why should the unhappily married suffer?

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I was inspired by this thread:
forums.catholic-questions.org/showthread.php?t=77954
to write this.

Now, before you think I’m attacking Catholics - I am not. My religion (Jehovah’s Witness) is the same way. When you’re married, that’s it. And unless one person cheats on the other, there’s no way out of it.

This isn’t necessarily a religious discussion because you can clearly see in the bible (ANY bible) that marriage is a SERIOUS issue and you shouldn’t enter it blindly. Divorce is at an extremely high rate and that’s disturbing for sure.

NOw that I’ve gotten the clarification out of the way, I want your personal opinions on this.

I think that there are lots of reasons a person becomes unhappy in a marriage. If you are severely unhappied why should we simply say to these poor people “oh god has a plan for you. stick it out.”

Do any of you know what it is like to be in a DEEP depression over something as big as your MARRIAGE? There’s no sticking it out with stuff like that. That is TOUGH stuff.

There are extenuating circumstances to everything in life. Life is not black and white. It is a million shades of grey.

What do you all (as Catholics or any religion) think is a valid reason for divorce? I believe (and I could be wrong) that the only reason JWs accept is adultery. Even then they want you to work through it (which is fine in some cases, not so fine in others). I think if you were being beaten they would accept that too, but I’m not entirely sure. One would hope so.

Thoughts?
 
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Jaded27:
I was inspired by this thread:
forums.catholic-questions.org/showthread.php?t=77954
to write this.

Now, before you think I’m attacking Catholics - I am not. My religion (Jehovah’s Witness) is the same way. When you’re married, that’s it. And unless one person cheats on the other, there’s no way out of it.
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The Catholic position is that even if there is infidelity- there is generally no grounds for divorce or invalidating the marriage. If the marriage is determined not to have any problems with sacramental validity.
This isn’t necessarily a religious discussion because you can clearly see in the bible (ANY bible) that marriage is a SERIOUS issue and you shouldn’t enter it blindly. Divorce is at an extremely high rate and that’s disturbing for sure.

NOw that I’ve gotten the clarification out of the way, I want your personal opinions on this.

I think that there are lots of reasons a person becomes unhappy in a marriage. If you are severely unhappied why should we simply say to these poor people “oh god has a plan for you. stick it out.”
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Because that is the morally right thing to do. What God has joined together- let no man put asunder.
Do any of you know what it is like to be in a DEEP depression over something as big as your MARRIAGE? There’s no sticking it out with stuff like that. That is TOUGH stuff.
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WHAT??? We often have issues that are hard to deal with. We find ways to endure- God asks us to pick up our cross (our problems) and continue our path through life toward Him- ANYWAY.
There are extenuating circumstances to everything in life. Life is not black and white. It is a million shades of grey.

What do you all (as Catholics or any religion) think is a valid reason for divorce? I believe (and I could be wrong) that the only reason JWs accept is adultery. Even then they want you to work through it (which is fine in some cases, not so fine in others). I think if you were being beaten they would accept that too, but I’m not entirely sure. One would hope so.

Thoughts?
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Civil divorce is not the same as a Catholic declaration of the invalidity of a marriage. Canon Law does not allow Catholics to take a valid, sacramental marriage and say it never was.

One can have a civil divorce, but if the Catholic Church determines that all the necessary pieces were in place for the marriage to have taken place- there cannot be subsequent marriages in the Catholic Church of either of the divorced spouses. To do so would be adultery.

See:

ourladyswarriors.org/canon/c0840-1165.htm#par2169
 
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Shiann:
Because that is the morally right thing to do. What God has joined together- let no man put asunder.
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Even if your mate is an alcoholic who beats you everyday? And your kids? You should let no man put that asunder?
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Shiann:
WHAT??? We often have issues that are hard to deal with. We find ways to endure- God asks us to pick up our cross (our problems) and continue our path through life toward Him- ANYWAY.
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This obviously from someone who has never dealt with depression or anxiety. What I said was " Do any of you know what it is like to be in a DEEP depression over something as big as your MARRIAGE?"
I said it’s a tough thing. Anyone who’s ever been in a bad marriage would know that.
I don’t think you fully grasped the point of my post or what was behind it.
 
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Jaded27:
Even if your mate is an alcoholic who beats you everyday? And your kids? You should let no man put that asunder?
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The Church does not advocate a woman (or man) remaining in this type of abusive relationship. She (or He) is allowed to seperate from their spouse.

If the abusive mate is unwilling to seek help- the other spouse is free to seek an invalidation. We may be able to assume that there is probably evidence that the marriage sacrament was faulty in some way to begin with (people don’t develop these unhealthy issues overnight)- and the Church could then seek invalidating the marriage if possible. But even if the marriage was found to be valid- the abused spouse is not required to live with the spouse and ‘take it’.

For the sake of their health- and that of the children, they would seek other housing, but the abused spouse would be unable to seek marriage with another.
This obviously from someone who has never dealt with depression or anxiety. What I said was " Do any of you know what it is like to be in a DEEP depression over something as big as your MARRIAGE?"
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You aught not presume to know what I have or have not dealt with. The issue you present is hypothetical. Let’s leave personal issues out of it.

I realize you were taking the example to its extreme, and yet you are not hearing the fact that God gives us HARD things to deal with EVERY DAY- wether it’s loss of spouse or children, disease, death, distruction of everything we have, pain- you name it.

Deep depression isn’t the end all of all terrible things we are faced with while on this earth.

But regardless of the circumstances of our life- we are called TO DO GOD’s WILL. Of which is not to abandon the valid sacrament of marriage.
I said it’s a tough thing. Anyone who’s ever been in a bad marriage would know that.
I don’t think you fully grasped the point of my post or what was behind it.
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I certainly did GRASP the point of your post, and what was behind it. I just don’t agree with your assumption that depression- no matter how deep is enough to disolve a valid marriage.
 
I was just thinking…
Is the answer to deep depression divorce?
Maybe the person in that situation would be better served by working through the marriage with his/her spouse.

Since when is suffering new to us? It happens to everyone. We can either try to get rid of it or ignore it, but I think it’s better to accept it as a part of life that allows us to grow stronger and closer to God. At least for Catholics, we can unite our sufferings with Christ’s suffering on the cross. He suffered more than I ever have.

Also, I am not talking about physically or otherwise abusive relationships. They are not the same.

God bless.
 
Jaded,

I’ve wondered similarly myself, and there are definitely no easy answers.

What I’m going to put forth here is not what I think THE answer is. I don’t think there is any ONE answer for every given situation. That’s why it’s always important to remember that God knows everyone’s heart and situation.

However, in doing some studying of Pope John Paul’s work on the Theology of the Body, I came to some realizations and understanding about the nature of marriage that I had never considered before.

When we say that God created man and woman in his image, there’s far more significance to that than what meets the eye. As Pope JPII points out, our physical bodies are intended to help us experience the divine and to come to know Him more deeply as a result.

Marriage and sexual love are a mirror of the divine Love that God has for the Son, and by extension, for the love that God has for humankind.

Because of this, when we are in a relationship where we are not loved as we ought (I’m not talking about abuse here…that’s been discussed already), we in a small way experience the pain that God experiences because of our sinfulness and imperfections. Same is true for experiencing adultery in a relationship: remember how many times God referred to Israel as an unfaithful spouse.

My point here is this: these kinds of situations are painful, but allowed by God to provide us the opportunity to come to know Him more deeply. And, in coming to know Him more deeply, we learn to rely on Him to give us the grace to endure any situation.

Remember the scripture that says, “God will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear.” If God allows, it, I can handle it with His help.

This is an oversimplification, but I just put it out there to put the suffering of an unhappily married spouse in a different light. They suffer, and in a small way, understand how God suffers, too…United with that CAN be a spiritually deepening experience.

Just a thought… 🙂

JP Augustine
 
Why is the first thought of those in a severely unhappy marriage divorce. I know exactly what it is like to be depressed over your marriage but I also know God is able to help you through it.

The first few years of our marriage were terrible. We fought constantly. I was depressed all of the time, doing nothing but watching TV, sleeping, and spending money we didn’t have. My husband was also miserable and looked for any project he could to keep away from the house. This continued on until our child was about five and for some unknown reason we decided to build a house. That is a difficult process for those who are happily married, it is the kiss of death for those in the shape we were in.

When it came time to move, I seriously thought of jumping ship. I was even counseled by relatives that things weren’t working, just cut my losses and get the divorce. Only my stubborn streak and the thought of sharing custody of my son kept me from making that choice.

I was at the end of my rope and had no where to turn. I did a revolutionary thing, I turned it all over to God. I don’t know why it took me so long, but I just prayed that His Will be done in my marriage. I turned over control of the checkbook to my husband, and started to try to live life again.

It seemed that at each little step I took toward my husband, he took one toward me. The time between fights became longer and longer. There were actually moments of fun around the house. The projects he found outside of the home were now accompanied by a request for me & our son to go with him.

After a few years, I looked around and realized that there is no one in the world that I would rather spend time with than my husband. We talk for hours each night about the mundane things of life as well as theological discussions. We look forward to trips as a family and weekends away as a couple.

I know that none of this is through our own work. I can clearly see God’s Hand every step of the way. I just know that even in the terrible times, He had a plan for our marriage. I thank God that we both were so stubborn to not give up on our marriage. It would have been easy.There is a reason it is “until death do you part”.
 
I say the reason you stay is because the plan or mission you have been given is not for you, it is for the glory of God. Your personal experience of pleasure is a matter of profound insignificance in the Universal scheme of things. God wants man and woman to bond for life. I vote we let God have his way.
 
Although there is no such thing as divorce in the Catholic Church, it is sometimes necessary for a couple to live apart. But because marriage is indissoluble, except by death, the divorced persons may not remarry.

So I would say that the unhappily married who have done everything humanly (and spiritually) possible to amend the situation, and for whom there appears to be no hope of reconciliation do not have to suffer by living together. If they “suffer” because they cannot re-marry, that is not a problem with the Pope or with the Catholic Church, it is a problem with Jesus Christ who removed the option of divorce which the Jews had allowed.
 
If you’re looking for someone with experience with an unhappy marriage you found her.

My husband was an alcoholic, drug using, porn addicted, chronically depressed and even was unfaithful so I think I can speak from experience. I married him when I was 18 years old. I do not believe in divorce. I believe in helping your spouse get to heaven. If he had been physically abusive he would have had to move out but I would not have divorced him. We came to a crisis point in our marriage where I didn’t know if we would make it. It was the most painful time in my life. I crieed until there were no more tears left to cry. We had an 18 month old daughter and I constantly worried about the effects this would have on her. We decided to to a Retrouvaille weekend kind of as a last resort. It was the turning point in our marriage.

My husband has been clean and sober for 7 years, no more porn, has come out of his depression (with some counseling and meds for a while). And is the most tender, loving, faithful man you’d ever meet. And an awesome dad to boot.

Marriage is very hard sometimes. You have work to keep a marriage strong and healthy. There is no such thing “I do” and then as happily ever after. If I would have walked when things were horrible I would have missed out on the wonderful marriage we have now.

I do have a friend whose husband was physically abusive. SHe married him at 17 because she had become pregnant. They went to marriage counceling for a few years and worked very hard. The now have 3 beautiful children together and he has not laid a hand on her in 14 years. They struggle sometimes, all marriages struggle sometimes but they love each other even when they don’t feel very loving toward each other.

People are incredibly unrealistic about marriage. They spent more then a year getting the wedding planned. The perfect dress. the perfect flowers ect, spend money and time for that one day to be just right. And then just expect the rest of their lives together to be happily ever after worth out putting any effort or work into their marriage. Living ewith another person for the rest of your life with his/her faults and failings is tough stuff at times. The madly in love, soulmate, perfectly happy stuff will get hit with a large dose of reality at some point. Ya’ll better be prepared.
 
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Jaded27:
Even if your mate is an alcoholic who beats you everyday? And your kids? You should let no man put that asunder?

.
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Divorce just because one is vaguely “unhappy” or “unfulfilled” or “not having one’s needs met” is not an option.
in case of abuse, or other grave reason. of course legal separation is an option, or even civil divorce if necessary to preserve the civil and legal rights of the children for instance, child support etc. What is not permitted is remarriage after divorce. The reason is that Jesus tells us marriage is a covenant between God and the couple and cannot be broken by human action. The bond exists until death.
 
One thing that you all are missing is that BOTH the husband and wife need to have the desire to stay together and work things out.

One person can’t do all the work if the other person is not interested in continuing in the marriage.

In my case, my husband is an alcoholic who is seeking a divorce. He is not at all interested in working on saving our marriage. In fact, he walked out of a couple of counseling sessions that we had after only half an hour when it was becoming obvious that he was the one that needed to change.

Our Church does allow for situations like mine in which one of the parties in the marriage was incapable at the time of the marriage to understand the sacramental nature of the covenant. Because my husband was an alcoholic at the time of our marriage (20/20 hindsight), I am going to file for annulment when our divorce comes through.

In the meantime, we are living apart. I am doing my best to live a chaste life in accordance to Church teachings. I am not dating, nor am I “looking”.
 
If you go check out the thread that inspired this one, you will see that Trista (the OP) came back and clarified that her husband is a good and decent man. There is no abuse. He is a good provider. Trista has just been feeling neglected and taken for granted.

It appears that she and her husband are at that point (after 17 years) that most people get to between 5 and 7 years (hence “the 7-year itch”). Their marriage has become routine and each is feeling unloved and therefore unloving.

All this talk of abuse, alcoholism, etc is just you guys projecting onto Trista. In the end, she is just going through what we all go through in our marriages. She and her husband need to grow into one another and fall in love again. If they treat each other in a loving manner (see 1Cor 13), they will fall in love again better than the first time. And they will be better people for the experience.

It’s happened to my wife and me several times in our long marriage.

May God have mercy on us all,
Paul
 
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Jaded27:
This obviously from someone who has never dealt with depression or anxiety. What I said was " Do any of you know what it is like to be in a DEEP depression over something as big as your MARRIAGE?"
I said it’s a tough thing…
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yes, there are many of us on this forum who have shared our struggles with deep, disabling depression, sometimes of long years standing, from many causes, including heartbreaking family situations. However, your question asks why should unhappily married people suffer. We should be asking, rather, why should anyone suffer? It is a central fact of our religion that suffering is a part of life on earth, and that all suffering can have value, even redemptive value, when united to the suffering of Christ on the cross by a free act of the will. All events and conditions of life, including joy and suffering, when offered to Christ, become the means for our sanctification and spiritual union with God.
 
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deerenan:
Why is the first thought of those in a severely unhappy marriage divorce. I know exactly what it is like to be depressed over your marriage but I also know God is able to help you through it.

The first few years of our marriage were terrible. We fought constantly. I was depressed all of the time, doing nothing but watching TV, sleeping, and spending money we didn’t have. My husband was also miserable and looked for any project he could to keep away from the house. This continued on until our child was about five and for some unknown reason we decided to build a house. That is a difficult process for those who are happily married, it is the kiss of death for those in the shape we were in.

When it came time to move, I seriously thought of jumping ship. I was even counseled by relatives that things weren’t working, just cut my losses and get the divorce. Only my stubborn streak and the thought of sharing custody of my son kept me from making that choice.

I was at the end of my rope and had no where to turn. I did a revolutionary thing, I turned it all over to God. I don’t know why it took me so long, but I just prayed that His Will be done in my marriage. I turned over control of the checkbook to my husband, and started to try to live life again.

It seemed that at each little step I took toward my husband, he took one toward me. The time between fights became longer and longer. There were actually moments of fun around the house. The projects he found outside of the home were now accompanied by a request for me & our son to go with him.

After a few years, I looked around and realized that there is no one in the world that I would rather spend time with than my husband. We talk for hours each night about the mundane things of life as well as theological discussions. We look forward to trips as a family and weekends away as a couple.

I know that none of this is through our own work. I can clearly see God’s Hand every step of the way. I just know that even in the terrible times, He had a plan for our marriage. I thank God that we both were so stubborn to not give up on our marriage. It would have been easy.There is a reason it is “until death do you part”.
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This is a really nice post and a great example of submission to God.
 
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Shiann:
The Church does not advocate a woman (or man) remaining in this type of abusive relationship. She (or He) is allowed to seperate from their spouse.

If the abusive mate is unwilling to seek help- the other spouse is free to seek an invalidation. We may be able to assume that there is probably evidence that the marriage sacrament was faulty in some way to begin with (people don’t develop these unhealthy issues overnight)- and the Church could then seek invalidating the marriage if possible. But even if the marriage was found to be valid- the abused spouse is not required to live with the spouse and ‘take it’.

For the sake of their health- and that of the children, they would seek other housing, but the abused spouse would be unable to seek marriage with another.

You aught not presume to know what I have or have not dealt with. The issue you present is hypothetical. Let’s leave personal issues out of it.

I realize you were taking the example to its extreme, and yet you are not hearing the fact that God gives us HARD things to deal with EVERY DAY- wether it’s loss of spouse or children, disease, death, distruction of everything we have, pain- you name it.

Deep depression isn’t the end all of all terrible things we are faced with while on this earth.

But regardless of the circumstances of our life- we are called TO DO GOD’s WILL. Of which is not to abandon the valid sacrament of marriage.

I certainly did GRASP the point of your post, and what was behind it. I just don’t agree with your assumption that depression- no matter how deep is enough to disolve a valid marriage.
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Okay. I don’t agree on the last point though. And you certainly weren’t speaking like anyone who has ever dealt with depression so I did jump to that conclusion. I apologize if I was wrong.
 
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rayne89:
People are incredibly unrealistic about marriage. They spent more then a year getting the wedding planned. The perfect dress. the perfect flowers ect, spend money and time for that one day to be just right. And then just expect the rest of their lives together to be happily ever after worth out putting any effort or work into their marriage. Living ewith another person for the rest of your life with his/her faults and failings is tough stuff at times. The madly in love, soulmate, perfectly happy stuff will get hit with a large dose of reality at some point. Ya’ll better be prepared.
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I definetly agree with that. I look at all my friends who had to have the perfect everything and they didn’t stop to wonder if they had found the perfect (or near perfect) match for themselves. It’s sad really.
 
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PaulDupre:
If you go check out the thread that inspired this one, you will see that Trista (the OP) came back and clarified that her husband is a good and decent man. There is no abuse. He is a good provider. Trista has just been feeling neglected and taken for granted.
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I didn’t say there was. I said this post was INSPIRED by that one, not based entirely on that one. I was giving other examples. And I felt the need to give them after my question was so easily brushed aside at the beginning. Like depression and unusual circumstances are nothing and that the whole world is so easy to split into black and white when it’s not. So I gave other examples.
 
Here’ are my thoughts on the matter…

When people raise the issue of divorce it usually is, for them, a chance to ‘start over’.

For the most part, Catholics don’t get to ‘start over’ until the spouse dies.

That’s why it is so very, very crucial that a Catholic engaged couple go through proper preparation for the covenant they’re about to enter into with each other and with God. And as parents, we have to risk some serious backlash from our kids when they come home to say “I’m getting married” one day for sitting them and their intendeds down to get into the nitty gritty of what that means for our kids as Catholics (especially if their intendeds are non-Catholics).

That being the case, yes, if there is no hope to live under the same roof because the situation is soooo horrible - by whatever definition a couple discerns - then certainly they may file for and obtain a ‘civil’ divorce, but that does not mean they are free to find love with someone else. They would, then, be in a position to seek an annulment should they wish to enter into an intimate relationship with someone else. But until an annulment is granted, they are obliged to live celibately.

So, before giving up on the marriage, the person wanting out really has to believe they are better off alone for the rest of their days than trying to work things out at home.

For me, heck, since the covenant is for a lifetime, I pace myself. I know there will be ups and downs. But the real key is knowing there are a gazillion resources available to people in the United States to help couples through some pretty horrid situations. Thing is, it takes work, and it requires each party to honestly reflect deep into their past and present. It hurts. Trust me. And as with most things in life, people prefer to take the path of least resistance. It’s much easier to resign oneself to living alone until the end of one’s days than to have to take a real hard look at oneself - warts and all.

If people think sticking it out in a difficult marriage is hard have them try serious therapy. It’s much harder, but, in the end a marriage can be saved and made anew. Almost like death and resurrection.

Even if, in the end, the marriage ends in divorce, it will come to an end with mutual agreement, it won’t be bitter, because the couple looks into the problems, owns them, recognizes they were core to their beings and not brought on by each party. This leads to amicable divorces, and when there are kids involved, I believe this is even more critical. If the couple won’t seek therapy to save the marriage, they should at least seek it to salvage a peaceful relationship for the sake of the kids after the divorce.

Bottom line, no, unhappily married couples shouldn’t be required to endure the suffering. They should be required to heal the sufferings. They should be obliged to seek help to get to the source of the pain, and work toward fixing whatever is wrong.
 
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Philena:
One thing that you all are missing is that BOTH the husband and wife need to have the desire to stay together and work things out.

One person can’t do all the work if the other person is not interested in continuing in the marriage.

In my case, my husband is an alcoholic who is seeking a divorce. He is not at all interested in working on saving our marriage. In fact, he walked out of a couple of counseling sessions that we had after only half an hour when it was becoming obvious that he was the one that needed to change.

Our Church does allow for situations like mine in which one of the parties in the marriage was incapable at the time of the marriage to understand the sacramental nature of the covenant. Because my husband was an alcoholic at the time of our marriage (20/20 hindsight), I am going to file for annulment when our divorce comes through.

In the meantime, we are living apart. I am doing my best to live a chaste life in accordance to Church teachings. I am not dating, nor am I “looking”.
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If you don’t mind my asking…
you don’t have to sign the divorce papers, do you?

It has always been my understanding, and I shared this with my husband before and after we were married, that if for whatever reason he filed for divorce, I would never sign it. Just ain’t gonna happen. He will never be free to marry another person so long as I live.

Am I wrong about that? Had the alcoholism issue not been a factor in your marriage would you still consider signing the papers, or are you signing them because you know by doing so you’ll be able to file for an annulment and truly be free to start over?
 
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