Divorced and Happy now

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FightingFat

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I have a dear friend who is Catholic, practising and sincere. She was in a relationship for 15 years. Her husband was abusive- but she stuck with it because of her faith. Eventually he left her.

She found that she was much happier and after a while, a University Professer asked her out on a date. She assented and now affirms he is the man of her dreams.

I am so happy for her, but her Priest says her soul is in mortal danger and her only hope is to apply for an annulment. I understand this, but cannot help but be happy for her.

What advise can I offer in faith? She knows I have a strong faith, but I have suspicions (though she hasn’t told me) that she feels bitter that the Church seems to be casting her out when she feels she needs the support most!
 
The Church is casting her out? Has she applied for an annulment yet? They take time and there is no guarantee that they will be granted. We are a hierarchial Church with laws. Each case must be examined individually. An annulment may also be granted with conditions. Also, you didn’t say if your friend is living with this man or having sexual relations with him. The first is at best scandalous, the second is a mortal sin. So pray for your friend. Advise her to lead a chaste life, to apply for an annulment and to be patient and allow the Lord to truly lead her. I will pray for her.
 
Annulment seems bizzare as they had two children together!
 
But the divorce was’t? I don’t understand why should stuck it out because of her faith, the Catholic faith doesn’t state woman have to be subjected to abuse of their husbands. I also think you have a misunderstanding that a person can’t have an annulment if they have children.
 
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FightingFat:
Annulment seems bizzare as they had two children together!
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its sad that it came to this, but its a shot to take… to see if (eventhough the marriage was consummated) nullity can be granted.

and if annulment seems bizarre to you because they have 2 children…then you being happy for her seems bizarre to me.

As of right now, the marriage IS VALID. Whether he left her or not, doesnt change that. She is in a relationship (or has begun one) with another man, still being married, hmm, thats close to, if it hasnt happened yet, adultery. Faithful Catholic that you are (even her), and i presume that you really are, shouldnt be happy when a friend is committing spiritual suicide. Sin is most destructive when hidden under the veil of a supposed good.

i know it is extremely difficult for your friend right now, and it maybe continue this way for a long time. Best thing to do is go and apply for annulment, frequent the sacraments, especially confession, and pray for the strength to do and continue in God’s will.

in Christ and Mary Immaculate
 
As a lawyer who handles civil divorces, I don’t understand how Catholics don’t realize that they are still married in the eyes of the Church.
 
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FightingFat:
Annulment seems bizzare as they had two children together!
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The physical ability to produce children is not sufficient for a valid marriage. That they had children does not mean that their consent was valid. In order to have valid consent, both parties had to be capable of valid consent. That means they both had to be capable of living as a Christian man and wife. If, for instance, the husband had a pschological defect or fundamental lack of maturity, then there was never any way a marriage could have taken place. If he can’t be a husband, they couldn’t be husband and wife… no marriage. That she stayed until she was convinced the situation was indeed hopeless in no way changes the plain fact of whether or not there was ever a valid marriage in the first place. Living a lie won’t make it the truth, whether you try to live it for 15 years or 50, no matter how you may have lovingly, truly, and even sacrificially wished it were otherwise.

Marriages are assumed valid unless proven otherwise. Until your friend goes through the annulment process to establish that her first marriage was not valid, she is bound to refrain from entering into other relationships in the meantime.

The Church isn’t persecuting her, nor casting her out. The requirement for annulment is a reasonable one. It does not preclude anyone from supporting her during this difficult time. Remember, though, that acceptance and approval are not the same thing. Because God loves each of us, everyone merits acceptance. Nevertheless, for the good of our souls, the Church is bound to be honest about what merits approval and what does not.
 
Too many people want to have it both ways.

If your friend participated in a valid, sacramental marriage, she may divorce her husband, and may live apart from him. But if it was truly a valid, sacramental marriage, no annulment can ever be granted, and she can never remarry until her first husband is dead.

If it was not a valid, sacramental marriage, she can obtain a declaration of nullity (i.e. a declaration by the Church that there was never a valid marriage). If she was “never married,” she can marry a different man.

She may not be happy with the truth, but either she made a binding, sacramental covenant before God, or she didn’t.

Nobody is casting her out. She’s the one who makes all of the decisions to stay (and play by the rules), or to leave because she doesn’t like the rules.
 
FF,

To be very clear, no one here is saying that your friend should have stayed in an abusive relationship, especially if that abuse was physical. Marriage does not give a husband the right to abuse his wife, nor vice versa. In fact, our duty to protect our bodies from harm would, in my opinion, require her to remove herself from the hostile situation.

I’m not a canon lawyer, so I won’t advise you on whether the annulment will be granted or not. That’s a matter for the Church to decide.

What I can address, is your underlying premise that because she is happy in the new relationship, there cannot be any sin. Further, you seem to imply that her happiness makes it wrong for the Church to deny her access to a second marriage.

Personal happiness tends in the right direction, but it’s a very poor moral compass in general. I know that our culture teaches, “If it feels good, do it!”. I also know that our culture teaches that if something good is given to one person, then it should be given to all people who want it.

Sadly, those two principles just aren’t true. Being happy doesn’t mean that you’re in a state of grace. Just because some people can get married, doesn’t mean that you your friend can get re-married. She, like all Catholics, must submit herself to the providential judgement of the Holy Spirit working through the Church. This decision is not one that we can make, or that your friend can make.

Again, no one should stay in an abusive household. But there is a big difference between escaping abuse and getting remarried without an annulment.

Philip
 
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Cephas:
and if annulment seems bizarre to you because they have 2 children…then you being happy for her seems bizarre to me.

I’d say be happy for your friend! You’ve seen her suffer abuse at the hands of her coward husband, and she has been through enough and deserves some happiness. Her husband, at the first instance of abuse, waved away any right he had of having a faithful and forgiving wife.
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renee1258:
But the divorce was’t? I don’t understand why should stuck it out because of her faith, the Catholic faith doesn’t state woman have to be subjected to abuse of their husbands. I also think you have a misunderstanding that a person can’t have an annulment if they have children.
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Obviously as a Catholic, my perspective is that the divorce is irrelevant and in-valid; it has no bearing on her marital state. Annulment, however is different. Postulating that the marriage never existed seems to contradict the reality of two children, so I have difficulty, in faith, accepting it is an option. In other words, to my mind, the marriage is undeniably real and valid. It was entered into correctly and with full knowledge of both parties. It did fail and now my friend has to deal with the reality of being a young (ish) single mother who’s husband has left her- his choice, not hers.
After some time, it becomes evident to her that life both for her and her children is much happier without the constant threats and abuse, the arguements and door slamming. She learns to smile again and notice the sunshine and the flowers in her garden. Some time passes and she notices a man who notices her. When she asks me- I have to say she must keep away- how can I approve of this relationship?

The reality is there is a real juxstaposition between learning, knowing and acquiescing to the rules, and the long term reality of your life. Life for all of us, includes mistakes- it’s how we learn and grow. Our reality changes with time. Our understanding and perception of situations and relationships alters as we grow in wisdom with the benefit of experience. A decision we make in all good faith may put us in a position, which, overtime, becomes untenable. With time and prayer, my friend will come to a decision. My prayer is that the decision will be in communion with Mother Church, and not ex!
 
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FightingFat:
Postulating that the marriage never existed seems to contradict the reality of two children, so I have difficulty, in faith, accepting it is an option. In other words, to my mind, the marriage is undeniably real and valid. It was entered into correctly and with full knowledge of both parties.
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Consider that you do not have a full grasp on the Catholic understanding of marriage. If you held hands and exchanged friendship rings with someone, that wouldn’t make you married. If you were out of your mind on drugs when you got married, then had a child a year later, that doesn’t change the fact of your state of being on your wedding day. If the person you married turns out to have been impossibly neurotic, then that person’s vow to be married to you may as well have been a vow to flap wings and fly to the moon. You cannot be held to a covenant with someone who never had the means to fulfill the covenant. Notice I did not say someone who chose not to… choosing sin does not invalidate a marriage. But the fact of children does not turn straw into gold. Unless you are a professional in the field, I would not be so quick to judge your friend’s abusive husband as having been competent to marry.

Do you see my point? A plain refusal to have children invalidates a marriage, but having children is not sufficient to make a marriage. That the children are legitimate does not make the marriage legitimate.
 
Absolutely. Thank you, that has made it easier for me to understand the issue of anulment.

Can I take the lesson a little further? Say a woman and a man have been married for 32 years. He leaves and runs off with a younger woman. An acrimonious divorce follows where he tries to strip everything away from his wife and children in order to furnish his new life. In this instance, can the marriage be anulled?
 
I think the rational of the annulment is to look at the time of the creation of the Sacrament, not 32 years after. So nope. For instance if I just decide to leave my husband, just because all of a sudden I decided to be selfish. That wouldn’t be a justification for annulment because when I married him four years ago I had no impediments (mental conditions/immaturity) at all. We knew and understood what we were getting ourselves into. Annulments aren’t for people who decide to walk out of a marriage.

*It is very easy for anybody in secular society to just get up and go. I don’t think the Church should endorsing that behavior, by allowing annulments on that basis. *

In that situation, a woman would have to still uphold her end of the Sacarment and still consider herself married and not entertain new relations with anyone else. She would have to seek counseling and need our prayers, as for the run away husband and the new chick we can only inform in the kindess manner that he is still married and pray for them.

Why would the wife want an annulment? She would only be giving her husband and the young woman to then get a Catholic Marriage.
 
The priest does not confer the sacrament of Marriage on the couple. The bride and groom confer it on each other. The priest (or deacon) is there to help ensure they follow the right procedures.

As BLB and Renee point out, the Marriage Tribunal looks at the situation of the couple at the moment they exchanged “vows.” Did they have the unimpaired mental capacity and maturity to understand what they were doing, did they do so freely, were they legagally able (in canon law) to enter into the covenant of marriage, etc. If not, one of them may not have been able to confer the sacrament on their spouse.

Often the Tribunal will consider things that happened after the fact as evidence of a person’s state of mind on the wedding day. But the fact that one party was later found to be a child molester, adulterer, drug abuser, homicidial maniac, person who doesn’t want children, etc. does not necessarily prove that they had that mindset on the day of their wedding, when they appeared to make a vow before God.

The Tribunal’s goal is NOT to determine whether the couple are nice people, whether they should be able to work out the differences they now find between them, or whether they deserve to be happy because of whatever suffering they have endured. The Tribunal’s goal is to determine whether a valid, sacramental covenant was made on a certain date between two specific people.
 
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FightingFat:
Annulment seems bizzare as they had two children together!
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The children have nothing to do with whether or not the marriage was valid. If the marriage was invalid they could have 20 children together and the annulment would still be granted. Pray for her and advise her to goalong with Church teaching. She will be glad she did.
 
Further discussion with my friend subject to what I have learned here has lead to the discovery that she was in fact pregnant when she married her (non Catholic) husband. She wants to use this fact to show the tribunal that she HAD to get married and so was forced or coerced into matrimony.

What do you guys think?
 
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FightingFat:
Further discussion with my friend subject to what I have learned here has lead to the discovery that she was in fact pregnant when she married her (non Catholic) husband. She wants to use this fact to show the tribunal that she HAD to get married and so was forced or coerced into matrimony.

What do you guys think?
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She needs to talk with her Diocese Chancellor or a canon lawyer.

When I received my annullment the first set of grounds was of “mental defect”, or in other words, that neither my “husband” or myself knew or understand the full meaning of marriage. Because we both grew up as Protestants, and in our church, if the marriage did not work out, you got divorce and then went on with your life, such as remarriage. When I started RCIA, the first night, I talked with one of our priest, (who is now our Diocese Chancellor) and by luck he use to work for the Marriage Tribunal.
It was then I had the full understanding of marriage, then when I went to meet with him to fill out the annulment papers, this is when he explained why I needed the annulment. Before that, I just knew I needed, not why.
BTW- when I received my annulment, I experience the wonderful sense of healing and relief. I think your friend will too.
 
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