Divorced and lonely

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annvbrz

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Hi. Am brand new to this. Saw many posts, but am not able to take the time to read them all. Was hoping that maybe someone out there would see mine and maybe reply.

I am a divorced Catholic. Not yet annulled, but not opposed to it. Just waiting until it is absolutely necessary. Am very hesitant about bringing up all the bad memories again by documenting them all.

Is there anyone out there who feels as out of place in the Catholic Church as I do, being a divorced but faithful (at least I thought) Catholic??
 
Are you lonely outside of church, too?

I feel like an outsider in my church right now. My H seems to have influenced the folks who were our friends while we were married. It really hurts me to see them congregate around him, laughling and joking after Mass, while I walk out of church alone. And he gets this attention in spite of his having left me for another female parishioner in this group who was also married at the time.

Some new friends at church reached out to me during the separation, and I thank God for them.

Do you participate in any ministry or social clubs in your parish? In our parish, all women can join Christian mothers. I’m on Parish Council and read Children’s Liturgy. Maybe it’s best to let the other parisioners see that you are carrying on a normal, active Parish life without focusing on your divorce.

I hope that you can feel more comfortable at church.
 
annvbrz said:
Hi. Am brand new to this. Saw many posts, but am not able to take the time to read them all. Was hoping that maybe someone out there would see mine and maybe reply.

I am a divorced Catholic. Not yet annulled, but not opposed to it. Just waiting until it is absolutely necessary. Am very hesitant about bringing up all the bad memories again by documenting them all.

Is there anyone out there who feels as out of place in the Catholic Church as I do, being a divorced but faithful (at least I thought) Catholic??
Click to expand...
I am in a similar situation as you, though I do not feel out of place within the Church. In my case, my wife announced that she was “tired of being a wife and mother” (we have 3 sons, 2 of which are away at college). So, the short version is, I am divorced and I have filled out the annulment papers but have not submitted them yet. It’s going on 3 years and I still haven’t been able to completely give up hope that someday she will come home. Besides, I’m certainly in no hurry and if our marriage is declared null I have no intention whatsoever of ever dating or remarrying again. I have been giving serious thought to joining a monastic order however. So eventually, if something doesn’t change, I will need to submit the papers. That won’t be until after our youngest finishes high school and more probably college (just in case).

So, I suppose that I really do not feel “out of place” but rather drawn in closer to mother Church.
 
I am in the same place as you, but I am in the process of my second marriage ending in divorce.
A terrible place to be, and believe me, there are many judgements of you. I have felt unworthy, stupid, a failure. I feel like I am the only one in the world going through this. I even got married the second time, with all my friends from my parish attending. So I am humiliated and ashamed.
The marriage failing was not my fault. It was beyond my control as I have learnt that my husband has a personality disorder. But still, I feel stupid. Why did I believe him? Why was I so gullible?
Anyway, it does not matter how I feel, the truth is, God loves me anyway. I am worth something in His eyes, even if everyone else looks at me like there is something wrong with me.
Humilitations are good for the soul. They hurt, but God was humilitated too.
I just unite my sufferings with Jesus’s and carry on.
Learn to love God and put Him first and everything you need will be taken care of.
I have always felt out of place in the church, as far as the ‘people’ go. I was the only single mother and here I am again, in the same position.
But after years of feeling on the outer, it doesn’t matter so much. I have people that love me and I depend on God and that’s all that matters.
Find a good priest, talk to him.
It will get better.
I will pray for you.
 
Hi there. I am divorced and going throught the annulment process right now…and yes I am lonely too. I do not feel out of place with the Church at all though. Going to Mass, receiving the Eucharist, spending time in adoration, and praying the rosary, as well as going about the ordinary daily tasks that are my job as a mother, and working on developing a variety of friendships are what get me through this time.

You say that you will put off filling out the annulment paperwork until it is absolutely necessary. I would suggest that you get started on it for a couple of reasons. It is good to spend that time trying to understand the truth about your prior marriage, accepting it for what it really was, not what you had hoped for it to be. I think it is a good process for understanding reality. Additionally, by stepping back and getting that big picture perspective of what happens when you meet someone and begin a romantic relationship and taking a look at the various signs of problems that you missed when you were caught up in the rush and excitement of a new and developing relationship, you will be more prepared to be in a better position to know how to avoid making the same mistakes again. Unfortunately, we have patterns ingrained into us that may make us feel compatible with certain personality types that might not be the best choices for us.

Sometimes we might even have to fight what feels natural and normal for us to be able to really make a different and better choice than might be our natural inclination. I think that is why in a way it is good to go through this lonely time, so that we can learn to want to fill that empty space inside of us first with God, and then maybe with someone who is really right for us.

And probably for most people some counseling is in order too. I know that going through this divorce has forced me to go back and address issues from my childhood that I had not dealt with. So, as painful and horrendous as this all is, I am thankful for this chance to be new again, to work towards being the me that God envisions me to be.

I hope that you see that even in your loneliness there are so many new opportunities out there, and that you find ways to reach out to others and grow in new directions. Praying for you.
 
Is it just me or is pretty much every divorced marriage ending up being an ‘annulment’ :rolleyes:
 
Got some stats on it:

Catholic Annulment Statistics:
“For the year 2002: of the 56,236 ordinary hearings for a declaration of
nullity, 46,092 received an affirmative sentence. Of these, 343 were handed
out in Africa, 676 in Oceania, 1,562 in Asia, 8,855 in Europe and 36,656 in
America, of which 30,968 in North America and 5,688 in Central and South
America.”

divorcereform.org/rates.html

Nice…:rolleyes:

So essentially every year, around 56,000 people think they were married to the wrong person. I think not.
 
Don’t make this a debate on whether people should get annulments or not. People in these postions feel bad enough that their marriage has failed, they do not need to be judged by others as to whether they should get an annulment.
The facts are, with all the disorder in the world, it is becoming more and more apparent that people that are marrying do not know what God requires of a true marriage.

A dear priest I know who works on annulment cases, see’s it as a consequence of sin and people living ungodly lives, a sign of the times, so to speak. The results are tragic. He is a very devout and holy priest too.
This person said they were divorced and lonely, not quite the place to be posting stats on annulments!
 
Also, it’s not about what the people think, it’s about whether there was a valid marriage to begin with.

OP, I’ll be praying for you! That sounds heartbreaking!
 
Harmony1988 said:
Is it just me or is pretty much every divorced marriage ending up being an ‘annulment’ :rolleyes:
Click to expand...
Considering there are over one million divorces each year in the US alone and the numbers of annulments granted is in the tens of thousands, I would say that it is just you.
 
Don’t wait to start the paperwork. My DH has waited nearly thirty years, kids are grown, and now he is having difficulty remembering what happened in prior marriage so he can get the annulment paperwork in.

If you think your marriage was not a true and valid one, then get the paperwork started. It is often said that completing the paperwork will help bring about healing, which I can attest to. It may be the healing you need to get your life back on track, and get rid of any conflicts you feel.
 
Let’s see…neither my ex nor I was a Catholic when we married…yet we will still be part of the statistics for those applying for a declaration of nullity. We are far from being the only ones in that position. Also, Catholics are about 25% of the US population, so over 250,000 divorces are likely Catholics. So, I still would say that it is very unlikely that everyone who gets divorved gets an annulment.
 
Dulcissima, as usual, said it before I could. The number of annulments granted every year has nothing to do with the number of people every year who think they were married to the wrong person. It has more to do with people who think they weren’t married to begin with. Actually, if they married the right person, they’d still be married. You know, in some countries, they don’t do annulments, because they don’t even bother to marry. They shack up. In America, it’s a testimony to the number of people who still want to receive the sacraments, versus some countries where they have lots of divorces but only a 3 percent church attendance rate. And it has to do with the number of weddings that take place that never should have been given the imprimatur, so to speak.

Having said that, here’s what I do when I feel lonely:

I remember how nice it is not to be yelled at.

I can watch tv without someone walking in, looking at the tv, turning it off while I’m watching it and saying “I don’t want to listen to this carp.”

I don’t worry whether I might be an innocent victim of an STD.

No one throws things and breaks them in my house anymore.

I can call my parents without having to sneak into a closet with the phone.

My recycle bin isn’t embarrassingly filled with empty beer cans.

I don’t have to make dinner only for it to get cold because someone wouldn’t tell me what time he was coming home.

I can go to sleep when I want to and no one keeps me up for five hours screaming at me in the middle of the night.

I decorate it the way I want around here.

I can have my friends over without having to hear how horrible they are and how they really don’t like me.

My family is allowed to come visit.

I could go on and on, but you probably get the message that there are worse things than being “alone.”

Here’s a tip when you feel lonely… go do something nice for an elderly neighbor, call a sick friend, do something nice for the local hospital… get outside yourself. Ask yourself: Who can I love? Not: Who will love me?
 
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