Can God lead us to a divorce?

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Megwalters2288

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I have been torn the past couple of months. I have been slowly returning to the Catholic faith. I have been attending mass during the week but have not been participating in the eucharist because I have not been able to confess and still feel like I am in a spiritual battle. I married my SDA husband about 3 years ago. He is not truly supportive of me going back to the Catholic Church. He refused to allow me to have our son baptized. He refused to allow me to take our son to a Catholic Church. A lot of the things he does has been weighing on me lately and I have had thoughts of divorce in my mind which I feel very guilty about. I do not know if God is putting me through a test right now or if He is leading me some where else. When I pray my rosary I say the same prayer on each bead, “Please Father let your will be done in my life, not mine. Please Father help me to get back into right standing with you”. It seems the more I pray the more strain is placed in my heart about my marraige. I am afraid I married the wrong man. But, the shame of being a divorced woman makes me think that God would never lead someone to divorce. That perhaps this is something else trying to ruin my marraige. I am trying to hold strong and push away my own feelings and remind myself this is my husband and this is for life. I am scared either way I will make the wrong decision and that I am not listening to God.
 
Rather than think about divorce, have you and your husband gone for marriage counseling?
 
No, we were married by a JP. We were both Seventh Day Adventists when we were married.
 
I did bring up the idea of counseling once and he refused. He believes they are manipulative and will not help.
 
Megwalters2288 said:
No, we were married by a JP. We were both Seventh Day Adventists when we were married.
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In that case if you stay together you will need to have your marriage recognized by the Church. Your marriage is invalid in the eyes of the Church.

Since you aren’t validly married divorce does not pose a moral issue although, especially since you have children counselling would be a good idea to see if you can salvage your relationship.
 
You should go for counseling for yourself then, to learn skills and to have someone hear your concerns. It really will help you and could also help your marriage.
 
hopeful3542 said:
The truth of this statement largely depends on when the OP became Catholic.
If she was baptized Catholic before leaving to become a SDA, then yes, the marriage would not be valid because the OP, as a baptized Catholic would have been bound by the Church’s laws concerning marriage.

If, however, the OP converted to the Catholic Church, after her marriage, then the marriage would be valid as the Church recognizes such marriages between non-Catholics as valid.
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True. Based on returning I assumed she had been Catholic before getting married. Unless her husband changed she would have already dealt with this when she converted.

Also assumes she was received into the Church and did not formally defect, or that if she did defect the expemption did not apply.
 
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I was baptized as an infant and drifted away. My parents never took us to Church growing up. My husband was raised in the SDA Church. I can’t get him to see it is a cult. If I pushed more about it I know it would be the end of our marraige. So I am the one to bend to accommodate his beliefs while I return to mine.
 
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Since marriage convalidation was brought up… I’ll just add that if your partner is unwilling to participate in a Catholic convalidation, there is the option of “radical sanation.” I don’t know all these ins and outs, but I just wanted to put that out there.
 
How was your marriage before you started returning to the Church?
 
It was great. I started to be very involved in his church and I think that really made him happy because he thought our son would grow up the way he did. We fought very little.
 
How about overall, regarding non–church-related things? (You don’t need to answer here, just think about it.)

If overall you had a good relationship then it might be that the only problem is your return to the Church. In that case, I would say definitely try to keep your marriage even tho you have to live with this tension.

If overall the relationship was already pretty bad and this is simply another issue on top of the rest, then I would say recommend counseling, which is improving all the time! There are good Catholic resources too.

Also, if the only reason that your relationship is good is that you walk on eggshells to keep the peace, that is not actually a good relationship.
 
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If I read correctly, as a baptized Catholic you attempted marriage outside the church. Now you are in a civil, irregular, marriage. The grace of a sacramental marriage is not part of your current relationship.

I’d suggest talking to your priest, maybe both of you, and starting the process to regularize your marriage. During this preparation, the issues in your relationship can be addressed and you will then have a clearer picture of the way to move forward, be it convalidation or civil divorce
 
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