Wife wants an annulment, is it valid, what can I do?

[chevalier]

Perhaps I am under the wrong impression that lying when being interviewed by the priest for marriage preparation can invalidate a marriage?

Can. 1098 A person contracts invalidly who enters into a marriage deceived by malice, perpetrated to obtain consent, concerning some quality of the other partner which by its very nature can gravely disturb the partnership of conjugal life.

Long story short (poke me if you really want the longer story, otherwise I won’t be showing off and overloading you with information), that requires deliberately lying so as to make the partner consent to the marriage, and lying about something which is extremely important to the very core of marriage. I’m not sure how modern jurisprudence of church courts counts addresses virginity or lack of it here.

But at any rate note that deliberately lying with a malicious intent is different from staying shut and hoping that he or she won’t ask. I’m not saying that this “malice perpetrated to obtain consent” can’t come down to being silent about something very awful and very important but I don’t see the invalidating fraud where somebody not asked doesn’t volunteer the information about not being a virgin. Failing to disclose a lethal STD would be more like it.

 

[Daneam]

Joe, you have so many good plans to reconcile with your wife but it seems to me that so far you still miss the best one. That is praying …

Please remember that a lot of things are impossible for us but nothing is impossible for God …

Just a quick sharing of my own experience: Since we have the first baby (9 years ago), our marriage began to fall apart … I tried my best, as much as I can to resolve the problems but the more I tried the worse things became. Recently, I found my marriage came so close to the point of breaking up. I got so depressed that I had a serious mental break down. Finally, somethings has came across my mind. Why I have tried so hard by myself? Why haven’t I let the Mighty God help me? God wants to help me. He is more than happy to help me but I refuse to receive his assistance! The consequence is I almost kill myself by working so hard but vainly.

I started to pray … Very simple … God … You always keeps your promise even though we, humans, usually don’t … You united us through the blessing of the marriage sacrement. Please help me to resolve the problem … Please help both, me and my husband to change, adapt to each other and love each other again …

Wow, it is just a miracle … after only very short time (less than one month), things start to change … both of us change … radically …

Just a few month have passed ever since … our marriage is still not perfect … but at least we found the way out … Thanks God …

See, do you find this ridiculous … We, humans, are willing to pay around $150/hr for a psychologist to help us with family matters, which does not have any warranty of effectiveness. But the Mighty God, present deep inside of us, is always willing to tend his hands towards us but we often turn our back to this GREAT FREE OFFER.

God blesses you Joe, You can PM me your email address if you wish to have more private sharing. Thanks

Beautiful advice. I can use this advice myself in my marriage! We should all pray for him and his wife.

 

[Esfa]

I might be wrong but I feel that your wife is overreacting… Even though I understand that watching pornography is a great sin and can deteriorate a relationship, there are things much worse than this, adultery for example…Some marriages have survived even though adultery was committed by one of the spouses…
Then again I’m not married myself so I’m not an expert

 

[Daneam]

I don’t know if you read all his posts, his wife did commit adultery with another man though the relationship is over but he is still hurt.

The biggest problem now is like sex scandal in the American church the Devil has taken over the annulment tribunuals across the country and use it against the faimilies and the Holy Church.

 

[1inICXC]

What a difficult situation!

For some reason I keep thinking of “the Painted Veil”. The husband tells the wife that she may remain behind (while he leaves to some disease afflicted area as a doctor) if the guy she is having an affair with accepts to marry her. She takes him up on it but the guy refuses to marry her so she’s stuck with the husband she doesn’t love… But in the midst of trials and disease she has a change of heart.

I’m thinking of this because I don’t know how aware your wife is that while men might not have much issue having an affair with a mother of 4, marrying one is a different issue. Perhaps it will be a cold shower for her when she realizes that most good, Catholic men do not exactly line up to date divorced moms of 4!!!
Also, for all her devout Catholicism, does she think at all about her responsibilities toward her children?? Does she realize that it’s more important for them to have their father in their lives than for her to find a man who makes her happy ?

And like others have said, where does she find time to entertain emotional relationships with 4 kids under 4 at home???

 

[Esfa]

I don’t know if you read all his posts, his wife did commit adultery with another man though the relationship is over but he is still hurt.

Sorry I meant a more serious kind of adultery… never mind

 

[Daneam]

Sorry I meant a more serious kind of adultery… never mind

The most serious kind of adultery is remarriage which is adultery manifested in a public and permanent mortal sin. The only mortal sin the Church denies not only the Sacrament of Eucharist but the Sacrament of Reconciliation. You can kill someone and received absolution. You can involve in abortion, got excommunicated, confess and be reconciled with Christ and received Him in the Eucharist. The OP should do everything in his power to stop his wife obtaining an annulment because once obtained they would both think they can remarry in the Church. Normally that is true but the US Catholic marriage Tribunals have close to zero credibility and nobody in their right mind should respect their authority because statistically it is impossible with 2.5 percent of the Catholic world population but 60 percent of the annulments handed out(the rest mainly come from English speaking countries like UK, Australia and Canada).

Imagine at the pearly gate St Peter asks why should I let you in the heaven since you remarried? The OP’s wife said "oh you meant that piece of paper you need that says I did not give my consent to get married because before my first marriage I did not have the mental capacity that means I will spend the rest of my life with my husband which has something to do with consummation and raise children together therefore no marriage exist in the first place? That was the easiest piece paper to get in my life! In fact it is much easier than my divorce because the Tribunal took care everything for me, they gave me an advocate that suggested tons of reasons why I was mentally incapacitated I could not have
known in my wildest imagination. They paid for a secular psychologist that was very sure I was mentally incapacitated (96 percent of the cases in US that went through trial use this reason others use ligitimate reasons like close blood relationships) when I agreed to get married. ". St. Peter said “You wicked servant, you are not mentally retarded and you know it! You and those who help you to commit permanent adultery shall burn in hell in eternity!”

The OP’s only hope to avoid having his wife’s soul to burn in the fire of eternal hell is appeal his case directly to Rome (The US Tribunals withhold this information because they want you to use another diocese in US as secondary venue that can easily affirm the annulment) which denies 97 percent of the annulments from US that appeal to Rome. Of course some souls are so hardened they don’t care like Joe Kennedy’s annulment from his almost 20 year first marriage was rejected by Rome but he still remain married to his adulteress.

I would highly recommend Joe Kennedy’s wife Sheila Rauch Kennedy’s book Shattered Faith for her experience on the US annulment process. She basically made two points 1) she was denied the opportunity to defend her self at the Tribunal 2) And when she learned about the annulment the Tribunal never share with her the option to appeal to Rome.

We should all pray for the OP for the soul of his wife and possibly his is on the road of certain destruction.

Daniel

 

[FCGeorge]

Silly Daniel, you suppose Hell is real and that people actually go there? How uncharitable of you. Don’t you know that God is love and loving us means that He wants us to enjoy all the earthly pleasures our passions entice us towards… new wives… new husbands… He has decided after 1950 years to finally give us tribunals who will allow us to divorce an unwanted spouse and marry a wanted spouse. We just need to deny that the unwanted spouse was ever really a spouse to begin with! Dress up in our best “I was psychologically immature” costume and hold out our hands to receive our annulment candy!

I apologize for the sarcasm. Yes, this is very much about the salvation of souls. For God will be the Witness between thee and the wife of thy youth… let us not abandon her.

Bryan
LOVE SO AMAZING

 

[Daneam]

Bryon

Thanks a lot for your post! No it is truly how I feel sometimes, " Am I being silly? Because I am the only one that finds disturbing on my sister in law’s remarriage(no annulment yet and unlikely because in the Philippines the Tribunals handed out about 1500 annulments for the whole country which is less than many dioceses in US a year. But that number is the total in the history of the church that established in 1500s. So with three times of US Catholic population that average about 3 annulments a year is what can be called rare) "

Any way please pray for OP and also for me to have the courage and love in my heart to share the Church’s teaching with my wife’s family.

In Christ
Daniel