Is there any way to stop a devout Catholic couple from getting divorced?

[Xantippe]

The spouse that left has no income.

Even more so, then.

 

[Xantippe]

Even if all your assumptions are correct, how is divorce preferable to trying financial counseling?! A divorce can lead to an irresponsible spouse taking half of the responsible spouse’s income.

If the situation is dire enough, enormous damage can be done in a short period of time.

 

[EasterJoy]

The spouse that left has no income.

It is still uncommon to have anyone but a relative invite you to live with them indefinitely. This is not a typical story. Those are either extremely close friends or this is a very unusual situation.

If she’s willing to leave with no income and nowhere to go, you have to realize that this is someone who felt compelled to get out. Why that is, I cannot say. There are both good reasons and bad to do such a thing and reasons both wise and misguided. Counseling would be likely to help in all those cases.

I would hesitate to write her a letter assuring her of anything but that even those who still hope the marriage can be saved have anything but support for her, that no one can know the whole story except for her and her husband and that you in particular still love her and are in no way taking sides. That could help her feel she is not being judged by anyone, or at least not anyone whose rash opinion ought to concern her, which she might naturally wonder about.

 

[Xantippe]

It is still uncommon to have anyone but a relative invite you to live with them indefinitely. This is not a typical story. Those are either extremely close friends or this is a very unusual situation.

**If she’s willing to leave with no income and nowhere to go, you have to realize that this is someone who felt compelled to get out. **Why that is, I cannot say. There are both good reasons and bad to do such a thing and reasons both wise and misguided. Counseling would be likely to help in all those cases.

I would hesitate to write her a letter assuring her of anything but that even those who still hope the marriage can be saved have anything but support for her, that no one can know the whole story except for her and her husband and that you in particular still love her and are in no way taking sides. That could help her feel she is not being judged by anyone, or at least not anyone whose rash opinion ought to concern her, which she might naturally wonder about.

Yeah. It’s like if I see somebody jump out a 5th story window.

Either

a) they’re crazy

b) they’re stupid

c) they’re suicidal

or

d) there is something really bad going on.

 

[EasterJoy]

Yeah. It’s like if I see somebody jump out a 5th story window.

Either

a) they’re crazy

b) they’re stupid

c) they’re suicidal

or

d) there is something really bad going on.

As in, building is on fire…and those aren’t mutually-exclusive possibilities, even then.

Still, in the realm of emotions and emotionally-difficult decisions, anything is possible. I think we all know that from personal experience. The main thing to remember is that those who don’t listen will not be listened to. It is possible to suggest, to encourage, to console, but the whole “bring them to their senses” thing rarely works when someone has struck out and taken action.

 

[Padres1969]

Let’s all take a breath and stand down the gossip police. One spouse and a relative approached me to share their story and concerns. I didn’t ask for this info but I’m glad they shared. The spouse told me that they requested counseling and the other wouldn’t go. The spouse told me that the clergy offered no helpful advice, support, or effort in trying to reconcile.

Once finding out I knew, the relative contacted me wanting to share more and volunteered intimate information from their situation over the years that seemed to reasonably explain what I had observed. The relative (not a parishioner) told me that members of the parish had been enabling this separation and strife between the spouses. The relative told me that the rest of the parish community had offered no help to try and reconcile the couple out of fear of upsetting the spouse that left, being labeled as judgmental, and many do not know of the situation.

I wanted to verify, as discretely as possible, what I was told. I contacted TWO close friends of the couple and they verified what they could and did not contradict anything else. From what I know now, almost nothing has been done to help. I’m hoping more has been done but I do not know.

I’m now faced with a dilemma that the commenters here have created:

1. Try to verify facts and be labeled a gossip.
2. Try to help my friends reconcile and be labeled judgmental because I don’t have all the facts.

3. Do nothing, ignore the problem, ignore the Church’s calling to love, marriage, and healing, and be a good understanding, quiet, nonjudgmental Catholic, knowing that marriages fail all the time, there’s nothing we can do about it, and worry about my own life. Surely someone else has tried to help (which I can’t know) and the couple has done absolutely everything they could (which I can’t know and have evidence to the contrary).

It’s like I just walked by witnessed my friend getting mugged at gunpoint. I probably can’t stop the situation, their friends are all standing apparently doing nothing, I just want to know if anyone has called the police (i.e. someone that can help, counselor, clergy, etc.). It sounds like they haven’t, and the one cop that was called was an epic fail.

The biggest wall the family has run into, and now I’m running into, is that divorce culture is apparently embedded in the Church. Anyone who wants to get a divorce is encouraged, anyone who wants to try and prevent a divorce is perceived as evil, uncaring, judgmental, and now apparently a gossip.

Not sure how you not getting involved in the middle an internal family dispute that is really none of your business is necessarily ignoring the Church’s calling to love, marriage and healing. You can be there to offer love and support to one or both spouses and to help them heal during this difficult time. As for their marriage, as you say, they can’t actually dissolve it from a Catholic POV, at least not unless they are able to obtain an annulment. But if there are legitimate reasons they’re breaking up and separating legally, then who are you to step in the way of that?

 

[john1513]

Not sure how you not getting involved in the middle an internal family dispute that is really none of your business is necessarily ignoring the Church’s calling to love, marriage and healing. You can be there to offer love and support to one or both spouses and to help them heal during this difficult time. As for their marriage, as you say, they can’t actually dissolve it from a Catholic POV, at least not unless they are able to obtain an annulment. But if there are legitimate reasons they’re breaking up and separating legally, then who are you to step in the way of that?

That’s an excellent question and a detail everyone seems to have missed in my original post. The reason I feel compelled to insert myself is because other parishioners have inserted themselves and coaxed this spouse away from their marriage, against the advisement of both sides of the family and virtually all parties involved. This group of parishioners lead retreats, church functions, and volunteer and vacation together, without their families, and now have somehow inspired this spouse to live with another member of the parish.

As bizarre as this situation sounds, I cannot fathom how strongly encouraging counseling and expressing concern, can be more detrimental than letting whatever problems (real or perceived) that lead to this divorce go unaddressed, which seems to be the protocol for many commenters here.

Yeah. It’s like if I see somebody jump out a 5th story window.

Either

a) they’re crazy

b) they’re stupid

c) they’re suicidal

or

d) there is something really bad going on.

All options should warrant concern and intervention from friends. But nonjudgmentalism would have you believe otherwise.

 

[MaryT777]

Not sure how you not getting involved in the middle an internal family dispute that is really none of your business is necessarily ignoring the Church’s calling to love, marriage and healing. You can be there to offer love and support to one or both spouses and to help them heal during this difficult time. As for their marriage, as you say, they can’t actually dissolve it from a Catholic POV, at least not unless they are able to obtain an annulment. But if there are legitimate reasons they’re breaking up and separating legally, then who are you to step in the way of that?

I couldn’t agree more. I appreciate your concern, OP< but you posted here so you will receive honest answers. From one who has "been there done that got the Tshirt " with divorce I realize how damaging these rumors can be.

Some marriages will end in divorce. Few people take filing for divorce lightly. The party that filed may have valid reasons to do so. To imply they are not taking the Sacrament seriously enough or someone filed for no valid reason, or someone is “rumored” to have been financially irresponsible is gossip and is sinful. The presumption either way may be wrong anyways regarding if a “reason is good enough” to outside people who never lived in the marriage or worse yet one person has not tried to get counseling etc etc etc

If you have concerns speak to a priest. This is the Wrong place to be in my opinion.

Mary.

 

[Xantippe]

I couldn’t agree more. I appreciate your concern, OP< but you posted here so you will receive honest answers. From one who has "been there done that got the Tshirt " with divorce I realize how damaging these rumors can be.

Some marriages will end in divorce. Few people take filing for divorce lightly. The party that filed may have valid reasons to do so. To imply they are not taking the Sacrament seriously enough or someone filed for no valid reason, or someone is “rumored” to have been financially irresponsible is gossip and is sinful. The presumption either way may be wrong anyways regarding if a “reason is good enough” to outside people who never lived in the marriage or worse yet one person has not tried to get counseling etc etc etc

If you have concerns speak to a priest. This is the Wrong place to be in my opinion.

Mary.

We had a large family explode in a previous parish. The parents had previously been (as with the OP’s friends) a high-profile couple in the parish. They had been pointed out to us by young people as an inspiring example.

My husband and I weren’t sure what to do about it, as there was an explosion of gossip and wild rumors and some of our Protestant friends were putting together a fine Southern shunning of the husband. So we went to our pastor, who is a prudent, wise and very orthodox priest. Our pastor told us a) shunning is not a Catholic custom and b) a lot of those rumors are either from people who wouldn’t know or (if they did know) should not be sharing the information c) when a family with X (it was a large number) of kids breaks up, it’s not over nothing. He also told us that as to the rumors, time would tell.

We followed that advice. Some years later, the father of the family left the church for an Eastern religion and married his rumored affair partner–so that cleared things up a lot.

 

[holyrood]

Let’s all take a breath and stand down the gossip police. …

The biggest wall the family has run into, and now I’m running into, is that divorce culture is apparently embedded in the Church. Anyone who wants to get a divorce is encouraged, anyone who wants to try and prevent a divorce is perceived as evil, uncaring, judgmental, and now apparently a gossip.

As someone else said, you came here asking for opinions. Then you get upset and accuse people of being the ‘gossip police.’ You outlined a detailed account of how all these people came to you, and all shared personal details of the couple’s life in asking you to get involved.

It doesn’t matter if you went looking or if they came to you. You listened and got involved in discussing another couple’s personal lives. This is the very definition of gossip.

I don’t think divorce culture is embedded in the Church and it’s possible that those ‘encouraging’ them actually know more about the situation. I don’t know THAT of course–I’m just saying there ARE reasons why divorce is sometimes all but unavoidable and those people MAY know that.

I don’t think anyone here perceives you as evil, but honestly, you do not KNOW what’s really happening in their marriage, you ARE involved in discussing it with a great number of people, and there almost certainly is NOT anything you can actually do to prevent their divorce.

You can pray and you can simply be a friend and listen, and BE AWARE that unless you are equally a friend to both parties and listening with an open mind, you may well not be getting the full truth from only one spouse.

Even if all your assumptions are correct, how is divorce preferable to trying financial counseling?! A divorce can lead to an irresponsible spouse taking half of the responsible spouse’s income.

Counseling only works IF both people want it to work. Financial counseling ONLY WORKS if the person with the spending problem really wants to stop what they’re doing. Having been on an infidelity forum for several years, I can tell you that in MANY cases of divorce, there was not only infidelity, but also financial issues. The root cause is the same: a person who wants what they want, will deny themselves nothing, and has no interest in changing.

This is key: the person does not want to change. I saw case after case there–absolutely COMMON–where people went to counseling only to find that the cheating spouse was just playing games and never intended to change. I can guarantee my XH would not have changed a thing with financial counseling because he didn’t want to.

Sure, financial counseling may work for this couple. Do you know for a fact that they haven’t already done that? Do you know for a fact that financial issues are really the only reason for the divorce? Feel free to suggest it.

Have you actually spoken to both spouses?

Yeah. It’s like if I see somebody jump out a 5th story window.

Either

a) they’re crazy

b) they’re stupid

c) they’re suicidal

or

d) there is something really bad going on.

I absolutely agree with this. A person who has been a devout Catholic and active parishioner for years, who is otherwise sane and competent, and ‘suddenly’ files for divorce probably has a VERY good reason.

 

[holyrood]

Just throwing out another story. My son had a friend, all of them at a Catholic school, whose mother suddenly ‘went nuts,’ out of the blue, threw her husband out of the house, and filed for divorce.

It was absolutely inexplicable to my son.

One day she told me the story. And as Xantippe says, there was something really, really horrible going on. A certain event happened that didn’t make sense…she asked a few questions…a huge house of cards came tumbling down, the kind of stuff most of us think happens only in movies. Swindling, lies, using his professional position to steal from incapacitated clients, living a double life.

Again: the point is that we almost never know the whole story. I don’t think my son knows to this day. She asked me not to tell him, so he continues to be baffled about her behavior. I’m sure other people do, too.

We just have to be VERY careful about what we think we know about other people’s lives. If you’re going to approach the filing spouse, be ready to set aside everything you think you know. And if the filing spouse is really that determined to file for no real reason, there’s probably nothing you can do anyway.

 

[EasterJoy]

Just throwing out another story. My son had a friend, all of them at a Catholic school, whose mother suddenly ‘went nuts,’ out of the blue, threw her husband out of the house, and filed for divorce.

It was absolutely inexplicable to my son.

One day she told me the story. And as Xantippe says, there was something really, really horrible going on. A certain event happened that didn’t make sense…she asked a few questions…a huge house of cards came tumbling down, the kind of stuff most of us think happens only in movies. Swindling, lies, using his professional position to steal from incapacitated clients, living a double life.

Again: the point is that we almost never know the whole story. I don’t think my son knows to this day. She asked me not to tell him, so he continues to be baffled about her behavior. I’m sure other people do, too.

We just have to be VERY careful about what we think we know about other people’s lives. If you’re going to approach the filing spouse, be ready to set aside everything you think you know. And if the filing spouse is really that determined to file for no real reason, there’s probably nothing you can do anyway.

Yes. People with serious money problems–gambling, shopping addiction, bipolar going on manic spending sprees–will very often try to hide what they’ve done. Do you think you can tell? No…sometimes, the people with these problems will just floor you. It floors their families, it floors their spouses. These problems ruin characters and make liars. They just do. (There but for the grace of God, mind you…)

That doesn’t just add up to wasted money. It adds up to a lot of lies told over a lot of years. If you add in denial–the person not being able to admit the extent of the problem even to himself–or someone who is stacking this deception onto many deceptions who is finally discovered by a trusting spouse who was mistreated with gaslighting tactics as they started to become aware of the extent of the problem–you can have a relationship in tatters because of years and years of abused trust.

In that situation, a spouse is fortunate indeed to get one more chance. If they squander that, then how can anyone in their right mind be asked to trust them again? The decision to walk out becomes very obvious.

In the case of a spouse with no money and no working history, though? I’d be surprised if it were just about money. Gaslighting, though, is something people do to hide money problems, and that is very emotionally damaging. (I mean being lead to believe you can’t trust your own memory or your own sense of things by someone trying to lie to you.)

 

[heidi_storage]

If these people are dear friends, then perhaps you can share your concerns with them in person. This should probably be the end of your part in the matter, though. It is not a good idea to talk about their situation with others, tempting as that may be.

 

[ItTakesAllKinds]

Honestly, I think this is a situation for minding your own business. It sounds like you are gossiping a lot about this couple. Nobody knows what happens behind closed doors. Nobody knows what goes on in the marriages of other people. If this couple feels like they need to divorce, and they are as devout as you say they are, I am sure they have good reason. Say prayers for them and for their healing. Leave it at that.