For Better or for Worse

[EasterJoy]

Rence,

You conflate legal and moral/ethical rights. While essentially all spouses have a legal right to end a civil marriage in this country with no reason whatsoever, only spouses who have experienced a grievous, narrowly defined wrong may divorce per the dictates of the RCC.

It is not just from a legal standpoint that a spouse can unilaterally end a marriage for no reason whatsoever and still retain ANY of the benefits of that marriage. It is certainly sinful beyond that.

Yes.

From canon law:
Can. 1151 Spouses have the duty and right to preserve conjugal living unless a legitimate cause excuses them.

From the catechism:
Divorce

**2382 **The Lord Jesus insisted on the original intention of the Creator who willed that marriage be indissoluble.173 He abrogates the accommodations that had slipped into the old Law.174
Between the baptized, "a ratified and consummated marriage cannot be dissolved by any human power or for any reason other than death."175

2383 The separation of spouses while maintaining the marriage bond can be legitimate in certain cases provided for by canon law.176
If civil divorce remains the only possible way of ensuring certain legal rights, the care of the children, or the protection of inheritance, it can be tolerated and does not constitute a moral offense.
**2384 **Divorce is a grave offense against the natural law. It claims to break the contract, to which the spouses freely consented, to live with each other till death. Divorce does injury to the covenant of salvation, of which sacramental marriage is the sign. Contracting a new union, even if it is recognized by civil law, adds to the gravity of the rupture: the remarried spouse is then in a situation of public and permanent adultery:

If a husband, separated from his wife, approaches another woman, he is an adulterer because he makes that woman commit adultery, and the woman who lives with him is an adulteress, because she has drawn another’s husband to herself.177

**2385 **Divorce is immoral also because it introduces disorder into the family and into society. This disorder brings grave harm to the deserted spouse, to children traumatized by the separation of their parents and often torn between them, and because of its contagious effect which makes it truly a plague on society.

2386* It can happen that one of the spouses is the innocent victim of a divorce decreed by civil law; this spouse therefore has not contravened the moral law. There is a considerable difference between a spouse who has sincerely tried to be faithful to the sacrament of marriage and is unjustly abandoned, and one who through his own grave fault destroys a canonically valid marriage*.178

IOW, divorce does not become morally tolerable because one spouse or the other does not want to live together any more. There has to be a legitimate reason that the divorcing spouse has no choice but to take legal remedy to end the common conjugal life and divide the marital assets, even if it may mean implying that an attempt at marriage was invalid while that is still uncertain or (worse yet) implying that a valid and sacramental marriage may be dissolved by the work of human legal actions. One of those reasons can be that the spouse has no power to prevent the divorce. Another is that the spouse being divorced presents an immediate danger for as long as the civil bond is in place or that one or both spouses are incapable of the duties of marriage. There must be a compelling reason, though, whether the couple is getting a divorce in the belief that the marriage is invalid or whether they discern the have a sufficiently grave cause to permanently separate with the bond remaining.

 

[catholicman76]

I did not read all the responses but I did you the original post…

I am one of those people that have been given such advise by several priest…

I have now been married for 5 years, (and we have no kids).

Although it has not happened in several months (about 9), by wife has hit me in the past. She has also made threats in the past. My wife knows if it happens again it is deal breaker. Yes it has happened in the past and I must forgive, I am having a hard time forgiving. Not forgive what has happened, but her thought process on it to this say. She still says it was my fault it happened, and my fault it she acted the way she did. This is after she has had a year of therapy and we have been in marriage counseling for almost that long.

Additionally, she she\speaks to her family (parents, siblings), once wice a year. She demands I do the same with mine. I no longer give to my wife’s demands, but just imagine the stress the causes for all.

Recently my wife was also diagnosed with a personality disorder. Although some people can make marriages with mental illness work, it become almost impossible to have any resemblance of the marriage I hoped for.

The first priest that told me to divorce was 2 1/2 years ago. My wife and I, have never once spoken of divorce.

Someday it will probably happen, but I am doing everything it my power to make it work.

 

[hurting]

I did not read all the responses but I did you the original post…

I am one of those people that have been given such advise by several priest…

I have now been married for 5 years, (and we have no kids).

Although it has not happened in several months (about 9), by wife has hit me in the past. She has also made threats in the past. My wife knows if it happens again it is deal breaker. Yes it has happened in the past and I must forgive, I am having a hard time forgiving. Not forgive what has happened, but her thought process on it to this say. She still says it was my fault it happened, and my fault it she acted the way she did. This is after she has had a year of therapy and we have been in marriage counseling for almost that long.

Additionally, she she\speaks to her family (parents, siblings), once wice a year. She demands I do the same with mine. I no longer give to my wife’s demands, but just imagine the stress the causes for all.

Recently my wife was also diagnosed with a personality disorder. Although some people can make marriages with mental illness work, it become almost impossible to have any resemblance of the marriage I hoped for.

The first priest that told me to divorce was 2 1/2 years ago. My wife and I, have never once spoken of divorce.

**Someday it will probably happen, but I am doing everything it my power to make it work./**quote]

A couple of words of advice from someone who is at ‘the end of the beginning’ of divorce…

Consider very carefully and very skeptically the advice of anyone, including clergy, who counsel divorce as a solution to marital problems, including and perhaps especially the clergy, who are largely ignorant of how it can play out for a man. As I said upthread, there is nothing is U.S. family relations law that resembles anything a sane, rational person would recognize as justice. Know also that, all other things being held equal, the longer you stay, the more damage you’ll suffer in the end if your situation does culminate in divorce.

I’d also say that it’s next to impossible to balance the idea that divorce is well nigh inevitable while still ‘doing everything in your power to make it work’. If you have truly resigned yourself to inevitability, you would/should pursue a certain course of action that is largely incompatible with saving your civil marriage.

 

[EasterJoy]

A couple of words of advice from someone who is at ‘the end of the beginning’ of divorce…

Consider very carefully and very skeptically the advice of anyone, including clergy, who counsel divorce as a solution to marital problems, including and perhaps especially the clergy, who are largely ignorant of how it can play out for a man. As I said upthread, there is nothing is U.S. family relations law that resembles anything a sane, rational person would recognize as justice. Know also that, all other things being held equal, the longer you stay, the more damage you’ll suffer in the end if your situation does culminate in divorce.

I’d also say that it’s next to impossible to balance the idea that divorce is well nigh inevitable while still ‘doing everything in your power to make it work’. If you have truly resigned yourself to inevitability, you would/should pursue a certain course of action that is largely incompatible with saving your civil marriage.

The divorce laws vary so much from jurisdiction to jurisdiction and the reality in court differs so much from the conclusions that might be drawn by the simple application of what a layperson might suppose is “common sense” that I would tell anyone whose marriage was in serious trouble, and especially those with children, or anyone else whose spouse can be vindictive, irrational, or unpredictable to consult with an attorney specializing in representing spouses of your gender in divorce court to get a list of "do"s and "don’t"s for your particular situation.

A lot of divorce attorneys are not in any hurry to see you divorced. They do have the legal duty to help you protect your interests in the event a legal separation or a divorce takes place. Their ability to do this varies wildly (so diligent research is in order), but every one of them will tell you that nothing done after the fact can take the place of intelligently thought-out preparation and a knowledge of the rational response to common situations before the situation runs away from you. “If the master of the house had known at what hour the thief was coming, he would not have left his house to be broken into.” The truth is, if you know how to keep your spouse from cleaning out your assets and going their way, if you know how to keep your spouse from provoking you to do something rash, you may be able to keep your spouse at the table for a longer time and ultimately save your marriage.

 

[hurting]

The divorce laws vary so much from jurisdiction to jurisdiction and the reality in court differs so much from the conclusions that might be drawn by the simple application of what a layperson might suppose is “common sense” that I would tell anyone whose marriage was in serious trouble, and especially those with children, or anyone else whose spouse can be vindictive, irrational, or unpredictable to consult with an attorney specializing in representing spouses of your gender in divorce court to get a list of "do"s and "don’t"s for your particular situation.

A lot of divorce attorneys are not in any hurry to see you divorced. They do have the legal duty to help you protect your interests in the event a legal separation or a divorce takes place. Their ability to do this varies wildly (so diligent research is in order), but every one of them will tell you that nothing done after the fact can take the place of intelligently thought-out preparation and a knowledge of the rational response to common situations before the situation runs away from you. “If the master of the house had known at what hour the thief was coming, he would not have left his house to be broken into.” The truth is, if you know how to keep your spouse from cleaning out your assets and going their way, if you know how to keep your spouse from provoking you to do something rash, you may be able to keep your spouse at the table for a longer time and ultimately save your marriage.

EJ, again, my admiration for you way with words. I have but one quibble, and it relates to the bolded statement. My attorney, who has practiced domestic relations law for almost 40 years, told me bluntly that very, very few marriages are saved once the paperwork is filed. Indeed, he explained (and I saw firsthand) that people tend to get very greedy as the process ensues. What you say is theretically possible, but the exceedingly adversarial nature of the process is antithetical to marriage.

There is very little that one can do to protect one’s interests post-divorce in advance without raising red flags to the other party.

 

[EasterJoy]

EJ, again, my admiration for you way with words. I have but one quibble, and it relates to the bolded statement. My attorney, who has practiced domestic relations law for almost 40 years, told me bluntly that very, very few marriages are saved once the paperwork is filed. Indeed, he explained (and I saw firsthand) that people tend to get very greedy as the process ensues. What you say is theretically possible, but the exceedingly adversarial nature of the process is antithetical to marriage.

There is very little that one can do to protect one’s interests post-divorce in advance without raising red flags to the other party.

You make a very good clarification about what my meaning was!** I do not mean to go to a divorce lawyer to file papers. I meant to go to a divorce lawyer and to get counsel about what to do to leave yourself less vulnerable if your spouse might be considering filing papers against you. **How should your assets be held? What patterns of behavior should you establish, avoid, or document, particularly with regards to showing that you deserve child custody? How should you handle tense situations? There are things that divorce lawyers (not to mention police officers who respond to domestic violence calls) know that they do not teach in marriage counseling school, that is what I mean. There isn’t a red flag in learning how and when to walk away from a bad argument, for instance, and it isn’t necessarily just common sense.

I think a divorce lawyer would be refreshed to have someone ask all the questions they wish they were asked before the wreck lands on their desk. They have seen a lot of marriages wreck, and like an emergency physician, a paramedic, a police officer, or a fire fighter, they have a lot of expertise about how to keep disasters from happening to you and how to respond so as to minimize damage if a disaster does happen. People in every one of these professions go home on a daily basis shaking their heads, thinking to themselves how much misery could be avoided if people could be convinced to believe what they know about the disasters that are not as accidental as the uninformed think they are. That is what I mean.

If your spouse finds that your assets are held in a way that does not make them a gold mine ready for the picking, that could dissuade them from a rash decision. If your spouse finds that being chosen for sole custody over you is not going to be a slam-dunk case, that could dissuade them from a rash decision. If you have avoided rash behavior that will put you in a poor light later, yet also not allowed to let yourself be railroaded into a position where you’re giving away everything, that could dissuade them from a rash decision. The idea is to make staying more attractive but also to make leaving look more risky. Anything to keep them from pulling the plug prematurely on a marriage that could be saved.

 

[hurting]

You make a very good clarification about what my meaning was!** I do not mean to go to a divorce lawyer to file papers. I meant to go to a divorce lawyer and to get counsel about what to do to leave yourself less vulnerable if your spouse might be considering filing papers against you**. How should your assets be held? What patterns of behavior should you establish, avoid, or document, particularly with regards to showing that you deserve child custody? How should you handle tense situations? There are things that divorce lawyers (not to mention police officers who respond to domestic violence calls) know that they do not teach in marriage counseling school, that is what I mean. There isn’t a red flag in learning how and when to walk away from a bad argument, for instance, and it isn’t necessarily just common sense.

None of the above is going to hurt, but I’m not suire how much it would help, especially for the typical man. You’re not, for example, going to get custody of the children unless, for all intents and purposes, she relinqishes it. Some of the counsel you might get will at best be ambiguous. The logical course of action to defuse repeated tense situations might be to move out. That protects you in some regards from specious DV complaints, but it also sets you up to have her awarded exclusive access to the property (thereby kicking you out of your own home). The immediately preceding is an example of ‘no good choices’ coupled with ‘common sense not applying’.

I think a divorce lawyer would be refreshed to have someone ask all the questions they wish they were asked before the wreck lands on their desk. They have seen a lot of marriages wreck, and like an emergency physician, a paramedic, a police officer, or a fire fighter, they have a lot of expertise about how to keep disasters from happening to you and how to respond so as to minimize damage if a disaster does happen. People in every one of these professions go home on a daily basis shaking their heads, thinking to themselves how much misery could be avoided if people could be convinced to believe what they know about the disasters that are not as accidental as the uninformed think they are. That is what I mean.

But I’ll bet most divorce lawyers don’t go home every night wondering why people don’t just work on their problems and stay married. Too much to lose and too much cognitive dissonance. When the only tool in the toolbox is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail.

If your spouse finds that your assets are held in a way that does not make them a gold mine ready for the picking, that could dissuade them from a rash decision.** If your spouse finds that being chosen for sole custody over you is not going to be a slam-dunk case**, that could dissuade them from a rash decision. If you have avoided rash behavior that will put you in a poor light later, yet also not allowed to let yourself be railroaded into a position where you’re giving away everything, that could dissuade them from a rash decision. The idea is to make staying more attractive but also to make leaving look more risky. Anything to keep them from pulling the plug prematurely on a marriage that could be saved.

But it is going to be a slam dunk for 99% of women. Yes, both parties will likely lose ground in a divorce, but men stand to lose further, relatively speaking, especially if the woman has designs on remarrying. The system is simply that lopsided.

 

[EasterJoy]

None of the above is going to hurt, but I’m not sure how much it would help, especially for the typical man. You’re not, for example, going to get custody of the children unless, for all intents and purposes, she relinquishes it. Some of the counsel you might get will at best be ambiguous. The logical course of action to defuse repeated tense situations might be to move out. That protects you in some regards from specious DV complaints, but it also sets you up to have her awarded exclusive access to the property (thereby kicking you out of your own home). The immediately preceding is an example of ‘no good choices’ coupled with ‘common sense not applying’.

But I’ll bet most divorce lawyers don’t go home every night wondering why people don’t just work on their problems and stay married. Too much to lose and too much cognitive dissonance. When the only tool in the toolbox is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail.

But it is going to be a slam dunk for 99% of women. Yes, both parties will likely lose ground in a divorce, but men stand to lose further, relatively speaking, especially if the woman has designs on remarrying. The system is simply that lopsided.

Oh, yes, I’m sure most divorce lawyers don’t wonder why people don’t work things out. I’m not sure how many are willing to explain how much poverty in the world has to do with families who did not have to break up paying for lawyers and the expense of maintaining two homes. Married people might argue about money less if someone showed them the price tag on a divorce. Even among women, the never-divorced are much more financially prosperous.

Still, I don’t think trying to stay married and trying not to get unnecessarily cleaned out in a divorce are mutually exclusive things. I do know a guy who got custody of his children. He started out with half custody, and when she decided to move out of state he got them full-time. If you are going to have any hope of being in the 1% of men who get the best deals out there, it helps to know where the big holes in the course are.

But yes, maybe I’m talking about something you find out from your friend who is a lawyer, not from someone trying to make a living at it.

 

[hurting]

Oh, yes, I’m sure most divorce lawyers don’t wonder why people don’t work things out. I’m not sure how many are willing to explain how much poverty in the world has to do with families who did not have to break up paying for lawyers and the expense of maintaining two homes. Married people might argue about money less if someone showed them the price tag on a divorce. Even among women, the never-divorced are much more financially prosperous.

Still, I don’t think trying to stay married and trying not to get unnecessarily cleaned out in a divorce are mutually exclusive things. I do know a guy who got custody of his children. He started out with half custody, and when she decided to move out of state he got them full-time. If you are going to have any hope of being in the 1% of men who get the best deals out there, it helps to know where the big holes in the course are.

But yes, maybe I’m talking about something you find out from your friend who is a lawyer, not from someone trying to make a living at it.

Agree 100%. You must, at a minimum, get some advice from a throughly disinterested party who does not have perverse incentives affecting the advice they give you. In fairness to the attorney crowd, it is important to recognize that they can not make the value judgment for you as a client that the reduction in material standard of living you are likely to face will not be worth the extra happiness you derive from nuking your marriage.