Confused about Annulments

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Rita_De_C said:
We try to at least. We go to mass together .
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Try to build on your prayer life together. It could be as simple as saying an Our Father together in bed before you fall asleep. Or praying together before every meal. The little things can make a huge difference. 🙂

(A little primer on how to quote someone - click the quote button in their post and then type your response to them after the bit that shows up in the text window. 😉 If you don’t want the entire quote, just highlight what you don’t want and hit the delete key on your keyboard.)

~Liza
 
Nan_S said:
Don’t confuse lust with love. Just because lust is missing doesn’t mean love is missing also. Lust is triggered, and disappears as fast as it arrives. Love grows slowly until it surrounds and sustains you. Lust is an almost involuntary response. Love must be nourished and cultivated.

Lust is an emotion, driven by hormones. Lust is exciting. Lust is attractive. Lust induces us discard reason and act on impulse.

Lust has its place. Lust is the glue which keeps a newly-married couple together despite the pressures of the outside world, even when there is no logical reason for them to stay together, while they are learning to respect and love each other. The husband may be struggling to keep a job, the wife may be sleep-deprived by a colicy baby, or any number of other unreasonable triggers may be trying to drive a wedge between a young couple. But a quick roll between the sheets which triggers lust can keep them together while they are learning to cope with life and learning to love each other.

Love is a choice. Love is a conscious decision to act in the rational best interests of both yourself and someone else. Love frequently requires you to suppress your own immediate needs in favor of the immediate and long-term needs of someone else. Love requires you to respect that what you receive from someone else may not be what you wanted, nor what you hoped for, but it may still be the selfless gift of the best they have.

Lust dies when the attractive triggers vanish. The smooth face gets wrinkled, the taut abs turn slack, the luxurious shining hair turns grey and recedes. Love sees past the wrinkles, the flab, and the grey, and sees the generous kind heart within.

Don’t throw away love just because lust is absent. Look for ways to cultivate love instead.
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You have it only half right. Lust absolutely NEVER EVER has a place in marriage. Lust is taking and using.

You are confusing lust with sexual attraction and arousal. Attraction and arousal in the proper context is a beautiful and good thing inside marriage. A person can lust after their spouse and that is WRONG. Lust is a sin. Can be a mortal sin. Marriage does not legitimize lust.
 
Rita_De_C said:
Question, do you and your husband pray together?
We try to at least. We go to mass together .
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Build a prayer life together. One easy way to begin is by praying the Night Prayers from the LOTH together every evening.
 
agapewolf said:
You have it only half right. Lust absolutely NEVER EVER has a place in marriage. Lust is taking and using.

You are confusing lust with sexual attraction and arousal. Attraction and arousal in the proper context is a beautiful and good thing inside marriage. A person can lust after their spouse and that is WRONG. Lust is a sin. Can be a mortal sin. Marriage does not legitimize lust.
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Point taken. I understand your objection, but I believe you are defining the word too narrowly.

The primary definition of “lust”, in most dictionaries, is “bodily appetite, a desire to gratify the senses, intense sexual desire.” That was the meaning I intended when I used the word. I was referring to the normal hormone-driven titillating sexual excitement which, in a loving relationship, is eventually replaced by mature attraction and arousal.

A secondary definition of “lust” is the definition you are using: “overmastering or uncontrolled desire, illicit desire, lecherousness.” I completely agree that uncontrolled or illicit desire and lecherousness are sinful and have no place in marriage.

Yet a third definition of “lust” is exists, however, which is completely non-sexual: “ardent enthusiasm, zest, relish.” Someone can be described as having a lust for life, and we know the expression has nothing to do with sex.
 
It’s very hard to contract an invalid marriage. Here’s a couple of articles written by a retired judge of the Roman Rota (the Church’s highest tribunal for marriages) dealing with psychic causes (canon 1095):

cormacburke.or.ke/taxonomy/term/16,41

If you can really digest some hard legalese, there are actual judgements on that site too and you’ll see what kind of problems still didn’t prevent a valid marriage.

All this on top of the fact that marriages are presumed to be valid. What is more, provisions of canon law restricting the rights of the faithful are to interpreted restrictively. C. 1095 is such a provision because it says these and those people cannot marry. As such, it needs to be interpreted restrictively on top of the fact that its language is already restrictive. Here’s some easier reading (it still includes the Pope, i.e. John Paul II under whose authority the current Code of Canon Law was promulgated, explaining some things with regard to what makes a marriage invalid on those psychic grounds):

ewtn.com/expert/answers/marital_consent.htm

To those who are outraged by the suggestion that American or whatever other tribunals are looking for excuses to declare nullity, it may sting, but there’s a lot of truth in that. Reasons for which somet tribunals grant declarations of nullity don’t even begin to approach what’s really required. Not only do they get their facts wrong at times, sometimes what they expound out of the provisions of the law doesn’t hold water in the light of what the law really says.
 
Nan_S said:
Point taken. I understand your objection, but I believe you are defining the word too narrowly.

The primary definition of “lust”, in most dictionaries, is “bodily appetite, a desire to gratify the senses, intense sexual desire.” That was the meaning I intended when I used the word. I was referring to the normal hormone-driven titillating sexual excitement which, in a loving relationship, is eventually replaced by mature attraction and arousal.

A secondary definition of “lust” is the definition you are using: “overmastering or uncontrolled desire, illicit desire, lecherousness.” I completely agree that uncontrolled or illicit desire and lecherousness are sinful and have no place in marriage.

Yet a third definition of “lust” is exists, however, which is completely non-sexual: “ardent enthusiasm, zest, relish.” Someone can be described as having a lust for life, and we know the expression has nothing to do with sex.
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Actually, I’m using the church’s defintion. And this is explained very well in JPII’s TOB. LUST is the taking. not just “uncontrolled desire” but glorifying the body over the soul, the split of body/soul, which is the mannicheistic heresy. "Lust for life is actually a negative connotation too that is implies taking.

As I said before, sexual attraction and arousal are good. But keep the definitions clear. I’ve been working very hard to keep those vocabulary words defined clearly in TOB classes.
 
I think where I am coming from is this. If a tribunal were to find my marraige valid, I would do everything I possible could to make it work, even though it involves hard psychological exercises on my part, ie… thanking God for his good points, not dwelling on the negative, even forgetting the negative if possible, even though that cant be done completely, I can make choices not to focus on it. All these things would probably help, and have in the past. But if the tribunal found that my marraige is invalid, then I would not bother to do those things. Why fight for a lost cause? A big part of me wishes that a tribunal would say Rita, you are married. Don’t seek a divorice, dont question your marraiges validity, just get on with making the best of it. You can do it, maybe not perfectly, but you can. It’s almost Like I need permission and outsiders cheering me on. I don’t know why.
 
Probably because you are at that point in life where no one cheers you on. Do you have teenagers? They can cause lots of doubt in life. On top of everything else.

I would suggest you reread what you wrote:

“I just believe it would be better if at the end of the day I didn’t have to do anything. That I just wanted him, and couldn’t help myself. I have been in love with others like this, I have found myself in love with others who I didn’t want to be in love with and found myself wanting them even against my will.”

You answered your own question. Is it really “love” if it’s against your will? Love is a choice. Not a feeling. How many couples go to divorce court whose marriages were built on a “feeling” of ecstacy and delirium and warm fuzzies. As soon as the emotions faded, the marriage collapsed.

Were you really in “love” with those people? Did it have the ability to endure 20 years? You will never know.

Under Augusta’s post I put some stuff about Canon 1057. It’s precisely about this kind of thing. If you can get through the legalese, the gist is that validity of marriage isn’t dependent upon emotions of love. That choosing to work for each others’ good is in itself an act of love. Entering it to be forever, fruitful, and faithful is the condition for validity. Choosing to work for the other’s good is essential for validity. You have done that, apparently. And that is sufficient to make a marriage valid.

You have a man who wants to read St. Teresa and you are thinking of giving up?

Sweetie, don’t we all wish once in a while someone would give us permission to just walk and not try anymore? Would you do that with your kids? Because if you have any and they haven’t already turned into truculent teenagers, eventually you may find you feel nothing but anger, pique, annoyance, hostility or pain where they are concerned. Your obligation to be a loving mother to them doesn’t end because your feelings are changed from the delirium of love for the newborn perfect angel. In fact, it is at those times that love becomes a real CHOICE and it is ennobled by sacrifice. In the same way your marriage and obligation to your husband and his to you isn’t based on whether you ever felt insanely in love with him in the beginning. (Feelings of insanity are not a good thing to base a lifelong arrangement on.)

The church only examines marriages for validity if they fail. All marriages are presumed valid unless shown to be otherwise. That happens when they actually fail, in the same way a boat that is not seaworthy proves that by sinking. If it’s floating, it’s a valid boat. If it sinks slowly or quickly, eventually someone will go in and examine and state whether it was ever seaworthy to begin with.

Most people don’t decide to jump out of a boat that is functioning. If you’re seasick once in a while, it may not be the boat. It may be the weather and the water. The boat you’re in may be protecting you from a worse fate if you jumped out. Don’t blame the boat.

When you look around and have marriage envy over those you THINK have delirious passion, consider you don’t know what goes on in other people’s marriages. Marriage is something to be entered into soberly and carefully. If you have a “very good man,” enjoy him. So many of us didn’t get one. Though we had insane “passion” and delirium for a few weeks or months, we did not get a good man who took care of us for 20 years.

Please get rid of the idea that those of us who went through divorce and annulment now have everything “okay.” In some ways nothing will ever be “okay” again. You have no idea the world of pain that went between the exchange of vows and the receipt of the tribunal’s decision that we were living a veritable lie.

Every day you got up and took care of your husband and grew to love him and he returned that love to you was a renewal of a very valid consent. Our consent is in our actions, not our emotions.

Consider your alternative: To tell your husband you have been lying to him for 20 years and you don’t really love him and want out. Could you really do that to him? What would that do to him? Imagine the look on his face. Would you want to be the person to introduce into his life the level of pain and distrust and self doubt that we have felt?

If not, then you do love him. His good is your good. In hurting him, you would hurt yourself. You have become one in a valid marriage.

Do not compare your marriage with ones the tribunals have declared to be invalid. You do not know the details of those marriages. The things the parties only told the tribunal. You cannot begin to compare your situation.

The only way YOU can fake consent is if you married not intending it to be permanent, exclusive, and open to children. If you lied on your wedding day and every day after, then you did fake consent.

Be careful the voice you think you hear actually comes from God. If your marriage has lasted and has been peaceful and productive and happy for 20 years to a very good man who seems interested in you, his faith and your good, then God’s grace has been active.

Be careful that the emotions you feel and the voices you hear telling you your marriage is invalid doesn’t come from Someone who is trying to introduce dissention and hatred and destruction into a holy married life. Sounds like Satan is messing with your head. In doing so, he can pull your husband down with you.

Be careful. Stop entertaining dangerous thoughts like that. Please.

Read the book together. St. Teresa would love that.
 
If what you really want is the certainty that you are in a valid marriage, you can talk to a priest about renewing your vows. Now you know what you’re getting into, your consent to this might seem more meaningful to you. I don’t know the canon-law side of this – i.e. what that would do to the validity of your marriage – but I think it would make it much more likely that your marriage is valid. A priest would know.

At any rate, you would get the sense of commitment that you’re looking for – because you’ll have made a new decision that you’re going to stay in this to the bitter end. However, I think that sense should be there simply because you are married. As others have said, all marriages are presumed valid unless proven otherwise, and most marriages are valid.
 
You have a man who wants to read St. Teresa and you are thinking of giving up?

Sweetie, don’t we all wish once in a while someone would give us permission to just walk and not try anymore? Would you do that with your kids? Because if you have any and they haven’t already turned into truculent teenagers, eventually you may find you feel nothing but anger, pique, annoyance, hostility or pain where they are concerned. Your obligation to be a loving mother to them doesn’t end because your feelings are changed from the delirium of love for the newborn perfect angel. In fact, it is at those times that love becomes a real CHOICE and it is ennobled by sacrifice. In the same way your marriage and obligation to your husband and his to you isn’t based on whether you ever felt insanely in love with him in the beginning. (Feelings of insanity are not a good thing to base a lifelong arrangement on.)

The church only examines marriages for validity if they fail. All marriages are presumed valid unless shown to be otherwise. That happens when they actually fail, in the same way a boat that is not seaworthy proves that by sinking. If it’s floating, it’s a valid boat. If it sinks slowly or quickly, eventually someone will go in and examine and state whether it was ever seaworthy to begin with.

Most people don’t decide to jump out of a boat that is functioning. If you’re seasick once in a while, it may not be the boat. It may be the weather and the water. The boat you’re in may be protecting you from a worse fate if you jumped out. Don’t blame the boat.

When you look around and have marriage envy over those you THINK have delirious passion, consider you don’t know what goes on in other people’s marriages. Marriage is something to be entered into soberly and carefully. If you have a “very good man,” enjoy him. So many of us didn’t get one. Though we had insane “passion” and delirium for a few weeks or months, we did not get a good man who took care of us for 20 years.

Please get rid of the idea that those of us who went through divorce and annulment now have everything “okay.” In some ways nothing will ever be “okay” again. You have no idea the world of pain that went between the exchange of vows and the receipt of the tribunal’s decision that we were living a veritable lie.

Every day you got up and took care of your husband and grew to love him and he returned that love to you was a renewal of a very valid consent. Our consent is in our actions, not our emotions.

Consider your alternative: To tell your husband you have been lying to him for 20 years and you don’t really love him and want out. Could you really do that to him? What would that do to him? Imagine the look on his face. Would you want to be the person to introduce into his life the level of pain and distrust and self doubt that we have felt?

If not, then you do love him. His good is your good. In hurting him, you would hurt yourself. You have become one in a valid marriage.

Do not compare your marriage with ones the tribunals have declared to be invalid. You do not know the details of those marriages. The things the parties only told the tribunal. You cannot begin to compare your situation.

Be careful. Stop entertaining dangerous thoughts like that. Please.

Read the book together. St. Teresa would love that.
Everything you wrote here is like a healing salve on my open wounds. I think the best thing you are saying in essence is to stop entertaining dangerous thoughts. Now if I could just recognize them better!
 
Oops, I messed up on the how the whole “quote” thing works. What I wanted to say is thanks for this whole thread. The wisdom given to me here is like a healing salve on an open wound, especially the part about not entertaining dangerous thoughts. If only I could recognize what thoughts are dangerous sooner! Before they led me down a path to depression!
 
Hi Rita,

I just wanted to say that I could have written your posts 🙂 I was at the point of filing for divorce, not because my husband cheated or is an alcoholic or whatever, but because I was not in love with him and believed that I have NEVER loved him…that I only went through with the wedding out of fear for calling it off. I was convinced that our marriage was not salvageable because, well, how can you fix the fact that you don’t love someone??

Out of desperation and basically to give myself justification for filing for divorce, we went to Retrouvaille this weekend. I had the worst possible attitude and had every intention of just going through the motions during the retreat.

God had other plans and he answered the prayers of so many people who were praying for us - praying for a miracle, really. He softened my heart for the first time in years and He spoke to both of us in amazing ways.

Seeing the tone of the entire group (24 couples who were all suffering in their deeply troubled marriages) change drastically from Friday night to Sunday afternoon was just miraculous.

I hope you will consider finding a retreat in your area - I am convinced that it has saved us, and I thought that we were beyond saving 🙂

Will pray for you today - I think I understand very well how you are feeling 🙂
 
Thanks Sydney 28.
What did you learn that has helped you the most?
I just got back from the grocery store, and I happened see the latest issue of “Scientific American”. There are some articles in it about how love can be created, especially in situations where there is a commitment, like marriage. It goes on to say that most westerners believe that love just happens, even when we are confronted with stories about how this is for the most part a big myth. Our minds really cling to the myth because for a lucky few people, and I mean FEW, the myth works. The articles compare love in marriage between westerners and people in India who have arranged marriages. The data showed that in the arranged marraiges, love started out slowly, but grew in the years. In the westerners, it was just the opposite. Our love diminished with time. It gives me hope that even the science supports the idea that love is an action. It is nice to know that our faith has always known this.
 
Rita_De_C said:
Thanks Sydney 28.
What did you learn that has helped you the most?
I just got back from the grocery store, and I happened see the latest issue of “Scientific American”. There are some articles in it about how love can be created, especially in situations where there is a commitment, like marriage. It goes on to say that most westerners believe that love just happens, even when we are confronted with stories about how this is for the most part a big myth. Our minds really cling to the myth because for a lucky few people, and I mean FEW, the myth works. The articles compare love in marriage between westerners and people in India who have arranged marriages. The data showed that in the arranged marraiges, love started out slowly, but grew in the years. In the westerners, it was just the opposite. Our love diminished with time. It gives me hope that even the science supports the idea that love is an action. It is nice to know that our faith has always known this.
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Yes, that is a good point 🙂

What I learned that helped me the most…I think hearing my husband share feelings he was having that I was never really aware of (feelings of worthlessness, being unloved, etc) was when we had our “breakthrough” moment. I didn’t come away from the retreat with gushy lovey feelings, and I still haven’t told him I love him, but I just really felt that as a Christian I should not be making ANYone feel worthless or unloved, and so the fact that I was making my husband - not even someone who is an enemy - feel that way just really softened my heart and made me more open to the rest of the weekend!
 
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