Divorce/Annulment

It has been a few months since my class on annulments in the Catholic Church. I digested the information, which gave me an acute case of indigestion and anger and decided that would be my last class that I would ever attend on the subject of divorce and annulment.

Divorce – annulment…what is the difference? Divorce is the civil dissolution of marriage. Annulment just nulls and voids a marriage and is given the stamp of approval, much like the Good Housekeeping stamp of approval, and the blessing of the church. It says you were never really married in the first place.

I was married for almost 33 years, had nine children and a husband, who walked away from me and our whole married life. He filed for divorce and I became an ex wife. But if I ever wanted to remarry in the Catholic church, I would have to file papers, go through a list of questions, and my ex could choose to respond to the papers that he would get or not. Whatever the case, I have no intention of doing this and hope my ex doesn’t even try for an annulment. To me it would be like going through a second divorce and all that pain all over again. Even though I was married all those years and had all those children, if my spouse would file for an annulment, it probably would go through. To think that my marriage could be declared null and void, I wonder, how could the children be from a marriage that never existed?

In my class I watched a video explaining annulment by a priest, who probably had a law degree, and wondered what does he know about marriage and a family? He spoke in such a matter of fact voice, detached and without feeling. He has taken a vow of celibacy and he will never know the pain of having a spouse walk out of his life and have his heart broken like that. The Church has its own criteria for an annulment. It takes a while, some money, a lot of paper work, and I am sure a lot of personal anguish. Seldom does the Church turn down an annulment. From the questions I have seen, any marriage can be found wanting.

I actually thought about my marriage. I believe that both my ex and I were in love, wanted to be married, wanted children and always thought that our marriage would end when one or the other died. Our parents’ marriage seemed to be good ones as well. I can honestly say that our marriage was also a good one. Whatever happened to make my husband leave me is still a mystery to me. He never bothered to explain why he left. For whatever reason how could the church figure out what went wrong and therefore how could they grant an annulment stating that we were never married in the first place.

I am not a scholar of the church. I am just a member of the Catholic Church and find however or whatever they think…they too are condoning the end of a marriage. I know nothing is ever just black or white. But I guess what I am saying is just acknowledge that this is a divorce and stop playing with the terminology. Stop playing with the words and call an annulment, what it really is, the catholic version of divorce. I along with a lot of other people see it that way.

Divorce/annulment for me is that they are different in that one is a civil dissolution of marriage where one pays lawyers and the court usually grants it. Annulment is the Catholic divorce, where you pay the church and they dissolve your marriage. They declare it null and void, as if it never happened and give it the Church’s blessing. Tell that to your children and your broken heart because neither exists in this bizarre pronouncement. Regardless of the outcome, I just don’t agree with annulment. I don’t agree with the terminology. I don’t care if it has the Catholic slant or the Approval of the Church. When all the words are dissected and cut away, and when you really look at it for what it is – it is a divorce, plain and simple.

I think there is something called hypocrisy in all of this. Maybe annulment should really be called what it is – “divorce, catholic style.”