Sin to have relations with ex-spouse?

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anp1215

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So my husband asked me about a hypothetical situation and I didn’t have an answer, so I thought I would pose the question here:

A man and a woman are sacramentally married in the Catholic church. They are married for a year or so, but then civilly divorce. They do not obtain an annulment. Both remarry other people civilly. Both have children with their new spouse. A year or so later, they run into each other at the supermarket or something. They go to a hotel and have sex (intercourse, no contraception).
Is this encounter sinful?
I didn’t have a good answer for my husband. On the one hand, since they didn’t have an annulment, the Church sees them as still married. On the other hand, it seems seriously misleading and wrong to do this to the other parties (and children) involved.
 
anp1215 said:
So my husband asked me about a hypothetical situation and I didn’t have an answer, so I thought I would pose the question here:

A man and a woman are sacramentally married in the Catholic church. They are married for a year or so, but then civilly divorce. They do not obtain an annulment. Both remarry other people civilly. Both have children with their new spouse. A year or so later, they run into each other at the supermarket or something. They go to a hotel and have sex (intercourse, no contraception).
Is this encounter sinful?
I didn’t have a good answer for my husband. On the one hand, since they didn’t have an annulment, the Church sees them as still married. On the other hand, it seems seriously misleading and wrong to do this to the other parties (and children) involved.
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Even if you can’t call it adultery, that doesn’t mean it’s not a sin.

And even if you can’t call it a sin, that doesn’t mean it’s not severely messed up! 😛
 
The man and wife remain married to each other. As such, they are entitled to share marital relations with each other. No sin there.

There might be a sin involved in lying or deceiving the other partner but the sin isn’t adultery. But unless the man and woman never told their new partners about the original marriage and lack of annulment, they really have had that option open all along even if they didn’t exercise it until now.

The situation is the same as when someone is a secret bigamist. He may have a “real” wife and one who thinks she is a “real” wife. He may even have kids with the second wife. It is only the second marriage that is wrong, not the first one.
 
anp1215 said:
So my husband asked me about a hypothetical situation and I didn’t have an answer, so I thought I would pose the question here:

A man and a woman are sacramentally married in the Catholic church. They are married for a year or so, but then civilly divorce. They do not obtain an annulment. Both remarry other people civilly. Both have children with their new spouse. A year or so later, they run into each other at the supermarket or something. They go to a hotel and have sex (intercourse, no contraception).
Is this encounter sinful?
I didn’t have a good answer for my husband. On the one hand, since they didn’t have an annulment, the Church sees them as still married. On the other hand, it seems seriously misleading and wrong to do this to the other parties (and children) involved.
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No, that specific act isn’t a sin. But then again, that specific act is the least of their worries.

Their biggest problem is the unbroken string of adulterous behavior they are engaging in with their current “significant others” and the impact such behavior is having on the other parties (including the children).

It is totally wrong and misleading to “cheat” on someone, even though that person is one’s current partner in adultery, but the sin there is lying and abusing the trust of that person rather than the technically defined sin of adultery.

Situations like this are exactly why well-formed sexual ethics are so important,
 
Objectively: perhaps not. This is if indeed their marriage is genuine. However, they would not be judged solely on the objective nature of their actions.

Subjectively: most certainly. Both the man and woman believe themselves to not be married to each other and to be married to other people. They sin mortally for their actions because of this belief.

Practically: It seems extraordinarily that a couple with a sacramental marriage would civilly divorce in such a short time. Couples who commit to a for-life marriage (one of the necessities of the sacrament) tend to try much harder to work it out.
 
I’d say …probably a sin. They are “cheating” on their “spouses”, intentionally.

I’d agree, though, it would really be messes up otherwise.
 
Wasn’t this part of the plot in one of Evelyn Waugh’s “Men at Arms” trilogy?
 
anp1215 said:
So my husband asked me about a hypothetical situation and I didn’t have an answer, so I thought I would pose the question here:

A man and a woman are sacramentally married in the Catholic church. They are married for a year or so, but then civilly divorce. They do not obtain an annulment. Both remarry other people civilly. Both have children with their new spouse. A year or so later, they run into each other at the supermarket or something. They go to a hotel and have sex (intercourse, no contraception).
Is this encounter sinful?
I didn’t have a good answer for my husband. On the one hand, since they didn’t have an annulment, the Church sees them as still married. On the other hand, it seems seriously misleading and wrong to do this to the other parties (and children) involved.
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There is nothing wrong with a husband and wife engaging in vaginal sex.

What is disturbing is the adultery they’ve been committing with others
 
Sounds like the devil is giving out water in hell, so does that make everything better?
 
I would have to wonder why people who are already living in sin, since the first marriage was not annulled, would be concerned with sexual sin concerning the only spouse that the Church recognizes? Seems to me that the encounter is small potatoes when compared with the big picture… teachccd 🙂
 
teachccd said:
I would have to wonder why people who are already living in sin, since the first marriage was not annulled, would be concerned with sexual sin concerning the only spouse that the Church recognizes? Seems to me that the encounter is small potatoes when compared with the big picture… teachccd 🙂
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Perhaps…but there is the issue of deception and betrayal.
 
anp1215 said:
So my husband asked me about a hypothetical situation and I didn’t have an answer, so I thought I would pose the question here:

A man and a woman are sacramentally married in the Catholic church. They are married for a year or so, but then civilly divorce. They do not obtain an annulment. Both remarry other people civilly. Both have children with their new spouse. A year or so later, they run into each other at the supermarket or something. They go to a hotel and have sex (intercourse, no contraception).
Is this encounter sinful?
I didn’t have a good answer for my husband. On the one hand, since they didn’t have an annulment, the Church sees them as still married. On the other hand, it seems seriously misleading and wrong to do this to the other parties (and children) involved.
Click to expand...
No, it’s not sinful.

It’s the sex that they have with their new “spouses” that is sinful. It’s called adultery.
 
pinctor said:
Wasn’t this part of the plot in one of Evelyn Waugh’s “Men at Arms” trilogy?
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Don’t know about that, but the main characters in Private Lives by Noel Coward discuss this very issue, because they actually do it.
 
Can. 1060 Marriage possesses the favor of law; therefore, in a case of doubt, the validity of a marriage must be upheld until the contrary is proven.

'um would civil divorce, calling another your spouse, and producing children, raise to a standard of proving the contrary?
 
Texas_Roofer said:
Can. 1060 Marriage possesses the favor of law; therefore, in a case of doubt, the validity of a marriage must be upheld until the contrary is proven.

'um would civil divorce, calling another your spouse, and producing children, raise to a standard of proving the contrary?
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no. It must be investigated. Nothing that happens after a marriage can nullify it. Only the purported spouses’ statuses and intentions at the time of marriage can affect its validity.
 
SonCatcher said:
no. It must be investigated. Nothing that happens after a marriage can nullify it. Only the purported spouses’ statuses and intentions at the time of marriage can affect its validity.
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remember an annulment means no marriage, so nothing could happen before or after “no marriage”.
 
Texas_Roofer said:
remember an annulment means no marriage, so nothing could happen before or after “no marriage”.
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Your response is a little confusing

Annullment means that there was no Sacramental bond createted at the time of the marriage. It does not change the other effects of the marriage. So a couple who believed themselves to be married is entitled to all of the benefits of marriage, including marital realtions, children, mutual support, etc. None of that changes just because the marriage is found later to have lacked a Sacramental bond.

When we say “after the time of the marriage”, it means after the wedding was conducted. A wedding is a historical fact. An annullment looks are the conditions that existed at the point in time when the wedding was conducted. Things that happen after that point in time such as
civil divorce, calling another your spouse, and producing children,
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don’t prove anything about what was the state of the couple at the time of the wedding.
 
anp1215 said:
So my husband asked me about a hypothetical situation and I didn’t have an answer, so I thought I would pose the question here:

A man and a woman are sacramentally married in the Catholic church. They are married for a year or so, but then civilly divorce. They do not obtain an annulment. Both remarry other people civilly. Both have children with their new spouse. A year or so later, they run into each other at the supermarket or something. They go to a hotel and have sex (intercourse, no contraception).
Is this encounter sinful?
I didn’t have a good answer for my husband. On the one hand, since they didn’t have an annulment, the Church sees them as still married. On the other hand, it seems seriously misleading and wrong to do this to the other parties (and children) involved.
Click to expand...
DOCTRINALLY SPEAKING. As St Thomas Aquinas says, Lust is always a sin - if within the marriage, it’s a venial sin (no laughing matter), and if outside, a mortal sin.

Your characters are heaping sin upon sin.
 
Corki said:
Your response is a little confusing

Annullment means that there was no Sacramental bond createted at the time of the marriage. It does not change the other effects of the marriage. …
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?? I can find no church teaching of this type in regard to the question of this thread, does that teaching exist?
 
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