Was I suppose to have gotten an annulment for my first marriage?

[Breeze]

I was a non-practicing Catholic and married a non-Catholic at the age of 15. It was a first marriage for both of us and we were married by a justice of the peace. We divorced two years later. I remarried a non-Catholic and that marriage was also performed by a justice of the peace.
After 23 years of marriage, while living overseas, my second husband converted to Catholicism. We were married by a Catholic priest in the Catholic Church. Was I suppose to have gotten an annulment from the first marriage? If so, what is the validity of my second marriage?

 

[Michelle_Arnold]

As the Church wants to look at anything that appears like a marriage in order to determine the former spouses’ potential freedom to marry other people, yes, your first marriage should have been placed before a marriage tribunal. Although this could well have been done at three different stages to date – before your second marriage, before your second husband’s reception into the Church, before your second marriage was blessed by the priest – it can still be done now. Contact the office of your local parish and ask for information on how you can begin the process. From what you’ve stated about your first marriage, an annulment may well be possible; but so long as the Church presumes your first marriage to be valid, it cannot recognize the second as valid. If an annulment for the first marriage is granted, then your second marriage will be regularized.

Recommended reading:

Annulments: What You Need to Know by Jimmy Akin
Annulments and the Catholic Church by Edward Peters