of determining validity.

The best thing to do is to seek assistance from your parish priest and begin annulment proceedings. You will then find out pretty quickly if you need a full tribunal process or whether you fall under the other provisions (such as lack of form).
 
if you do a search in the liturgy and sacraments forum for annulment or valid marriage you will find dozens of threads asking the same question, and the answer is always the same. you must visit your pastor, lay out all the facts before him and take his recommendation. Every marriage situation is unique, there are many factors that weigh in here, the validity of the marriage depends on the circumstances at the time of the marriage with regard to capacity and consent and canonicity, so it is impossible to give an answer in a forum such as this.
 
I suspect you will be told 1) Yes you are considered married to the FIRST wife 2) You can have your non-Catholic marriage annulled through defect in form. Your process is simpler than other annulments.
 
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