POLL: Divorce: Live in the hell or Succumb to the sin

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@Shrikant -

I have no idea how the system works in Poland, but I can tell you how it works in the U.S. Here, if a couple separates, it is possible for either person to go to a court and request a divorce. However, the only way that divorce becomes official is if both parties sign the divorce. In such a situation, Chevalier would be well within his rights to not sign the divorce papers.

However, in such a scenario, if two years pass, and they still remain separated, the divorce becomes official whether Chevalier signs it or not. So in the U.S., you can get divorced from someone at the latest, two years after official separation and the serving of the divorce papers.

That having been said, a divorce becoming official means NOTHING in the eyes of the Catholic Church. While they may not be living together and are not considered married by the state, country, etc., unless the Catholic Church annuls the marriage, they are still married in the Church's book. (That's assuming that the wedding ceremony was conducted in a Catholic Church. If they were married by a Justice of the Peace, then the Church never considered them married in the first place, so there would be no need to annul the marriage.)

 

My situation wasn't quite as bad, but I went for the divorce -- had to really, she was not interested in reconciliation and was already with another guy, I figured that if I wanted to have any type of life I might as well cut the ties quickly and do my best to move on.

 

@Shrikant: I would be getting a civil annulment or divorce (if they didn't have annulments for my cause(s)) if the Catholic marriage proved null. Otherwise, separation would be enough. She could get a divorce against my will except if she were at fault. I obviously wouldn't make it any easier for her to remarry civilly.

 

If there's Kids involved, then it doesn't matter what the woman says. Besides, if the woman lies in court to protect the abuser, then any claims she makes against em are suspect. That gets my case thrown out. She's be on her own, but I'd have done what I believe had to be done...

 

Divorce and police in both instances.

I personally can't see the point in permanently separating from someone but not getting the divorce. I can't see any logical reason why a "God" would require this of someone. I guess logic doesn't always apply to religion though.

 

My thoughts are close to those of Gnarf and Chev.

 

@Carcaroth: It's a bit like with mental illness: if it starts before marriage, the person may well be unable to enter into marriage validly, therefore making the marriage invalid. If the person lies to you or even if you don't know, it counts as being in grave error. If you know and go on, it depends. But if the illness starts after marriage, you have to stick to your wife. This is what my Catholic religion says, so I guess it qualifies as the Catholic version of what God wants from people.

 

I'll back Chev on that, but there's one problem. If there are children, their welfare must also be considered. If I were to marry, and she were to become abusive to the kids, I'd do what I could to protect the children from her--up to and including divorce and/or restraining order!

 

Of course! Children need to be protected. Separation, civil divorce if separation doesn't suffice, restraining order, exclusive custody for me. Sure. Just no second marriage for me because the vows exchanged before God are still valid. Unless they weren't valid when exchanging, but that's a different story.

 

In my church, celestial marriage can be cancelled by the Prophet to allow a celestial marriage to another (the only case where I've heard about this is where the husband left not only the wife, but the church as well).

 

Chev,

It still doesn't make sense to me.
As I understand it, the reason for marriage is a written confirmation of your true commitment to each other, to love, cherish and support each other. If you are fully seperated from someone, have no contact with them what-so-ever and no bearing on each others lives then you are not fullfilling the reasons or purposes for getting married. As far as the rest of your life is concerned they may as well not exist - if they actually died you would be allowed to make those commitments to another person and the sort of split we are discussing means the other party would have probably less impact on your continuing life than if they had died. This is not the same as sticking by someone due to mental illness - there they still have an influence on your life. I'm talking about the complete removal of someone from your life in the same way that death does.

 

Chev,

Good on ya' mate! Nice to someone still holds true to the Church's teachings. Kudos.

Dave

 

@Carcaroth: Here's the point: there is no such thing as a reason to stay married. Once it's done, without error, fraud, incest etc, it's done. Separation last as long as needed, doesn't remove the need of supporting, doesn't mean you may now stop loving each other. Or stop being loyal and faithful. Death is different.

 

As an interesting addendum to this debate, allow me to point out that as far as I've been able to see, if any case goes to court and "fault" is to be found, the guy is dead -- it doesn't matter if she killed all the kids and slept with 3 hockey teams, it's ALWAYS the man who's at fault. ANY attempt to make a female today responsible for her actions in a marriage, particularly with regards to keeping the vows she put on that pretty white dress to make, is evil, chauvinistic, and the man will be punished for even suggesting that a woman could EVER do anything wrong.

I'm not bitter or anything.

 

The political correctness thing and the feminazi... yeah. But I remember a civil divorce granted in this country because the woman took one room with a guy in a hotel. Still, most fault divorces are granted for the woman with the man's fault, even if statistics for cheating show that women exceed men, if by a slow percent. Then maybe it comes to abuse, but abuse can take many forms. I guess the courts may be biased. On the other hand, in my experience, guys tend really to be at fault somewhat more often, at least after marriage.

 

I wonder if men are more willing to forgive?

 

Or women are more willing to 'fess up?

 

@Gnarff - men ARE NOT more willing to forgive.

I saw a program some time ago, that basically involved the "biology of the brain" for the different sexes. No matter what you do, there are some in-bred responses that people make in regards to cheating. The man's brain is wired to work one way, the woman's another.

For the woman, one very important factor for her mate is that she will have the help of the man to support and raise her children. Therefore, the man having a one night fling that does not amount to anything substantial is not something that is likely to jeopardize the support from that man in regards to her own children.

On the other hand, men realize that they are relied upon for support and helping raise the kids, and if the woman has a one night stand, the man may wind up supporting a child that is not his.

I'm not saying that people actively think about these things when a matter of infidelity arises, but it is in our subconscious, and there's nothing we can really do to change it.

 

Yeah, those are valid concerns. I would bring up a child from rape if my future wife wanted to keep it, but I wouldn't raise one from cheating. I wouldn't probably test all previous children's DNA, but I would probably have all future ones tested. But, first of all, I wouldn't marry anyone inclined towards cheating, so the point is more or less moot.

By the way, guys don't really seem to mind a non-sexual outburst of more or less romantic feelings, while women do. They likely won't notice, anyway. A woman will get over brothel visits sooner than a suspiciously close friend.

 

Hmmm... This is an interesting statement. My question here would essentially be, how could you tell? I mean, unless you were aware of a person's history and could then use the logic of "they did it before so they could do it again". But what if there is no evidence of such in that person's history? I know of a few marriages that ended due to infidelity, and in none of them did the person have a history of infedility. Absent of a history, how can one tell if their partner may be "inclined to cheat" as you say?

I also don't believe that human nature is static. I got married at the age of 28. Even if I was not "inclined to cheat" at age 28, how does anyone know that this will remain true when I'm 38? (Not that I'm saying that I anticipate this happening, just that it can't be known with certainty.)