The other day a woman posted on a fb group I am in about how she has seen five counselors with her husband over the course of their seven year marriage and he puts 0 effort into their relationship, has said and done manipulative things to her, and is a bad influence on their children, and essentially the things she shared were legitimate grounds for an annulment. And you know what these ignorant broads had to say?
“Oh it sounds like a love language issue! Just learn each other’s love languages!”
I hate to say it to my fellow Catholics, but annulment is a thing for a reason. Separation from your spouse (in the cases where the marriage is valid and sacramental) is a thing for a reason. Sometimes, sinful people make stupid mistakes and marry the wrong type of other sinful person: the type who do not repent, refuse to repent, and do not show any interest or sign in changing themselves for their vocation or for God.
In these cases, it is necessary to not only protect the sacredness of matrimony by stopping the sham excuse of a “marriage”, but to also protect the health and dignity of the persons involved. Annulment is not an “easy out” and is in fact a very lengthy, detailed process, and exists for the very reason of protecting both the Sacrament of Marriage and the people in that Sacrament who are being spiritually, emotionally, mentally, and/or physically harmed. And in those cases where the marriage is sacramental, or while the annulment process is ongoing, separation/civil divorce may be necessary for the protection of people involved.
At some point, learning about the love languages won’t do jack squat for the manipulative prick who tricked a poor woman into marrying him for his convenience. If several professionals could not turn this man around then a cute philosophy on relationship dynamics sure as hell won’t.
We live in a broken world, and sometimes that means broken marriages or families. We need to acknowledge that these hurt people exist and that they have safe, licit ways to go about their dilemmas.
Calling this an “anullment” is appallingly bad. What you’re talking about is a divorce. You are counseling this woman to get a divorce. “These things are legitimate grounds for an anullment” — no they aren’t, they aren’t even close to the canonical ground for annulling a marriage. What they are, however, are the exact same kinds of reasons that non-Catholics frequently give for getting a divorce. Because that’s what this would be: a divorce.
This is what maddens me about contemporary Roman Catholic use of annullments: what you have is a situation where divorces are granted as a matter of course, only you have woven yourselves a backdoor made of special pleading, willful ignorance, and legal sophistry so that you can do so while simultaneously boasting that you honor the commandment of the Lord that there should be no divorce.
Liars and hypocrites. If you wish to allow divorces, do it openly and desist from your pride.
hey I too think that Catholics should allow divorce
Here in the Orthodox church we “allow divorce”, in precisely the same sense that we “allow murder”: divorce (and murder) is a sin, but as with all sins it can be remitted with confession and repentance. This is a reasonable way of honoring the Lord’s commandment while operating in the fallen world.
The Catholics, however, definitely don’t allow divorce, no way at all. But, you know, there’s this long list of ways that we can conveniently discover that you were never married in the first place.
You should stop believing this then.
Honestly, at what point does the right for kids to not be raised in a toxic, miserable household override any sacramental pearl-clutching over annulment/divorce (they’re functionally synonymous in this case)? And why are converts to Orthodoxy like the most annoying sorts of reactionaries?
Can ignorant fuckers who know nothing about my faith not talk on a post about annulments and unhealthy relationships? Thanks.
For a marriage to be valid, it must be full, fruitful, and free. If you get married to an asshole who tricked you, and they end up being abusive, abortive, and taxing, then there were things that were hidden from you at the time the vows were exchanged. Their vows can be discovered to have been invalid at the time of making them. if the person had no true intention of caring for the other person, til death do them part, for better or for worse, in sickness or in health, then the vows were LIES. If they lied, they were never truly married in the first place. Their vows were invalid. If they do show signs that they’re trying as hard as they can to be better, there’s always counselling that is recommended before anullment. Pull your head out of your ass, instead of getting pissed off at hearing the very surface level of our belief.
Obscure Fandoms 