Author Topic: Am I married? (Read 4200 times)

InfiniteFaith · « **on:** August 14, 2014, 05:24:29 AM »

When I was young and stupid (18 years old), I entered into a relationship with a girl for about 4 months. It was one of the biggest mistakes of my life as the relationship was full of fornication. I entered into this relationship out of curiosity, I wasn't really attracted to her, and I did not truly love her. Even though I would tell her I did. Yeah I know it sounds weird, but I guess I felt kinda trapped into this relationship for a number of reasons. Anyways, I remember that, one day, towards the end of the relationship, I asked her to marry me. I think I was half serious about it and half way joking about it at the same time. Then of course, she says "yes". Then she asked the same question in return, and I said "yes". We never went any further than that with it. There was no blessing from a priest or a wedding or anything. That was it.

The part that is getting me now is that I just read that you do not need a priest in order to get married. I am wondering if maybe I am actually married to this girl because of what I mentioned above.

Nowadays, she lives in another country and is married to another guy, and has a kid by him. I am not sure if this matters in the eyes of God. Maybe God still sees me and her as being married. That is, of course, if we truly are because of what i mentioned above.

So I will leave it at that for now. But I need to know if I need to get an annulment of some sort. I was not very serious about it when I asked her but I think she was. Plus I did not truly love her. What do you think?

Ladislaus · « **Reply #1 on:** August 14, 2014, 05:39:25 AM »

No, on several counts. If you are a baptized Catholic (or she is), the marriage must be witnessed by a priest in order to be valid. Also, this would no more constitute an actual marriage than an engagement does; some vague intention or plan to get married does not constitute the same thing as the actual marriage vows.

clare · « **Reply #2 on:** August 14, 2014, 05:41:37 AM »

Quote from: InfiniteFaith

The part that is getting me now is that I just read that you do not need a priest in order to get married.

That's only if you're marooned on a desert island or something and there is no priest available. If you can get a priest, you need a priest.

Dolores · « **Reply #3 on:** August 14, 2014, 08:16:02 AM »

Merely agreeing to marry, or even announcing your intention to marry, is not the same as actually marrying. In order for a marriage to occur, both the man and the woman must give their present consent to be married from that point on (neither party may have an impediment to marry either, of course).

Further, even if you both did give actual consent to marry, if one of both of you were baptized Catholics, the marriage would be invalid. Canon law requires a witness for the Church (i.e. a priest) in order for the marriage of a Catholic to be valid. As clare has pointed out, the only time this isn't required is if it is impossible to marry in front of a priest (marooned on an island, trapped in a country hostile to the Church, etc.).

TKGS · « **Reply #4 on:** August 14, 2014, 08:47:34 AM »

Asking permission to do something is not the same as doing the act.

You both made an agreement to marry at some point but you both, evidently, decided not to go through with the agreement. Hopefully, you have confessed your sins with this girl and you can now continue your life. You are not married.

When I read the title of this topic I thought of something completely different. I was married in the Novus Ordo. When I had been married just shy of two years, we moved to Indiana. The prior archbishop had recently died and there was no replacement yet named. After a few months, a new archbishop was named and, upon taking the reigns of the archdiocese, began writing a column in the archdiocesan newspaper. Of course, with all the moral rot in society, one of the first topics he felt compelled to write about was the annulment process. :confused1:

The point of his article was to explain and defend how an "apparent marriage" could last many years, produce many children, and yet, have never been a valid "sacramental marriage". He discussed how people who really have no understanding of what marriage entails, did not really know what the commitment would truly require, may have been too emotionally immature at the time of the marriage to truly be married even though they had "appeared" to be married for 25 or 30 years and had adult children and even grandchildren.

This article truly scandalized me. I was in shock. Was I truly married? Did I receive the sanctifying grace of the sacrament? Was I destined to discover years from now that we were never truly married? I wrote to the archbishop.

I received a reply (sadly, I do not have a copy of my original letter or his reply anymore). His reply assured me that I was validly married--even though he didn't know me from Adam. He also suggested, in a round-a-bout way that the primary proof that a marriage was never really valid was that it ends in a civil divorce. This was 1992.

It was also when my "confusion" about the Conciliar Church began. This was my beginning of my search for Catholic Truth. I seriously could not understand how an archbishop of the Catholic Church could be so shallow as to assume that we could, after years of stable marriage, suddenly discover that--Oops!--we weren't married after all! I had even asked him if priests really fully understood what they were entering into when they were ordained and wondered if they could discover that their ordinations weren't really valid because of their emotional immaturity. He didn't address this question at all.