Jul 18

Jul 18 Heart of the Abandoned Spouse (a remedy against reflexive annulment)

In a nation where abandoned spouses are reflexively advised to seek annulment and “move on,” Fr. Nathanael Block and I decided that the faithful deserve better counsel. Fr. Block is a priest of the Diocese of Gallup, a canon lawyer, and the head of his diocese’s marriage tribunal. Please open your hearts to the Heart of Jesus and consider a “new” (or rather, forgotten) response to being betrayed and abandoned:

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If you are reading this, it may be because you are experiencing the pain of broken marriage vows or know someone who is hurting in this way. We are sorry that you are experiencing this pain. You are not alone. Because of Christ crucified, the very pain you are feeling can be used to bring the love and grace of God into the world. In the Old Testament, the prophet Hosea was tasked with the job of becoming a living example of God’s faithfulness even when God’s people were unfaithful to Him. Hosea’s personal life was an image of God loving His unfaithful Bride. God’s people were compared to an adulterous wife—Hosea’s own wife was an adulteress. Hosea was given the painful duty of loving a woman who failed to keep her promises to him, and so, he became a strong witness of the faithful love of God.

The more beautiful and great something is, the more tragic and terrible it is when it is harmed. Since marriage is the gift of the whole person—the spouses’ respective femininity and masculinity, their wills, their love and affections, their bodies—then a betrayal in marriage is one that affects every part of the human being.

In our day and age, marriage is misunderstood and only poorly supported. The wedding vows are not believed to be very important, not understood to be permanent, and not seen to change much. There is an attitude that the marriage vows are only valid if both parties keep their promises and feel happy and fulfilled in their marriage. But this is not what God says. If you are asked by God to become another Hosea, to be faithful when your spouse is unfaithful, this is not a sign of God’s rejection or anger. If the world around you, or your family and friends, or even a confused priest tells you to “move on” and find someone else, this does not mean that you are crazy or foolish for remaining faithful to your marriage. As the traditional wedding homily noted:

“Sacrifice is usually difficult and irksome. Only love can make it easy; and perfect love can make it a joy. We are willing to give in proportion as we love. And when love is perfect the sacrifice is complete. God so loved the world that He gave His Only begotten Son; and the Son so loved us that He gave Himself for our salvation.”

What does it mean to remain to be faithful when my spouse abandons me?

To be faithful to your spouse means recognizing that you are married. Your marriage endures, even if your spouse pretends that you are not married. As Thomas More says in the play, A Man for All Seasons: “When a man takes an oath…he's holding his own self in his own hands. Like water. And if he opens his fingers then, he needn't hope to find himself again.” To make an oath is to bind oneself; to break an oath is to break oneself. When you made your vows of marriage, you bound yourself to your spouse, in Christ. This tie is there to give you strength when your will alone is too weak and wounded to stay fast to your spouse.

Being faithful means not letting the sin or scandal of another change who I am, or persuade me to do what I know is wrong. If I do the right thing, I will have peace in my heart – even in the midst of my pain. If I do what is wrong, even if it is a distraction from pain, a moment of pleasure, it will make it impossible for me to value myself. I will simply affirm the rejection that I have experienced, because I will be rejecting myself. I will find, like too many others, that by breaking my promises, I lose respect for myself. If I am faithful, if I remain true to the duty of love, even when this means crucifixion, then I am walking the road of sanctity, following Jesus to Heaven.

How do I, in a practical, real way, remain faithful to my spouse when he/she has been unfaithful to me?

To use the words of the venerable Fulton Sheen, there are three involved in the wedding vows. The vows are made between the couple—but they are also made to God. Even if your spouse has broken his or her vows, God has not broken His. Even if your spouse has rejected his or her promises to you, God has not rejected His promises. God still is faithful to you, and He still deserves your faithfulness to Him. When you are tempted to break your vows—in anger, in retaliation, in sheer weariness, in confusion – recognize and renew your vows to God. You promised to love your spouse for better or worse, till death do you part. This love, though it may be painful and even, for human beings, impossible, is a real duty to God and spouse. “With men this is impossible, but with God all things are possible” (Mt. 19:26). This is what you undertook when you made your vows on your wedding day. Jesus asks us to love our enemies (Mt. 5:43-44) and warns us, “a man’s foes will be those of his own household” (Mt. 10:36).

When you struggle to love your unfaithful spouse, love God. Do not look at your spouse, because that will remind you of their infidelity; do not look at yourself, because that will remind you of your own pain. Look, instead, to the Heart of Jesus, Who was abandoned and rejected by His own Spouse (us!). Look to Jesus crucified, because He loved until the end. Go deep within His wounded Heart and tell Him:

Lord, right now, I cannot love my spouse. I wish to love my spouse as you have asked me to, but by myself I cannot. I am too angry, too hurt, too weary. But Lord, you know that I choose this love, I will this, I want this. For Your sake, I choose to love my spouse. Do Thou, O Spouse abandoned by Thy Bride, fill up in my heart the measure of love that I am lacking. Do Thou, O Faithful One, love my spouse through me and for me. Do Thou, O Font of Love, flood me with Thy grace, fill me with Thy rest. Do Thou, my God, console my own abandoned heart.

What do I do with this pain of being abandoned, which can even sometimes be added to by family, friends, and members of my Church telling me to reject my spouse?

When dealing with pain and strong emotions, it is all too easy to let the emotions be in charge. They are in charge if we simply go with what we feel; but they are also in charge if we simply hide from them. That, too, is a kind of giving them control. Our emotions want to be led and guided. They actually increase in intensity if they are not guided. In God’s plan, our intellect is meant to be guided by God; in turn, after we know the right thing, our intellect is supposed to guide our will, making us want what is good; and, by choosing the good, our will is supposed to direct our emotions. In this fallen world, however, it is all too often the opposite: we feel something; then our will chooses according to what we feel; and then our mind makes up an excuse for why this is okay. This is not the right order of things, and not the way things are supposed to be (even if we are not sinning). When our emotions are in charge of our lives, we have no peace.

There is a simple, three-step process that some people have found helpful in guiding their emotions and dealing with their pain: name, offer, and direct. We name our pain so that we can deal with it. If we refuse to admit, even to ourselves, that we are hurting, that we are feeling angry and betrayed, we will be surprised by these feelings. They will take over. Because they aren’t being led and guided, they will burn hotter and hotter until we cannot ignore them. So, we must name them, and claim them, and recognize why we feel them. This is not the same as justifying our anger, and this is not the same as giving us an excuse to hurt someone else—this is the same thing as a doctor examining a cancer so that it can be healed.

Once we have named our pain and recognize that is our own, we offer our pain. “Offering it up” is a part of our Catholic faith that is not explained very well. To offer something up doesn’t mean that the pain goes away, nor does it mean “shut up and stop whining.” To offer up our pain means we give it a new meaning, through the Heart of Jesus.

There are two main reasons that suffering seems too hard to bear: When we ask why we suffer, and when we feel alone. If we weren’t alone, and if we knew the “why,” then we could handle anything. When I offer up my pain, I am inviting Jesus into my wounds. I am joining Jesus on the Cross, the Sacrifice of Love. All suffering and pain is the result of human sin. When Jesus was tortured and died on the Cross, He willingly entered into our suffering and pain and death—and there He gave them a new meaning. He entered into our suffering and pain and death so that we could find God even there. The Cross was transformed from being an instrument of torture and death into a banner of victory, an act of love and adoration, a doorway to grace and salvation. The difference between a cross and a crucifix is that Jesus is on the crucifix. When we offer up our suffering, we are joining Jesus, and we are not alone. We are letting Him give our pain a new meaning, a new why. The original why might be from human sin and malice, but the new why is from Jesus. In Him, our pain becomes an act of love, an act of adoration, an imitation of Christ and a doorway of the grace of Jesus for ourselves and for those whom we love. When we offer up our pain, we know why we suffer. We suffer because we love. This makes our pain worthwhile, meaningful, and a doorway to come close to Jesus.

After we name our suffering and offer our suffering, it is time to direct our suffering. This means looking for a practical thing to do. Sometimes, this means prayer and trust. Sometimes this means talking to someone. Sometimes it may mean something more. We discern what we are called to do, not out of fear or simply trying to avoid pain—which would be letting our emotions lead us—but by discerning what is best, by asking how to love God. Our emotions change from day to day and hour to hour. If we base our decisions on them, we will regret it sooner or later. If we base our decisions on love (which is not a feeling, but an act of the will), we can know that we are doing the right thing, even when we are tempted against it, and we can remain firmly in the truth of our Faith.

We should also try to forgive, so that the pain does not fester and rot in our heart. There are two mistakes people often make when trying to forgive. The first is to think that forgiveness means that we must say that everything is now okay, and the second is to think that we must find a reason another person deserves to be forgiven. Both of these ideas are false. Sometimes things are not okay and will never be okay. When we crucified Jesus, and He forgave us our sins, it wasn’t because our sins didn’t matter or became okay. When He forgave us, it wasn’t because we deserved His forgiveness—quite the opposite. Forgiveness is not about not being angry, or not dealing with something, or pretending everything is fine. Nor does it mean that the people we forgive deserve forgiveness. It is saying simply that, in the deepest part of our hearts, we choose to forgive. We decide to love more than we are hurt and angry. Forgiveness does not mean that we ignore a problem or let ourselves continue to be used or hurt; it means that, out of love for God, we will the other’s good—the other’s salvation—even if we are angry and hurt and tired.

Christ is ultimate abandoned spouse. When we share in this unique suffering, then, in a unique way, we can console the Heart of Jesus. We can sit with Him in the Garden and share in His sorrow when everyone else has abandoned Him. Come to Jesus with your pain and console the Heart of the Divine Savior.

If my spouse seeks an annulment, should I participate? Does participating mean I think my marriage should be declared null?

If you are faced with the sorrow of hearing that your spouse is seeking an annulment, it is always better if you participate in the process. The mere fact that your spouse started the process only means that they are asking a question. They are asking if your marriage was really a marriage in the first place. The Tribunal cannot refuse to answer this question. The Church cannot leave people in doubt about something so important as their marriage. The Tribunal must answer, and can only answer based on the information it has received.

Remember: The decision of the Tribunal does not change anything. The Church cannot make a valid Catholic marriage invalid. No human being can ever break the bonds established by God, not even the Pope. An annulment is the clarification of a confusion. It takes something hidden, the invisible bond of Holy Matrimony, and makes it known. It answers “yes” or “no” to the question of whether or not the marriage was real from the moment the vows were taken. It does not judge the behavior of the spouses, nor does it change the status of the couple. It simply makes this status known: whether or not the couple was married on their wedding day.

If you know that your marriage is valid, it is better that you participate. The presumption of the Church law is that the marriage is valid (canon 1060). The process is there so that you can tell the Church what you know, what happened during the marriage, and why you know your marriage has always been real. If you do not participate, the Tribunal will get all of its information from the spouse who believes the marriage was never real. Giving information will help the Tribunal make a just judgment.

If you are not given the opportunity to defend your marriage, to provide documents and witnesses who can show your side of the story, the whole process is invalid—illegal according to Church law. Anyone who says otherwise, even a priest or a bishop, is ignorant of Church law.

What if the Tribunal says my marriage isn’t valid?

Remember that the Church cannot change a valid marriage. The Tribunal will give their reasons, based on the collected evidence. You will have the chance to see why and the exact reasons the judge declares for or against the marriage being valid from the moment the vows were exchanged. You might look at it and realize that you were never married. However, if you do not agree with the reasons given, or are not allowed to see them, you can appeal to a higher court, even to the Pope.

In Summary:

St. John Chrysostom in his twentieth homily on St. Paul’s letter to the Ephesians says this:

“Whatsoever kind of wife you shall take, yet shall you never take such a bride as the Church, when Christ took her, nor one so far removed from you as the Church was from Christ. And yet for all that, He did not abhor her, nor loathe her for her surpassing deformity. Would you hear her deformity described? Hear what Paul says, For you were once darkness (Eph. 5:8). Did you see the blackness of her hue? What blacker than darkness? But look again at her boldness, living, says he, in malice and envy (Titus 3:3). Look again at her impurity; disobedient, foolish. But what am I saying? She was both foolish, and of an evil tongue; and yet notwithstanding, though so many were her blemishes, yet did He give Himself up for her in her deformity, as for one in the bloom of youth, as for one dearly beloved, as for one of wonderful beauty. And it was in admiration of this that Paul said, For scarcely for a righteous man will one die (Rom. 5:7); and again, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us (Rom. 5:8). And though such as this, He took her, He arrayed her in beauty, and washed her, and refused not even this, to give Himself for her.”

This is what we must do, in imitation of Jesus, and in union with His Heart.

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Related: The Hidden Martyrs for Marriage

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