Marital status if marriage was invalid?

[Bentaa44]

If my previous marriage is declared invalid, what would that make me? As if I was creating a dating profile, would I list myself as “annulled,” “divorced” (legally we are), or “never married?”

The marriage isn’t technically annulled if it’s invalid, right? But it’s not like I wasn’t married…right?

Backstory if wanted: Ex was a baptized/confirmed Catholic but non practicing. I was an atheist. We were using contraception and planned to never have children, were not married in the church or by a priest, had a ceremony with no mention of God at all, and we’re young - I didn’t understand what marriage was, fully, to be honest, and was dealing with multiple mental health issues.

 

[CRV]

As if I was creating a dating profile, would I list myself as “annulled,” “divorced” (legally we are), or “never married?”

On a secular site I would suggest stating divorced. As you were legally married and are now divorced.

On a Catholic dating site, I would suggest the same as at the time of the marriage you by your own acknowledgement were an atheist (and are still not Catholic though I hope you do convert).

Then if someone and you decide to meet and perhaps consider dating, then would be the time to state the facts.

 

[Muzhik]

The marriage isn’t technically annulled if it’s invalid, right?

Yes, it is. A declaration of nullity is a declaration that the marriage was invalidly contracted for any number of reasons. On a Catholic dating site you’d list yourself as “Divorced; marriage annulled.”

This relates to something in the plotline of a story I’m concocting, where a conman steals his dead friend’s identity along with the money the friend stole, and sets himself up as an “Important Person”. He gets married to a rich socialite in a Church wedding, but as he’s getting ready to skip town after another scam (and leaving his unknowing wife to take the fall), he gets found out and captured. She’s weeping because her husband LIED to her, until someone points out to her that since he lied about his identity, their marriage is invalid legally (no problem getting a judge to rule the marriage annulled), which means it’s invalid under Church law. Makes the Church annulment process go faster when the civil marriage is also annulled.

 

[1ke]

As if I was creating a dating profile, would I list myself as “annulled,” “divorced” (legally we are), or “never married?

Not sure what the choices are in a dating profile. But annulment or divorced seem like the choices you would select from.

But you should definitely not imply “never married” because most people will not associate that as someone who had a putative marriage that was declared invalid.

The marriage isn’t technically annulled if it’s invalid, right?

Depends on why it was invalid. Most invalid marriages are declared null through a tribunal. Some use the Ligamen process. Others are really a freedom to marry issue because a catholic did not marry in catholic form.

In all of those cases, if I had to choose between “annulment”, “divorced” or “never married”, I would choose “annulment” and then explain it to anyone who I started dating.

 

[porthos11]

You go by the civil status. If you had a civil divorce, even though you had an ecclesiastical decree of nullity, you list yourself as “divorced.” You would list yourself as "annulled’ only if you got a civil annullment.