Is it possible for one spouse to prevent an annulment? I looked for other threads about this and the only one was about the Kennedy annulments, but those are probably special cases. A friend of mine was married for about a year and a half, has been divorced for two years, and now her ex-husband wants an annulment. She’s thinking of fighting it, but his family is telling her that it will be granted no matter what she does. The grounds are supposed to be something like “he didn’t mean it when he made his vows.”
http://www.eriercd.org/marriage1.asp#2
Frequently Asked Questions
What is marriage?
What is an annulment?
What are the reasons for Granting an annulment?
Who may apply for an annulment?
What does the process entail?
How long does it take?
Is there a fee?
Are there any civil effects from a Church annulment?
What about the legitimacy of children?
How does one begin?
Can I still receive the sacraments?
Since you mention they already have a civil divorce, I assume you’re talking about a religious annulment, and since you mention the Kennedys, I’ll assume it’s a Roman Catholic annulment.
An annulment is like a trial. The marriage is “innocent until proven guilty” – in other words, the court starts with a presumption that the marriage was valid, and it’s up to the one asking for the annulment to show grounds that it was not a valid marriage.
It’s helpful if both parties agree - but it’s not necessary. Just as in other kinds of trials, the court will hear witnesses and weigh their credibility, and render a decision.
If “he didn’t mean it when he made his vows” can be supported by other evidence – if there is a family member or friend that could truthfully testify, “Yes, the day before the wedding, ol’ Josh here was telling me that he didn’t really plan to stay exclusive, and that he didn’t want to have children…” then that would be good evidence for “he didn’t mean it.”
If, on the other hand, he can only say that he secretly wasn’t consenting, and his wife can testify that they discussed the meaning of a sacramental marriage meany times, and he always professed understanding and agreement… then he has a harder hill to climb.
- Rick
I…I’m stunned at your example. I not a Catholic but most of the Catholics I’ve known were very serious about their vows, and yet a church tribunal will seriously consider something along the lines of an after the fact “I really didn’t mean it in my heart” excuse as a justification for ruling that the marriage did not exist?
I must be mis-understanding some critical element of this process because I can’t imagine how the Catholic Church can consider marriage to be such a serious and sacred undertaking and yet annul it if someone can prove they were conflicted about their vows.
Never mind I read the Catholic faq I cited and answered my own question.
My ex-husband approached me after our divorce, asking me if I’d mind getting a religious annullment so that he could marry his new girlfriend, who was Catholic.
My ex-husband is a Buddhist. I am pagan. Our marriage ceremony was performed by a Buddhist priest. My ex was worried that I’d think he was saying that the marriage never existed; I wasn’t. A religious annullment in the Catholic church would simply state that we were not married under the auspices and traditions of Christianity, which, we weren’t. We never promised monogamy, we didn’t consider children, and most importantly we promised to divorce before we stopped loving each other and we promised to always be honest. That’s not a Catholic marriage at all.
We kept our vows. He never did get the annullment, though, because he and the new girlfriend broke up…
Corr
An anecdote:
A non-practicing Catholic friend of the family, “Mary,” was married for 20+ years, had kids, etc. She has been divorced for 15 years or so. Her ex-husband wanted to get an annullment so that he could marry his girlfriend, but the church had ruled that he had to get her agreement. Mary didn’t really care, so she said “fine, send me the paper and I’ll sign it.” She received in the mail a huge sheaf of papers and forms that would have taken hours and hours to fill out and asked for personal information that she didn’t want to give. So she said, “fuck it. I’m not doing this.” So, she “blocked the annullment.”