How many annulments do I need?

[ReneeGwinn]

32 years ago I was married in the Catholic Church at age 20. After 3 years we conceived a child. On that child’s first birthday my husband told me he never "felt married " to me. I later discovered he was having an affair. He eventually married her. A year later I remarried to a non catholic in a civil ceremony. To say I was unready is an understatement. I guess I was trying to replace the family unit I lost. That marriage lasted a year. I raised my daughters as Catholics and once they were grown and on their own I married a catholic man. We would like to have out marriage blessed. Here is the question: Would my second marriage, the civil one, qualify for a Ligamen process? My thinking is I was not free to marry in the catholic church so the civil marriage was not valid? I am currently working on the first marriage annulment. What is the difference between Ligamen and lack of form?

 

[Fr.Charles_Grondin]

Ligamen means that a prior valid marriage bond exists. Your situation would not qualify for ligamen because if your first marriage is annulled that would mean there was no prior bond.
The answer as to what happens with your civil marriage depends on whether you are a Catholic of not.

If you are a Catholic, then you are obligated by the laws of the Church to be married in the Church. Since you were civilly married, it would automatically be considered invalid by the Church.

If you are not a Catholic, then you are not obligated to be married in a church. That means if your first marriage is declared invalid, you would have had no prior bond when you married civilly and thus you were objectively free to marry at that time. Your civil marriage to a non-Catholic would then be considered a valid marriage and that marriage would need to be annulled in order to validly marry a Catholic.