Mending the Heart. Lisa Duffy

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СКАЧАТЬ by little, I received answers from the priest who was counseling me during that time. And after getting myself through those first horrible months of overwhelming pain — pain so intense that it felt as though I should have died because of it, I began to wonder about the annulment process and whether or not it was right for me. I was thirty years old at the time, and although my preference was to reconcile with my husband and remain married, that option had been declined by my ex-spouse. Looking ahead to the future, the idea of being alone for the rest of my life seemed like cruel and unusual punishment. I was confident my vocation in life was to marriage, and I was distraught at the idea of facing the future by myself.

      I really didn’t know anything about the annulment process, just that it was an option for Catholics in my position. Yet every time I entertained the idea of “getting an annulment” — as I had heard it put so many times — I had this nagging feeling that something wasn’t quite right.

      How could it be that I stood before God, family, and friends the day we got married and pledged my life to my husband, for better or for worse, but suddenly the State of California could step in and declare my marriage was over? It was supposed to be a permanent relationship. How does that happen? Before the ink had barely dried on the divorce papers, my ex-spouse was calling someone else his wife. According to just about everyone else, that was it. Our marriage was over. But I was convinced there had to be more to it than that. It seemed so easy — too easy — for something that was supposed to last forever to be suddenly over at the crack of a gavel. Something was very wrong and unsettling about that.

      There was a lot I needed to do before I could consider the possibility of going through the annulment process. I had so many questions, and it was a bit overwhelming. Many people I talked to about it had varying opinions — sometimes polar opposites — and I ended up not really knowing what to think.

      Your circumstances may be altogether different from mine. Maybe you were not abandoned by your spouse but were pushed to the point of making the choice to divorce because of some sort of abuse. There are many scenarios that could bring you to this point. But no matter what your situation is, you probably also feel that there has to be more to the annulment process than receiving a simple, albeit expensive, piece of paper. I’d like to walk down this path with you and help you sort through this complex situation. If there is a time to tear, and in this sense I refer to the shredding of a marriage contract, then there definitely is a time to mend, a time to heal. And from my perspective, the annulment process truly is a time for mending and healing.

      My goal in this chapter is to start with the basic premise of the annulment process and discuss in simple terms what it actually is, and why it can be important to go through it.

       Our Unfortunate Reality

      God designed marriage to be a permanent, exclusive, lifelong relationship that is open to new life. Strong marriages and families are the building blocks of society. Our unfortunate reality, however, is that divorce has become commonplace, even expected, and many Catholics today find themselves divorced, whether intentionally or not. For some, divorce is an excuse to exit an unhappy marriage. For others, it is forced upon them, whether they are the abandoned spouse or are compelled to choose that option as a means of protection from an abusive relationship. This is not some bogus way of saying divorce is okay, because it’s not okay. But it is the reality we live in, and it is a crisis we need to deal with on a realistic level.

      So the Catholic Church offers us an effective tool for clarification and healing in the annulment process. You might think of it as the Church’s way of helping people set the record straight and move forward in life with certainty when a state’s government has ruled that a marriage contract ceases to exist. Because we, as Catholics, don’t believe marriage is just a simple legal contract but an actual institution and sacrament, there are far more ramifications than just dividing property and parting ways.

      The annulment process can seem intimidating and overwhelming if you are standing on the outside looking in. Many people who consider starting this process wonder whether or not it is worthwhile to spend their time and energy rehashing the past and all its painful memories. This aspect of the process is deeply sobering and can be quite intimidating. The whole thing can also sound like a lot of legal hassle — filling out forms and selecting witnesses for testimony, in-person depositions with canon lawyers, etc. If you’ve just gone through a court battle for a civil divorce, going through yet another legal procedure for the Church probably doesn’t seem very palatable.

      A good friend of mine, Dan Flaherty, shares his perspective:

      My view of the annulment process going in was that it was just “Catholic divorce” — not so much in theory, where I understood the teaching of the Church, but in terms of the way it was actually practiced. I believed that the tribunals simply processed the applications like bureaucrats.

      My one-on-one interview with a tribunal representative was different. The person questioning me was compassionate and non-judgmental, yet still looking for information. In contrast to the divorce courts, which only asked how assets were to be divided, the tribunal rep was asking questions about conditions prior to the marriage, in terms of both the relationship and with me as an individual.

      I still recall at one point recounting something in particular and shuddering. A nerve was hit. Deep down, I knew that the marriage had been doomed from the start, and everything about the process — from the personal interview to the questionnaire — confirmed me in that belief.

      One thing I would also say to anyone entering the annulment process is that you get out of it what you put into it. I chose to treat it as a time when I was in a spiritual hospital, as it were. I began seeing a Catholic therapist. It’s certainly possible to go through the process and get only minimal benefit — the number of times I actually spoke to the tribunal or wrote a document couldn’t have been more than two–three times over the course of a year-plus. But if you take the wounds that are exposed during those handfuls of times and work on them outside the annulment process, you get the most this healing time can offer.

      I can’t say the sense of guilt over the failure of the marriage has gone away, but today it is manageable. It wasn’t when I began the process.

      You might read Dan’s story and know exactly what he is describing. Stories like his are common among people entertaining the idea of going through the annulment process.

      So let’s unpack all of this and try to get to a basic understanding of it.

       A Simple Breakdown of the Annulment Process

      Simply put, the annulment process is a tool. Using the details you provide about your marriage relationship, the people involved in the annulment process — you, your ex-spouse, the case assistant (someone appointed by a parish to help walk you through the process), and the canon lawyers — can create a “big picture” scenario to determine whether or not a valid marriage was brought into being on the day of your wedding. Just as a doctor uses tools to detect what might be ailing you — a stethoscope, an X-ray machine, an electrocardiogram — the information you provide and the testimony of your witnesses are tools that assist the tribunal in being able to see what caused your marriage to fail. More importantly, this information helps them determine whether or not you had a valid marriage bond to begin with. This brings us to a very important theme that goes along with the impact of the annulment process: whether or not you had a valid marriage.

      For my part, this assertion that I may not have had a valid marriage was one of the most difficult aspects I wrestled with when I was contemplating whether or not to go through the annulment process. The mere idea sounded insulting because I knew without a doubt that I had taken my vows seriously, and to consider the possibility that the marriage never СКАЧАТЬ