We (Traditional) Catholics need to put a guard on our hearts, and not let worldly thinking in. You think watching all that TV and movies isn't having an effect on you? Or working with so many non-Catholics? Or having so many non-Catholic friends?
Well, I'll tell you that the OP is doing *something* wrong, since he has absorbed the worldly obsession with happiness, "God's law be ______". That is the polar opposite of the Catholic attitude and worldview. Catholics are about doing God's will FIRST, achieving more and more perfect conformity with God's holy will, and finding happiness in the peace of a soul united to God. In particular, we should be united to Jesus Christ, who suffered first and led the way to Calvary which we must follow.
Read the lives of the saints, and stop imbibing so much worldly influence. Perhaps it would be a good Lenten resolution. You will start to see things in a more Catholic way.
By the way, there's nothing "cruel", with insisting that a woman be faithful to her end of the marriage vows, which are FOR LIFE. No one forced her to marry that abusive husband. Whether or not she had a clue that he would turn out to be an abuser, At worst, her situation is the unforeseen (and unfortunate) consequences of her own actions.
Besides being non-Catholic, it's quite infantile to want to escape from the consequences of our own decisions, just because we don't like those consequences. Strictly speaking, it's childish to want to escape all suffering. But we are all guilty of this to some degree. Nevertheless, we should remember that Catholics aren't living for this world alone.
Now there are many things SHE could have done herself to end up with that abusive husband situation. Not necessarily, but more times than not there was SOME clue during courtship that this man had a problem with anger, mortification, self-control, etc. And in many other cases, she did something to cause the marital problems.
Perhaps she:
* failed to seriously evaluate her husband-to-be during the courtship period -- did she really observe sufficient prayer life, mortification and self-control in her husband, but he became a wife-beater out of the blue? Highly doubtful.
* Help make him the current wife-beating husband that he is, by withholding the marriage debt, nagging him, trying to change/discipline him, etc.
* allowed herself to express feminism in her daily life, beliefs and actions and failed to work constantly to expunge all feminism from herself
* tried to fight her husband and oppose his leadership head-on, wanting to be the de-facto head of the household. This alone would introduce TONS of disorder into a marriage.
* ignored all the warning signs before marriage
* ignored the warnings of her parents, family, friends
* was stubborn to get this guy to make her friends jealous
* ignored or "friend zoned" lots of nerdy or nice guys in favor of bad boy/athletic types pumping with testosterone.
* failed to pray for/with her husband and try to win him over, make him more holy, etc.
And she must not have been honestly looking at the man's relationship with his mother, etc. She must have been focused on having fun during the "dating" experience rather than seriously evaluating him as a life partner.
But even if she couldn't have done ANYTHING BETTER (which is not probable), it's still a cross that God is asking her to carry. That is still the Catholic outlook for this situation.
She should be glad that the Church will let her live separately from her abusive husband (whom she chose to marry with her own free will "for better or worse") and not look a gift horse in the mouth by complaining that she can't get married again.
Women, TRY to turn off your emotions as you court your future husband. I know it's difficult for both men and women to be objective when infatuation is in full effect, but marriage is serious business and you want to give yourself every chance.
Topic: marriage situations (Read 5144 times)