What is the reason Catholics choose divorced?

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stevekrok8 said:
If I understand you correctly you disagree with my comment that if two people have the right disposition then their relationship will suceed.

Well, in my opinion, two people should always pray for their relationship then they may know whether they are matched to each other. Well, the same level of faith is very important in any relationship only in my opinion again.

If two people who choose to get married put God first, their marriage second then it will work. The person who becomes the cruel, sexually abusing monster FAILED to put their marriage first. If they did then then they would have never become anything other than a good partner because that is priority two in their life.

and I agree too that we should put God first in our relationship.

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Please don’t be offended with the comments, we may discuss it and may have differences but don’t argue about it. But try to understand each person’s view.

Peace
 
Regarding your being offended: I am a great believer in courtesy in debate (sometimes lacking on this forum I have found) but I do think you are taking political correctness too far in this instance. I do regard your argument as ludicrous, and I have stated why this is; I don’t see why an honest statement like this should be offensive. Also I have explained why I think it is cruel effectively to state that anyone whose marriage fails is to blame. Imagine the effect that would have on some poor soul who has just been divorced.

Turning now to the argument itself, with respect you appear to have stopped reading my comments half way through. The bit about the “sexually-abusing monster” is followed immediately by a passage beginning “Further”, and that is where I explain that even if two people DO have “the right disposition” a marriage may still fail. We must live in the world as it is and not take refuge in a pleasing fantasy, where God always gives us the strength and wherewithal to carry on; a nice pleasing idea, but it is part of the mystery of suffering that this is simply not the case. This reminds me of a friend of mine who is a (Protestant ) missionary. She lives in a dangerous inner city area and has been warned not to go out late at night. She told me she ignores that advice because she is doing the Lord’s work and she has faith that he would not let anything harm her. Well, she was badly beaten up recently. She now has a more realistic view of faith. As with my example of a child dying of cancer, we must first find out what is actually happening in the real world before applying pleasing notions to the situation.

I would also respectfully point out that you have not answered my original point regarding the fact that there has been no infallible statement about remarriage; the rule is based upon no clear and unambiguous biblical text. Perhaps it is time to change this rule, which causes untold misery to many devout people.
 
Dear Verum,

I understand what you mean and yes, it’s very hard. I remember one time I discussed about it with one priest here, he said that our sacrament of matrimony is the strongest and the weakness thing for saving the marriage. Strongest means that so people may not play with the marriage but weakness because if one of them have a very bad habit like you said cruel and abuse physically and mentally then the other is a victim and it’s difficult to get annulment.
But I think in my opinion, some people get married because they have wrong reasons to be married such as they just find status especially for women, parents’ will etc, or sometime they just make decision very soon and only based on their emotion it’s based on what I have seen why they divorced. Anyway it’s only my opinion.

Peace
 
verum said:
Regarding your being offended: I am a great believer in courtesy in debate (sometimes lacking on this forum I have found) but I do think you are taking political correctness too far in this instance. I do regard your argument as ludicrous, and I have stated why this is; I don’t see why an honest statement like this should be offensive. Also I have explained why I think it is cruel effectively to state that anyone whose marriage fails is to blame. Imagine the effect that would have on some poor soul who has just been divorced.

Turning now to the argument itself, with respect you appear to have stopped reading my comments half way through. The bit about the “sexually-abusing monster” is followed immediately by a passage beginning “Further”, and that is where I explain that even if two people DO have “the right disposition” a marriage may still fail. We must live in the world as it is and not take refuge in a pleasing fantasy, where God always gives us the strength and wherewithal to carry on; a nice pleasing idea, but it is part of the mystery of suffering that this is simply not the case. This reminds me of a friend of mine who is a (Protestant ) missionary. She lives in a dangerous inner city area and has been warned not to go out late at night. She told me she ignores that advice because she is doing the Lord’s work and she has faith that he would not let anything harm her. Well, she was badly beaten up recently. She now has a more realistic view of faith. As with my example of a child dying of cancer, we must first find out what is actually happening in the real world before applying pleasing notions to the situation.

I would also respectfully point out that you have not answered my original point regarding the fact that there has been no infallible statement about remarriage; the rule is based upon no clear and unambiguous biblical text. Perhaps it is time to change this rule, which causes untold misery to many devout people.
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I see my mistake in my origonal comment now and understand why you remarked the way you did. Rather than addressing the question I went off on the tangent of what I think it takes for two good people who are seeking to get married, what they need to do to make marriage works. Which has nothing to do with the question of why Chatholics choose to divorce. I apologize for that.

Catholics choose to get divorced and seek annulment for the reasons you stated. One person in the marriage has fallen off the wagon and they choose not to fix themselves and fix the problem. They are in a very dark place surrounded by their own sin. The innocent party is subject to the mental and physical strain of their actions. It is so painful that are now hurting themselves by staying in this marriage so they must get out.

If from day one both people have the right dispositon and the marriage still fails requires a deeper examination of each marriage on a case by case basis. If one partner is physically abusive then that marriage needs to be examined and possibly ended. If you weigh that case against a case where one partner just loses interest in the other partner because they’re boring I don’t believe they are anywhere close to the same thing. I don’t believe the church would consider example B as a cause for divorce and annullment.

I’m not sure if you are Catholic but the Christian Meaning of human suffering by Pope John Paul the II is a good read on suffering.

I do not have a response to your point about infalliable statement about remarriage. The Catholic church has an annullment process to exam a marriage to see if it is null and void. It never denies a relationship it searches to find if it was a marriage brought about by the Holy Spirit.

Again sorry for the confusion.
 
To Stevekrok8: Absolutely no need to apologize.
I would just like to make the point that I wasn’t thinking of one partner in a marriage finding the other “boring”; I was thinking of those relationships where both partners (especialy when they marry young) grow apart in different directions until they reach a point where they no longer feel anything for each other–in other words they have a loveless marriage. The problem is, in my opinion, that during the Dark and Middel Ages, when the Church’s rules about marriage were formulated, marriage was looked upon as a legal contract, an institution for the safe bringing up of children…that’s what marriage was about. In our day there has been a marked development of this idea; now we see marriage as two people loving each other and maintaining a relationship for it’s own sake. The days when Catholic girls were told by nuns to “find a good Catholic boy to marry as soon as possible” are ( hopefully ) gone.Today we think of marriage as less of a legal contract and more as a relationship, ie it is the quality of the relationship that matters. As for children, much has been said and written about the evils of divorce but there is nothing worse for children than to see their parents constantly arguing.I know there is no easy answer to failed reationships but they happen; I personally would question whether the best way to deal with them is to chain people together for life. I am however, merely asking questions, and I think a debate in the Church would be useful and healthy.
I am a traditional Roman Catholic, by the way.

To Winy: I agree with what you have said, but ( as I wrote above) I think there should be a debate in the Church regarding whether the present discipline should be maintained;it would save so much misery.
 
verum said:
As for children, much has been said and written about the evils of divorce but there is nothing worse for children than to see their parents constantly arguing.
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I agree with it and I had an experience when I told someone it’s better to divorce than stay still but argue all the time, it’s not healthy for the child, but don’t seperate the child from their mom/dad. But when it did happened, I felt sorry and guilty and I’m afraid that I gave wrong advice because I was one of the witness of their divorced at the civil court. I asked God’s forgiveness for this matter. Any suggestion?? Some time I still feel guilty because it seemed that I am the one who seperate them and not God. I should have asked them to pray hard and I should have prayed hard for them too that time. Like I said that I’ve changed since a few months ago when I learnt more about catholic faith. Although I still can’t deny that it’s better couple divorced when one abuse other physically and mentally.

To Winy: I agree with what you have said, but ( as I wrote above) I think there should be a debate in the Church regarding whether the present discipline should be maintained;it would save so much misery.

well, I don’t have any idea about it. But when I discussed it with one priest that I mentioned before, he said that he will bless the marriage although one is divorced and hasn’t got annulment but he will talk and review and check first reason of divorced and bless them not at the church. Well, it’s very difficult to say though.
Better pray and ask God to guide us about the present discipline as you said.
 
wina said:
I agree with it and I had an experience when I told someone it’s better to divorce than stay still but argue all the time, it’s not healthy for the child, but don’t seperate the child from their mom/dad. But when it did happened, I felt sorry and guilty and I’m afraid that I gave wrong advice because I was one of the witness of their divorced at the civil court. I asked God’s forgiveness for this matter. Any suggestion?? Some time I still feel guilty because it seemed that I am the one who seperate them and not God. I should have asked them to pray hard and I should have prayed hard for them too that time. Like I said that I’ve changed since a few months ago when I learnt more about catholic faith. Although I still can’t deny that it’s better couple divorced when one abuse other physically and mentally.

I imagine there were alot of other factors ultimately more powerful that drove them towards the divorce. If you’re feeling guilty about the advice then I’d hit confession. And as you said you still keep praying for them.
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I want to divorce my wife.

My reasons:

Married her against my heart and conscience, we have been married 3 years (no children).

Married her outside the Church, she’s not Catholic. The opinions and influence of her friends from her church (Neo-Evangelical/church growth movement) is hard on me and our marriage, once they discover I have returned to the Roman Church.

Since my returned to the Church, we have be living together as brother and sister because she was previously married and divorce. We haven’t been intimate in the last 2 years.

There is no feeling of unity in our marriage. During the year while we were intimate, there was no feeling of oneness. She has a psychological disorder (she refuses to get help) that has interfered with intimacy and unity.

I want the divorce and would like to marry a Catholic ( I wouldn’t need an annulment, since the Church doesn’t consider our marriage valid.).

Here is the interesting part: She doesn’t want the divorce, so I have been slow in filing for a divorce. But it feels like a sin to remain married to her. We don’t seem to be like-minded in any of our values, beliefs or morals. Our living together seems to be more out of convenience than anything else and I don’t want to live this way.
 
TOBY1 said:
I want to divorce my wife.

My reasons:

Married her against my heart and conscience, we have been married 3 years (no children).

Married her outside the Church, she’s not Catholic. The opinions and influence of her friends from her church (Neo-Evangelical/church growth movement) is hard on me and our marriage, once they discover I have returned to the Roman Church.

Since my returned to the Church, we have be living together as brother and sister because she was previously married and divorce. We haven’t been intimate in the last 2 years.

There is no feeling of unity in our marriage. During the year while we were intimate, there was no feeling of oneness. She has a psychological disorder (she refuses to get help) that has interfered with intimacy and unity.

I want the divorce and would like to marry a Catholic ( I wouldn’t need an annulment, since the Church doesn’t consider our marriage valid.).

Here is the interesting part: She doesn’t want the divorce, so I have been slow in filing for a divorce. But it feels like a sin to remain married to her. We don’t seem to be like-minded in any of our values, beliefs or morals. Our living together seems to be more out of convenience than anything else and I don’t want to live this way.
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Hi Toby,

I don’t know what to say. But have you told your problem with the priest??
And I will pray for you and your wife. I do believe that God has greater plan for your life.
 
TOBY1 said:
I want to divorce my wife.

My reasons:

Married her against my heart and conscience, we have been married 3 years (no children).

Married her outside the Church, she’s not Catholic. The opinions and influence of her friends from her church (Neo-Evangelical/church growth movement) is hard on me and our marriage, once they discover I have returned to the Roman Church.

Since my returned to the Church, we have be living together as brother and sister because she was previously married and divorce. We haven’t been intimate in the last 2 years.

There is no feeling of unity in our marriage. During the year while we were intimate, there was no feeling of oneness. She has a psychological disorder (she refuses to get help) that has interfered with intimacy and unity.

I want the divorce and would like to marry a Catholic ( I wouldn’t need an annulment, since the Church doesn’t consider our marriage valid.).

Here is the interesting part: She doesn’t want the divorce, so I have been slow in filing for a divorce. But it feels like a sin to remain married to her. We don’t seem to be like-minded in any of our values, beliefs or morals. Our living together seems to be more out of convenience than anything else and I don’t want to live this way.
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Hi Toby,

I don’t know what to say. But have you told your problem with the priest??
And I will pray for you and your wife. I do believe that God has greater plan for your life.
 
Hi Toby, Your situation is plainly intolerable, so there are two ways you can go:
  1. Go through with the divorce, and the sooner the better.
2)Try to make a go of it with your present partner. If so, you need to tell her that she HAS to seek help with her illness; you will support her all the way, but she has to face it. If this were to work, and you wanted to marry her for real, she is perfectly entitled to apply to the Catholic Church for an annulment of her previous marriage, and you could get married in a Catholic Church.

From what you say I am betting that the first one is the preferred option; if so, the sooner you get the ball rolling the better. No doubt you will always be there for her if she needs help.In my opinion, the worst thing you can do is to let things drag on.

On the subject of finding and marrying a Catholic this time, and at the risk of sounding patronising, I would be thinking of having a long courtship next time. Don’t believe those Cathoics who tell you that as long as you have the sacrament everything will be rosy.
You are obviously a very committed Catholic.Living as brother and sister for two years is mind-boggling. You need to grasp the nettle and get things moving, in my opinion. I’m sure everyone on here will be praying for you, and for your partner.

Kind regards, verum.
 
wina said:
But have you told your problem with the priest??
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A couple a months ago, we did talked to her church pastor that married us and to our parish priest. The more reasonable consultation came from our priest. His response was much similar to verum’s suggestion (She has to make the decision to get help and WE have to make the choice whether to stay married or not.). Her church’s pastor was angry at me, understandably so - since he was the one to married us, but his comments to me were very anti-catholic sounding. He became even more irritated when my wife told him she was considering Catholicism and then he told me I must move out immediately.

Currently, we are still living together but our lives are somewhat separated and unchanged. We both seem to be putting off making any decisions. There is no communication between us. I’m not comfortable with our marriage and I can’t see how she can be comfortable with the current state of our marriage.
 
verum said:
From what you say I am betting that the first one is the preferred option; if so, the sooner you get the ball rolling the better. No doubt you will always be there for her if she needs help.In my opinion, the worst thing you can do is to let things drag on.
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I think you may be right in not letting things drag on.
verum said:
On the subject of finding and marrying a Catholic this time, and at the risk of sounding patronising, I would be thinking of having a long courtship next time. Don’t believe those Cathoics who tell you that as long as you have the sacrament everything will be rosy.
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I would have to agree with you. My mistake was I was more in love with the idea of being married than the person I was marrying.
verum said:
You are obviously a very committed Catholic.Living as brother and sister for two years is mind-boggling.
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It isn’t easy. Especially when her friends keep telling her she doesn’t need an annulment and Satan is at work when we don’t sleep together.
verum said:
You need to grasp the nettle and get things moving, in my opinion.
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Again, I think you’re may be right.
verum said:
I’m sure everyone on here will be praying for you, and for your partner.
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Thank you.
 
TOBY1 said:
A couple a months ago, we did talked to her church pastor that married us and to our parish priest. The more reasonable consultation came from our priest. His response was much similar to verum’s suggestion (She has to make the decision to get help and WE have to make the choice whether to stay married or not.). Her church’s pastor was angry at me, understandably so - since he was the one to married us, but his comments to me were very anti-catholic sounding. He became even more irritated when my wife told him she was considering Catholicism and then he told me I must move out immediately.

Currently, we are still living together but our lives are somewhat separated and unchanged. We both seem to be putting off making any decisions. There is no communication between us. I’m not comfortable with our marriage and I can’t see how she can be comfortable with the current state of our marriage.
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Well, I can’t say anything and I can’t judge anyone either.And yes, no communication is the bad thing in marriage. It’s not healthy either. The best thing that you can do is you pray first before making any decision, try to pray in front of blessed sacrament, attend daily mass and the most important is that you should open your heart widely so let God speaks to you.
Ofcourse we all here will pray for you like Verum said.
God bless you
 
I came to this post in search of something that might help me in my situation. I hardly know where to begin except for with a prayer. I will try to make this first post short and to the point. In one month, I will have been married for 15 years. I was with my husband for 5 years before we got married and we pretty much knew each other inside and out. (We are both practicing Roman Catholics and he even has a brother who is a Catholic priest.) Together we have 3 children, 13,12 & 10. Unfortunately, our marriage did not hold together once we started a family. I found out he was watching dirty movies when I was pregnant with our oldest. I let him know how much I was hurt by this in addition to it being wrong anyway. I felt he was disrespecting me. Well, guess he didn’t care much because he continued to sneek behind my back and I continued to find out. This in itself is not really a big deal as in time it did end, but it was the start of his lack of communication. I’ve always been one to confront my problems/ situations immediately before they have a chance to get worse; my husband, once we were married, chose to and continues to choose to shut down, ignore, walk away from anything he doesn’t know how to handle. Whenever I try to talk to him, it is like talking to a brick wall because I don’t get any kind of response from him. In time, I had to just stop trying because I hurt so bad and just couldn’t handle it anymore. Right after 9/11/2001, I hit my breaking point. It was at this time that I knew that God was the only thing that was going to get me through this. I had to do something drastic because I had 3 small children at home to take care of, without any help from their father. So I started to pray a lot and I shut off my feelings so I wouldn’t have to feel the intense pain. Okay, so a lot has happened between then and now. In the past few years, I have been very involved with my Parish and that has been good for me, but things are getting worse at home and I just feel like crawling into a hole to die. (NO, I am not suicidal!!) My 12 year old daughter is bi-polar (among other things) and quite verbally and physically abusive toward me. Her father doesn’t discipline her, in fact, he spoils her, probably because he doesn’t want her to turn on him. I have no cooperation when it comes to housework or anything else because when I attempt to discipline the kids, he lets them do what they want and undermine my authority. This environment is toxic for all of us. My kids don’t know what a healthy relationship is. Because of all our issues, people have stopped calling us since we never bother calling them, and we end up spending all our time doing nothing more than getting on each other’s nerves. Not exactly something you wake up and look forward to each day. I don’t know what I should do. I keep praying about it, asking God to point me in the right direction, that I will do whatever it is he wills for me, but I’m still without a clue. I have thought about divorce and told myself that I don’t think God wants things to be as they are, but on one hand I know that when you have faith in God he will take care of you- just trust him, but on the other hand, if I am making the wrong decision, is he still going to get me through it? On top of everything else, I learned a few years ago that I have ADD which answers a lot of questions to why I handle things in the way that I do and why I am so overwhelmed all the time. I am quite needy in the support department but totally without support. I work part time at a Catholic School 3 hrs a day when school is in session, not enough to support yourself and 3 kids on, maybe enough for food and gas! I also have some serious health issues (brought on by excessive stress) that I have to keep under control by strict diet and I really need to keep my stress to a minimum. So, does anyone have any advice for me? I initially came upon this post by looking for something on the Retrouvaille retreat, wondering if I should try that route even though I don’t have the faith that anything will help. And if you are wondering about intimacy, we haven’t had any in 10 years. Thanks for reading this.

Colleen
 
The situation you are in is dreadful. The one thing which is certain is that you can’t let things drag on like this for much longer. If you do, your own health will suffer ( it sounds like that is already starting ) and then where will your kids be?

I am not a qualified counsellor, but in my opinion you need to decide if there is any possibility your relationship can be saved. If you think it can then get counselling as soon as possible, and tell your husband that he HAS to go, or you’re leaving. If he refuses, or if you think the relationship is beyond repair, then you should leave him, if only for the sake of your children. (You should yourself be getting counselling anyway).
The right to apply for an annulment is available for all Catholics. There are many reasons why annulment might be granted, especially if you were young when you married. There is absolutely no sin in asking for an annulment. The first step is either your Parish Priest ( though he may know less than you about it) or your local marriage tribunal, often ( in my country at least ) at the nearest Cathedral.

You MUST NOT let this drag on.You deserve better out of life. Bearing with suffering can no doubt be a sign of being a good Christian, but no sane person believes that God wants us to suffer just for it’s own sake.

People on here will tell you to pray about it…sound advice, but no substitute for doing something else as well. God bless you, and I am sure everyone who reads your sad letter will be praying for you.
 
Dear Cstar,
Yes, I agree with Verum that you should find counsellor to counsel your situation. But have you ever talked to the priest when it started to happen?? It seems that you just handle it by yourself with all burden without any help from someone who may give you some advice for your marriage situation before.(based on your words :I’ve always been one to confront my problems/ situations immediately before they have a chance to get worse; my husband, once we were married, chose to and continues to choose to shut down, ignore, walk away from anything he doesn’t know how to handle.)
I’m sorry if my words were not appropriate, I don’t mean to judge you or hurt you and sorry if I misintrepreted your words. What I want to say that everyone needs someone to talk to about their problems. Because it may not be handled by oneself.
And yes, I’m sure that everyone here will pray for you like Verum said. God bless
 
Wina,

I have been to 3 different counselors over the years. The first one, back in 2001, straight out told me that I needed to go back to school, get a job, and get divorced. That was not the kind of advice I needed, I was looking for ways to deal with and work with my situation. I had 3 small children at home that needed me and I was depressed, how was I supposed to do that? Then, a couple years later, I saw a psychiatrist from the same office as my daughter’s psychiatrist because I was having frequent anxiety attacks and I also wanted to address the ADD issue. He wasn’t very helpful at all as I recall, I switched to a counselor from the same office whom I did feel comfortable with. Her concern was to build me up, get me stronger, which I did, in fact, she started getting information from me to help her other clients. At the same time, I was trying to get my husband to go to counseling too. I suggested that we go individually first so the counselor could here both sides of the story without interuptions from either of us and so we could start working on our own issues before getting to the tougher ones. He went once and never again. I have suggested talking to a priest and he got very angry at the suggestion - why would he want to do that? When everything first started going wrong, nobody suggested going to a priest to talk about it - I didn’t know people who did that sort of thing. Even now, I am hesitant, as if I feel like I am not worthy of his time. Also, I know I need to see a counselor, and I’ve been looking into it, spending countless hours reading profiles on the internet (this is my ADD) and never making a decision. I need people to help me by keeping me accountable but nobody wants that job. Unless you have adult ADD, you have no idea how it affects a person. Since you are reading this, I will tell you that I will call and make an appointment Monday morning, I have someone in mind to call. I still don’t know if I have enough guts to talk to our parish priest, we’ll see how I feel when I get to church today.
 
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