[SavingGrace]

T,

What is faith? Faith in what? It is subjective.

I want to encourage you my dear friend that the faith you seek is not in the marriage or in the restoration of your marriage. These are by products of the faith you seek. Faith in what is not the question. It is faith in who?

Jesus's first miracle was the wedding at Cana. The first sign of the coming of the Lord was revealed in the celebration of a marriage. Jesus turned water into wine. This miracle was not meant for the people to embrace the wine only as the gift, but the wine was pointing to Jesus as the Anointed One. Our faith is in Him, driving us to yearn and desire Him, to love Him and to want His will and His mercy in our lives. When we live firmly in this bedrock of truth, the gifts of marriage, children, abundant blessings and even sufferings are all part of the divine plan for our lives. The central core, the unchanging reality and relationship with God that teaches us to embrace our daily life and how to live it, is faith. It is not subjective. It is truth, an ever present abiding truth in the love of God and His love for you. Our marriages are benevolent gifts from God. They are means to live our faith walk. If our marriages have been destroyed, it is up to us to live by faith in God that He will heal and reveal all things in due time. We may never be able to dissect and interpret all the reasons why these things happened to us or seek the future for us from these events. To do this is not an act of faith, it is our human response to try and understand why. It is our limited understanding and grasping how to fix something in our human capacity. Faith requires us to overcome the need to dissect these matters and allow God to work in our lives healing us, teaching us and blessing us in our brokenness and sorrow.

Faith is a relationship. All else flows from this relationship.

[Anjae]

Thundarr, what about starting with having faith and believing in yourself and that your wife is in MLC? Then, one day at a time. You seen to doubt too much that your wife is in MLC. You being a therapist should be more able than most of us to get that your wife in unwell.

Ok, I know, MLC makes us doubt ourselves, our marriages, our sanity, and for those who are religious even their Faith in God. Still, you’re here on the board, you have the knowledge a therapist has, you have all the tools to allow to get what is going on with your wife, so why do you keep doubting it? Why do you beat yourself like you do? It is not healthy, it does not do you, the kids, the possibility of a reconciliation any good.

I dare say you are exhausted and in need of rest and of finding ways of reducing the anxiety.

[TrustingMyHP]

This is one interesting thread.  I've just caught up with it.

I consider myself a "recovering lapsed Catholic."  I was raised in the Church but stopped practicing when I was 17.  I married my H when I was 20 in a civil ceremony presided over by a justice of the peace.  God, sadly, was nowhere in my marriage vows.

I slowly began to return to the Church 7 years ago, 5 years before BD.  Frankly the fact my H and I had not married in the Church was a non-issue for me.  I hadn't even thought about it as being a potential "problem." 

In a recent discussion with the abbot of an abbey I was visiting, he told me that, since I didn't marry in the Church, the Church does not consider me to be married.  He also (kindly but clearly) told me that, as far as the Church is concerned, I'd been living as a fornicator for the 37 years my H and I lived together.

He was very sympathetic to my pain and to the horror of my H's abandonment, but he told me that, technically, I couldn't consider my H to be an adulterer in his relationship with OW because he wasn't really married to me in the first place.  Wild, huh?

I don't know if this would be the opinion of all priests, but it was eyeopening.  The abbot counseled me to "pray for the restoration" of my family and to communicate to God in prayer that, if it was His will for my family to be restored, I would put God at the center of my marriage.  One of the first things the priest advised me, if that came about, was my H and I not "fully reconcile" (I think he was referring to having intimate relations!) until we had been married in the Church.

As to the discussion here about annulment, I'm certainly no expert but it has been my impression there are many who believe the Church has become more "lenient" about the granting of annulments.  I myself know of two cases that seemed suspect but, of course, I don't know all the details.

One case was my niece who divorced her H of four years.  This happened about 15 years ago.  They filed for an annulment after the divorce was final and the annulment was granted.  The grounds for the annulment were that her H didn't really love her when when they married so, therefore, he married her under false pretenses.  In reality I know her H did not want the divorce, my niece was the one who pushed for it.  He was the one who wanted the annulment so he could remarry in the Church.  So how they were able to make the case her H did not love her at the time of their wedding seemed strange to me.

I did not ask questions but that was my first experience with what appeared to me to be changes in the Church's annulment criteria from the Church of my youth.

The second case I personally know of was the divorce of a professor and his wife at a college where I once worked.  They were devout Catholics (especially the H) and had been married, in the Church, for over 30 years.  They had 8 children, all grown at the time of their divorce. 

When they were in their early 60s (about 12 years ago) the H fell in love with a neighbor woman and decided he wanted to leave his wife and marry the neighbor.  He was able to obtain an annulment.  I don't know what the grounds of the annulment were but I do know his wife was devastated and I thought at the time that if a Catholic who has been married for three decades and has 8 children with his wife whom he married in the Church can get an annulment what's going on?

So, those are my two incomplete but eyebrow raising annulment stories.  My "sense" is that annulment seems to be easier to obtain today. If that's the case, it's sad and distressing.

Interesting topic!

TMHP

[limitless]

I have been away...but did see this thread a few days ago.

I purposely stayed away from it....because I sensed that the discussion here was exactly what it appears to be.  (Yes....I read it this morning).

My parents were originally Catholic...but my father changed to a different "religion" when I was very young.  I never confirmed as a Catholic (if that is the correct term) nor did I join the other "religion."  Thus, I am not religious - yet I was raised with very strong rules (based upon the Bible, I suppose) and I spent much of my young life studying the Bible. 

I have deep respect for those with faith and for those who believe.  There are times in my life where I wished that I had faith....and that I had belief - the time of Bomb Drop comes to mind.

Quite honestly, I grew up in a family that was constantly in turmoil over religion.  My parents constantly argued over my father's choice in religion.  My father was more than a bit "crazy" with it.  He still is, by the way.

It left me with zero desire to join or be a member of any religious group.  When I met my husband, one of the things that I felt comfortable with was that he was particularly religious nor did he officially belong to any group.

Strangely enough, prior to Bomb Drop - one of the first things that my H "admitted" was that he had secrectly began attending Catholic services and had found God.  Later I found that he had started going to the Catholic Church, as his ex-wife was "Catholic through and through" and he wanted to convince her that she was still his wife in God's eyes and that I had been the (30 year) affair!  It seems strange to me that his ex-wife, who claimed to be Catholic through and through, seemed to think it was okay to carry on an EA with a married man and also agreed to meet with him for one weekend that I am aware of.  I'm guessing after he abandoned us....she realized that it wasn't what she wanted...and she dropped him like a hot potato.

Sorry for the rehashing of old news (I'm sure some of you already know my story) - but I felt the need to add that background before I added my comments.

As far as anulment, my H's ex-wife had their marriage annulled - as she wanted to be able to remarry in the Church.  He agreed and signed some paperwork that stated that he never wanted children - so that she could get the anullment.  (We have 3 kids, by the way).

I guess I can never really understand how a longterm marriage - one that included children - can be written off as if it never existed?  I just cannot fathom the logic behind that.!!??

As far as Standing forever....or not.  I see that as a personal decision.  One that doesn't need to be justifed to anyone except that person that you see when you look into the mirror. 

Why do I Stand?  I ask that question quite often.  Just like the rest of you...I'm lonely.  I miss the connection with another human being...the affection.....the companionship....having someone to share my life with.  But, I guess after having been in a 30+ year relationship....3 kids.....etc....I just don't see a spouse as something that is replace-able.  Does that mean I will never again be with someone, should my H not return?  No.  I don't think so. 

Should the divorce go through....and he never return....I believe that there will be a time where I will choose to stop Standing.  But, it's not today.  And, I'm going out on a limb and saying that it won't be tomorrow, either.

Thundarr...I know this is difficult for you....it is for us all.  But, there is no need to try to justify the decisions that you make or that you will make to anyone.  If you want to get an annullment....then you can choose to do that.  I don't know how your kids may feel about that.  I don't know what difference it will make. 

If you choose to move on...should your W divorce you....that's okay too.  I don't think there is anyone who would fault you....or say that you were wrong to do so.

I would just ask.....that for YOU and for your KIDS.....give it some time.  Don't act rashly or thoughtlessly.  And don't act on how you feel for TODAY.  Tomorrow you may feel differently.

JMHO,

L