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kenwolman
Posts: 4
Joined: Jun 2004
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August 02, 2004 3:27 PM
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This goes a bit beyond "faithful Catholics." Oh...by the way...I have two identities here. kennyw and kenwolman are the same person from different accounts.
As for the article, I have so many "On the other hands" about this that I feel like one of
those Hindu deities you see in statues.
Background
My marriage effectively ended in February 1997 when my wife confronted
me with the trail of breadcrumbs I thought I was hiding, namely that
I'd been serially unfaithful to her for three years. We were both
Jews at the time, though I had lost any sense of faith long before.
Blame
In early 1993 I had begged my wife to go to marriage counseling with me--I
had barely escaped an "involvement" and really didn't want one. She
said "It's your problem, you work it out." The therapist I saw for
six months at Jewish Family Services said I had a right to be happy.
He didn't say "Go out and have an affair." But I did. And it didn't
make me happy.
Anyway, I moved out in April '97 and--details for another time--had
what amounted to a locution on June 15 of that year, a sense of Jesus
inhabiting me and calling me to Him. Very Pauline except for the
donkey and eyesight. It was both terrifying and liberating. I began
taking RCIA instruction that September. The fact it was too
short--only from September to April--is not the point, at least now.
In December 1997 divorce papers were filed. I entered the Church in
April 1998. The final dissolution was in October. A Jewish man
starts the divorce process and a Catholic man finishes it. What was
this marriage?
Who's On First?
I received no unanimous opinion from priests in the Archdiocese of
Newark. I was told that the Church recognized the religiously
solemnized marriages of other faiths as equally binding as Catholic
marriage. Ergo, annulment. Then I was told that I could fit into a
loophole of the Pauline Privilege: one partner finds Jesus, the other
doesn't, let them go their ways in peace and for only $50 bucks
instead of several hundred.
I had a spiritual director, a Jesuit in New York, who recommended a
Church dissolution of some kind. I had no clue about the grounds.
"The marriage was consummated, we have two children." "No," he said.
"How old were you and how did you and your wife feel when you
married?"
"I was just 25, she was 24. We were madly in love."
"Okay," he said. "But did you have any idea of the spiritual and
lifetime commitment you were making? Did you understand the Jewish
concept of marriage, let alone the Catholic?"
"I had no clue" I replied. "Nobody told us anything."
"Bingo" he said.
See, there was no marriage preparation. We didn't even have a
conversation with the rabbi, who would have been a lousy counselor
anyway because two weeks after our wedding, he and his wife had a
screaming fight in front of their parsonage, a fight that climaxed in
the wife throwing her ring in his face. Believe in bad omens?
Yes and No
One the one hand...I believe today that if I had not left my marriage
I would probably be dead now of a stroke, suicide, or alcoholism. I
was living in Hell. The components of that Hell--my part, her
part--become immaterial after a time. What matters is that it had
become a horror. I did not have the nerve to leave except that
blessedly I finally got caught. Otherwise I might still be there,
moral blinders intact, or probably incapacitated or dead.
On the other hand...I have some surely heterodox sense of why the
Church barely tolerates divorce. The process takes two people who
used to love each other and pits them against each other like a pair
of wild animals. It is dehumanizing to both parties and the scars do
not heal. Believe nothing you read about one month per year of
marriage: it's a lie. They don't go away unless you stayed inebriated
the entire time.
What Becomes of the Broken Hearted (in Church)?--a Plea for Recognition
I would be remiss if I did not suggest how some local parishes--my
first one--treat the divorced convert. We can receive the Sacraments.
But we are also ignored, shunted aside, cordially made invisible when
it comes to participation in parish life, either socially or in any
ministerial capacity. Nobody will say this out loud. But Ray Charles
could have seen it. This is not a reason not to divorce: it is a
suggestion to the parishes and dioceses that they pay some close
attention to the reality the article points out and not shut out an
increasing part of their attendees.
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39. Not observing the imperfections of others, preserving silence and a continual communion with God will eradicate great imperfections from the soul and make it the possessor of great virtues.
~St. John of the Cross, Maxims on Love (The Minor Works)
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Anonymous II
Posts: 1
Joined: Mar 2006
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March 10, 2006 12:47 PM
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My story,
My husband from the day we were married was involved in Pornography, I stayed and tried, VALIANTLY, for almost 2 decades, dragging him and me to therapy more times than I can count. I accidentally found out as I decided to leave that he had child pornography. Now how DANGEROUS to our children was it to stay??? I say this, sometimes HELP is needed. I have been gone for long enough to know that my children and I ARE happier. I can sleep, eat, and think the depression may be disappearing perhaps forever. I became a "Faithful Catholic" AFTER we were married. I left him once 8 months into the marriage. I stayed and had a "large" family, then buried myself in the children and my newly discovered Faith. My faith was used against me by my husband. I truly love our Lord and our Church. I may have to live the rest of my life alone if I cannot get an annulment, or wait for my soon to be ex to die, in order to remarry, but that I can live with. I no longer agree to live with the emotional abuse, for my children or my sake. I also believe I would have ended up dead from suicide. I finally left because I realized that it was better for my children to have one functional parent than to loose me to his illness, sexual addiction.
We were VERY unprepared as a couple, we were even asked which kind of birth control we would use. I truly believe that the Church is STILL failing couples, 8 classes doesn't even begin to cover it!!!
My true prayer is that our society and Church begin to take seriously the declining morals and understanding of marriage.
JMJ---AMDG!!!
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menolly
Posts: 1
Joined: Dec 2006
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December 18, 2006 8:41 AM
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Thank you for this article. I, myself, am struggling with this. After 18 years of marriage, 9 children, and trying hard to be a faithful Catholic (weekly fasting, Mass, years of nightly Rosary with children and sometimes husband), I am discovering a long history of lying on my husband's part. There were other problems before that, which I'd boil down to him not separating emotionally from his family. One of the things that made me question my ability to continue in this marriage was the fact given here, that most couples are happy 5 years later, if they just stick it out. I have stuck it out, I have prayed, and not only have things not improved, I have discovered they were even worse than I thought, with lies and questionable relationships with at least three other women. I look at his past and it's not surprising that he turned to lying as a way to cope, but it is absolutely intolerable to be in a marriage where you never know what the truth is.
At the same time. I do not want to be guilty of bailing 'just because I'm unhappy.' Yet I can't at this point comprehend another 40 years of lies and deceptions and lack of loyalty.
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