Well, I'm too old to get divorced and never wanted divorce anyway, so take all my wanderings with a grain of salt. It has been my observation that there are four horsemen of the marriage apopcalypse. If you or your spouse do not engage in ANY of these, chances are, your marriage will survive. They are the 4 "A's" to avoid: adultery, abandonment, abuse and addiction. Dodge those bullets at all cost. It may cost a person a lot to dodge all those bullets, such as "don't argue back," and "forgive and forget," and "there's 50 ways to leave your lover that do NOT constitute abandonment." Yes, it's true. One can get some space from one's spouse without technically leaving them--just make yourself available. If the person is busy or otherwise engaged, carry on, working, praying, checking in. And I think sometimes that separation helps. So do not give up hope. "To every thing, turn turn turn, there is a season..." one such season in marriage is sometimes giving eachother space (but making yourself available).
Now, what does one do if the spouse or oneself has engaged in one or more of those A's? Well, one can try to stop engaging in the A's and apologize, turn over a new leaf, and start again. And there may be a time to sort of "leave your lover (but being available)" to let them breathe and forgive. Hope springs eternal. Do not give up. Do not start dating. Engage in other social activities, even if you don't feel like it. Even if you have to drag yourself.
Return to God. If God gets in, stuff happens. God is pro-marriage and pro-family and cares about children. So I'd be patient, but I'd also reach out and join groups to get around people. Sometimes I just go to the gym to be around people if I feel lonely. I am often alone, Steve, I have a black-belt in solitude. I've written many techniques for being productive, things like list-making, etc., so not repeating. I am a master list-maker and I obey the list. Sometimes I procrastinate. Start with the task that irks you least, I find. If the mind is tired, use the body (scrub, etc.) If the body is tired, use the mind (make youtubes, write).
Try praying 2 hours a day. Just do it. You'll be amazed. I had a pre-prayer life, and a post-prayer life, and they're not on the same planet. I pray when I don't feel like praying. Not praying is like being "unplugged" from the spiritual electricity. It's like being an Eveready Bunny with the batteries removed. One cannot get through life without God's help. I know I can't. Two hours of prayer every day, and that doesn't mean piling up a ton of words. Put yourself in God's presence. Then: ask forgiveness, worship and adore, give thanksgiving and make petitions. That's it. And talk to Him likes He's in the room (because God is omnipresent).
Waiting for those youtubes. Your fan base will watch anything you put out video-wise, so go for it.
When my first marriage ended in divorce I sought an annulment. Not because I wanted to get married again (the first one was so miserable that I couldn't imagine wanting to do that at the time) but because I wanted nothing to tie me to him. My annulment took six months to be granted, which the pastor assisting me said was the shortest he had seen - that tells you what the testimonies were like, and my ex didn't even participate in the process. Nine years later I remarried, and we've been married for 30 years. A lot of growing and healing occurred in those nine years which was the only thing that made a successful second marriage possible. Two of my first cousins were divorced, and remained faithful to their vows. Both very devout Catholics they didn't consider themselves free to remarry. Both have passed on now, but I can say that it was far more difficult for my male cousin than for my female cousin. Men, in general, have a much harder time being alone. Sex is a big part of it, but it's also true that women tend to have close friendships outside of their marriages (with other women), whereas most men often don't have close relationships besides their wives. Navigating the world alone is very difficult. The nine years I spent as a single parent were the hardest of my life, and I had a lot of family support. No one can tell you what the right path is for you, but I would caution that you give yourself time to heal. No good decisions can be made until that happens.
You nailed it. This whole comment makes a ton of sense. I was actually watching the video below last night, about why it affects men differently.
As for me, I'm not hurrying toward anything. This is a set of philosophical distinctions I'm making because it keeps coming up. I'm nowhere near ready to even seriously consider moving on. Nothing will be officially over until later this year (she won't tell me if she's going to file for some reason, but all signs point to it.) But I'm also suffocating in my isolation, so I do think about it a lot.
Been there, done that - divorce, conversion, annulment, marriage again. My son is currently in the priesthood formation program, and he had to undergo a comprehensive psych eval (and it was a lot more than some old monseigneur asking "Now, Son, are you gay?". Thankfully, he passed.) Perhaps any couple seeking marriage in the Church should be required to undergo the same. Looking back, it could have saved me lots of grief, but on the other hand, I wouldn't have my son.
Steve, actually the Old Order Amish and Mennonites and conservative Mennonite churches have a much more stringent view on the permanence of Christian marriage (actually, any marriage) than the Catholic Church: No civil or ecclesiastical divorce (even in cases of abuse or abandonment), no annulments (civil or church). Even for those couples who convert in from outside Christianity, if there were previous marriages, and the persons converting are in new marriages, they are required to separate (unlike the early Church, they believe even baptism doesn't erase previous marital vows) . And yes, there are deep relational and societal bonds and "one-anothering" in those circles. And yes, there are also chronicles of loveless marriages and spousal abuse - humans gonna human after all, no matter how idyllic the setting might seem to those on the outside. Feel free to criticize; I'm not making any sort of judgment of moral or doctrinal superiority here, but those are just the facts.
I married "young and dumb" thinking that "love can conquer all". My marriage was short-lived, but the pain remains until this present day almost 30 years later. Despite marrying outside the Church (as a lapsed Catholic), I never felt good about abandoning my marriage vows, even years after my divorce (in good part due to scriptural prohibitions in Matthew 19:3-9). I experienced extreme guilt in subsequent relationships when there was even a bit of intimacy. I never understood how other men who were divorced could enter into other (sometimes serial) relationships without these feelings after years of marriage. A vow was a vow after all. I concluded that maybe I was just wired differently or simply had theological or personal scruples that others didn't have.
I was well aware by time I returned to the Catholic Church that my marriage in a Protestant Church being declared invalid due to canonical lack of form was a "slam dunk". But you could also fairly say that I was still a bit "fundamentalist" about this issue, my conscience now also well informed by the patristic writings about marriage, divorce and remarriage, as well as my understanding about how the Catholic Church handled these types of cases prior to the second Vatican council. Despite my spirited conversations about all this with my Catholic priest who walked with me through my separation and divorce (for which I will be forever grateful), when Pope Benedict XVI released his teaching that essentially, "once a Catholic, always a Catholic", it "sealed the deal" that my marriage would always be seen as invalid in the eyes of the Church.
What compounded this issue personally was reading a statement from a diocesan canon lawyer at that time that there probably wasn't a Catholic marriage in the United States that he couldn't find some way to declare null and void (similar to your quote from Pope Francis). To this day, I still find this hard to swallow from a theological perspective because words like these have consequences, your comments about psychology not withstanding. I also was going through the rawness of my divorce right around the time that notable Catholic writers Bud (of Catholicity fame) and Bai McFarlane were also separating and saw the fallout from that as Bai tried desperately to hold onto her marriage (and who has subsequently become an advocate for others who have had annulments granted that they never desired).
Now that I teeter with an almost complete loss of belief in God and the Church (not to mention the loneliness you alluded to), I wonder sometimes why I bound myself up with such scruples in a Church that, for me anyway, has diminished the sanctity of the bonds of marriage to the point that it's pretty much unrecognizable and disposable. It seems odd to me that the Church demands at least four to six years of seminary formation because of the seriousness of the priestly vocation, but it is still standard practice to marry people within 6 months (and wink wink, much less if you are a traditionalist Catholic attending Mass with one of the priestly fraternities or societies) with extremely poor preparation. I played organ for many a wedding - and I'll tell you that most of that "marriage preparation" was mainly wedding preparation jammed into six one-hour sessions, plus a Pre-Cana retreat. Clearly the Church, at least in practice here in the United States, doesn't take marriage all that seriously anymore.
No answers from me here, Steve. I'm just a deeply flawed individual and struggling Catholic who wishes to honor both history and science and who is trying hard to reconcile the former immemorial practices of the Church with how the modern Church chooses to write and apply canon law. I wish you nothing but healing and good health as you navigate all this.
Of all the sayings of Pope Francis on airplanes, off the cuff remarks and supposed interviews which were so telling, I remember his statement about most marriages not being sacramental and I absolutely agree.
My first debacle was joining a cult which entertained the notion that the group was the last bastion of true Catholics in the world. Three single men and 5 young women made up the future of the Church.
Slim pickings to say the least.
Decades later, the cult became more mainstream once the cult leader was ousted for drug use and alleged homosexual tendencies but not before he was ordained and consecrated a Bishop by a schismatic.
He really adhered to the "stand in your marriage" though the priests he ordained had to be reorganized by another schismatic. What a total disaster.
Granted a Decree of Nullility, different from an annulment process, I married a man in the Novus Ordo Church. And to be honest, the only preparation the priest offered was 6 words:
I have no guilt about my divorce, but then I wasn't raised Catholic. It was devastating, and I didn't want to do it, but I wanted children and he didn't. I have two now and they are my delight and I have brought life and more love to this world by having left him. So I know I have followed Jesus' teaching, and feel no regret.
Interestingly, Roy Mills in his book "The Soul's Remembrance" shares his memories of pre-birth in which he specifically saw both his first wife *and* his second wife.
I cannot fathom a God who would turn his face from you because you got divorced. God is love; this is what Jesus taught. God understands the complications of this world, and lifelong healing that is required when you suffer trauma as a child and it messes up your. nervous system, or even when you are born neurodivergent which is a spiritual challenge. Thank God all these things (that you mentioned in your article) are coming to light now.
Each generation, each faith, and each culture seemed to be different in how they deal with marriage. My grandparents generation never heard of "attachment wounds" or the impact of "childhood traumas", and they rarely divorced. An Indian couple I knew of, who marriage was arranged, had to obey the husband's parents who they lived with and the wife had to work 20 hours a day serving others. My parents ran marriage encounters where couples simply wrote letters to each other that had dramatic results. My mom said she never saw two people so much in love as my dad's parents - a half breed Cherokee cowboy and a Scottish woman - and yet he would get into fist fights with men nearly every day. Go figure.
A couple may even be well matched until something happens - like a man who comes back from military service with PTSD. I don't know how Catholics handle such things, but for me, it requires inner healing to mend such deep wounds. And I've personally seen God do that.
I was on a prayer team and went to pray for a lady, and felt that God wanted to show her something. I told her to pray and just ask God to show her, and I left her. Later I asked her what God had showed her. She told me she had a vision of herself as a child playing in her backyard. She saw her mother come out with scissors and proceed to cut her long hair off - the thing she felt made her beautiful - and the incident that had left a deep wound in her soul. But then she saw Jesus. He walked up after her mother had left, knelt down, and lovingly picked up her hair that fallen to the ground. That simple vision showed her that He cared about her and had felt her wounding.
A person may well be anxious, controlling, or wounded from traumas. But I don't think God intends for us to remain that way. I know it isn't easy, and it certainly takes a choice on our part to get free of our past. But it can be done. The choice though isn't to fix the other person. The choice is whether we want to let go of those wounds and judgements we've held on to. This is a difficult subject, but I'll just add that our present culture doesn't make this easy with it's focus on self, our rights, and holding on to injustices. And of course, dysfunctional families breed more dysfunction.
I think your first paragraph, in particular, speaks to my point about societal and family structures that supported marriage. They made it possible where, under modern conditions, most of those marriages would likely fail.
But cognitive neuroscience is new. Just because we didn't have terms for "complex trauma" or "attachment wounds" or all the rest doesn't mean they weren't real. It means we didn't know how to describe them.
And if you probe back into people's family histories you find a ton of dysfunction: alcoholism, physical and emotional and even sexual abuse, hidden affairs, insanity, etc.
I was talking to a Catholic recently who told me that their great grandfather beat one of his own children to death. Never went to jail or anything, just kept on being who he was.
I don't buy romanticized visions of the past any more than I buy them about the present.
We need tools to make assessments that result in course corrections. We can't simply assume that because culture and taboos and brute force made things work in the past that they were actually healthy.
And here's another thought along those lines: what if the people God chose to be born in a certain generation are different than the next generation?
My friend, Betty Eadie, in her NDE said she saw generations of people waiting to be born, specifically pioneers. She said that we would have made lousy pioneers because we don't have the same strengths. Similarly, the pioneers would have done poorly in our generation with our challenges. We are where we need to be.
You don't have to believe this, and nothing excuses the fact that we need to be as Christ-like as possible with the grace of the Holy Spirit, but her explanation makes perfect sense to me.
This may not be the best comment here, and sure isn't the most pleasant, but:
Full disclosure, I have never been married. I am also on the spectrum. But I am hoping for a good match someday, in my Catholic faith.
Suppose that refusing to date/marry another can make a person abandoned by his/her spouse miserable, lonely, and even shorten his/her life.
Didn't Jesus undergo (if you believe) all of those things for us?
I sure hope that such a person can find solace, but if there is none in this life, there will be in the next.
As for men needing sex, every vocation to marriage is potentially a vocation to celibacy.
Don't believe me? What about a man whose wife suffers brain damage and enters a permanent coma, and can no longer consent to intercourse.
"...In sickness and in health..."
What about a man who got his genitals blown off by an IED in Iraq? Shouldn't his wife be faithful to him?
"...Until death do us part..."
For some reason(s), our age has suffered a decline of various institutions, marriage being one of them.
But it is the same God of All Ages who consecrates and judges spouses.
That means that a Catholic couple today can contract a marriage just as holy, just as sacred, as ever.
And that means that God is just in holding them to timeless standards of faithfulness.
I call that fair.
Some people have it harder than others. Some people have it very hard indeed. That may mitigate failure, but it does not excuse it.
----
I recognize that some attempted Catholic marriages are invalid in God's Eyes. I severely doubt that most of them are. I do not judge whether the author's marriage is or is not.
I do ask him to do what he thinks that the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob would have him do.
If God was a party to a marriage covenant, that marriage deserves full respect. If He did not bless it, then respect for the institution of marriage requires an honest process for determining that.
Please, do not confuse the failures of men in and of the Church for a failure of God Himself, or proof of His nonexistence. I know that it requires faith.
You raise some interesting points, so let me address what I can:
"Didn't Jesus undergo (if you believe) all of those things for us?"
Voluntarily and unnecessarily, yes. One of the things I despise about the Christian story is the way it's used to guilt trip us: "Jesus did this for you. And you can't do X thing you've been told you're obligated to do for him?"
We need to dispense with the idea that the crucifixion was necessary. It wasn't. It was a choice. God didn't need to do that to save us, even according to Christian theology. In fact, there's a venerable tradition among theologians to say that Christ's blood was so precious and powerful that the blood shed at his circumcision was enough to save mankind.
Personally, I have huge objections to the entire soteriological narrative in Christianity. The Garden of Eden was pure entrapment; a setup from the beginning. If you have any doubt, why the hell was Satan allowed to enter the garden when he was supposed to be chained up? There's no justice in original sin if any of us could have resisted the temptations of the serpent, so we are forced to assume that NO human being, ever, anywhere, could have done better than Adam and Eve did. It was a pre-ordained fall.
And there's no reason why a human sacrifice was necessary to appease God after it happened, either. You ever think about how weird that is? That was a divine choice (sticking within the framework of the story, which I don't grant as true) through and through.
So no, I don't buy this as an argument, but I do see why people do.
"As for men needing sex, every vocation to marriage is potentially a vocation to celibacy."
No, celibacy is the state of remaining unmarried, so no marriage is a vocation to celibacy. Yes, sometimes marriages require *continence* (the state of sexual abstinence for a greater good) but one assumes that such continence is undertaken voluntarily out of love, not because one is abandoned by their spouse. So if your wife might die if she gets pregnant, or she's in a coma after a car accident, or whatever, yes, you may have to endure continence out of love for her because of unavoidable circumstances. And yes, it will be hard, because yes, sex is the primary way men access emotional pair bonding through oxytocin. But like priestly celibacy -- an unnatural choice, sublimated to a higher good -- it can be borne because it is being done for a noble reason.
What is the noble reason when a wife tells her husband that intimacy in the marriage is over at her unilateral and sole discretion? What is the noble reason for remaining faithful to someone who abandons vows they very likely never intended to keep without exception? How is a husband supposed to respond to a wife who tells him she just doesn't have those kinds of feelings for him anymore?
I should note -- and perhaps this is a function of my age more than anything -- that I'm far more concerned with the loss of daily companionship and mutually shared love than I am about the loss of sex. That said, the possibility of sexual intimacy deepens emotional intimacy, and the two are inextricably related in opposite sex relationships.
But when a person who is wired for connection is forced into a lifetime of isolation and loneliness, it's not entirely dissimilar to putting a prisoner in solitary confinement. It's damaging to mental and physical health in the long term. And when someone is put in that position unjustly, it is corrosive in ways that are extremely damaging.
"I recognize that some attempted Catholic marriages are invalid in God's Eyes. I severely doubt that most of them are. I do not judge whether the author's marriage is or is not."
Why do you doubt? Do you think people who enter marriage with the belief that they can get out of it if they feel unhappy at some point are offering valid consent? Do you think people who grow up in homes where parents divorced, and in a world where most marriages end in divorce, really understand and commit to the idea that marriage is truly forever? You think they don't have in the back of their mind, "Well, if it doesn't work out, I'll do what I've seen everyone else do..."
And of course, the reason I brought up the societal context is that couples don't have the support of extended family. Younger married folks don't get a lot of sage advice from their elders on what to do when they feel or don't feel a certain way after hardship in their marriage. They don't get help taking care of their kids. Very few of them get to experience a traditional marriage where the wife stays home with the kids while the husband works, and even when they do, many of the women end up resenting it, because that's not the life they see elsewhere. I think all of this has an effect. We are all products of our environments.
"If God was a party to a marriage covenant, that marriage deserves full respect. If He did not bless it, then respect for the institution of marriage requires an honest process for determining that.
Please, do not confuse the failures of men in and of the Church for a failure of God Himself, or proof of His nonexistence. I know that it requires faith."
OK, so how do you KNOW, with any degree of certitude, whether God was a party to a marriage covenant? If the Church is the body appointed by God as the judge, then aren't the rather prolific number of annulments she grants evidence of the fact that he isn't? And if not, why are individual Catholics arrogating to themselves the idea that they know the mind of God better than the Church does? It seems we have a discrepancy of competing claims.
-> Thank you for your counterpoints. I'll try to reply point by point. My new replies are marked with arrows.
-> I will try to address the issue with annulments and invalidity in a further reply tomorrow.
"Didn't Jesus undergo (if you believe) all of those things for us?"
Voluntarily and unnecessarily, yes. One of the things I despise about the Christian story is the way it's used to guilt trip us: "Jesus did this for you. And you can't do X thing you've been told you're obligated to do for him?"
We need to dispense with the idea that the crucifixion was necessary. It wasn't. It was a choice. God didn't need to do that to save us, even according to Christian theology. In fact, there's a venerable tradition among theologians to say that Christ's blood was so precious and powerful that the blood shed at his circumcision was enough to save mankind.
-> Jesus's Sacrifice was voluntary in a similar (though not identical) way to the way that your marriage to your wife was voluntary - a free gift of love, imposing certain hardships (which Jesus technically could have refused, but you must not).
-> Within the framework of Jesus's consent and the Father's will, we made it necessary for Jesus to die - first by sinning in the Garden and onward, and finally by refusing to show Him mercy (or even justice) on Good Friday.
-> I think that part of the essence of the Incarnation was that Jesus became like an ordinary member of human society, fully vulnerable to our injustice (though He got a reprieve when the Angel warned Joseph, and another one when He passed through the hostile crowd).
-> Analogously, when spouses marry, they become fully vulnerable to each other. Either one can crucify the other, though thankfully they can also choose not to. If you want to see Jesus spared from Calvary, just look at a husband and wife who are kind to each other.
Personally, I have huge objections to the entire soteriological narrative in Christianity. The Garden of Eden was pure entrapment; a setup from the beginning. If you have any doubt, why the hell was Satan allowed to enter the garden when he was supposed to be chained up? There's no justice in original sin if any of us could have resisted the temptations of the serpent, so we are forced to assume that NO human being, ever, anywhere, could have done better than Adam and Eve did. It was a pre-ordained fall.
And there's no reason why a human sacrifice was necessary to appease God after it happened, either. You ever think about how weird that is? That was a divine choice (sticking within the framework of the story, which I don't grant as true) through and through.
-> This gets to the essence of collective justice, which I have had great trouble understanding and accepting myself. The way I explain it is that whenever God allows the actions of one creature to affect the salvation of another, you have collective justice.
-> Suppose that you rescue a drowning man who was in a state of mortal sin, and he repents. You saved his soul. But suppose you could have decided to let him drown. How is it fair that your choice could determine whether he is judged when he is unready, or when he is ready?
-> My answer is that justice = fairness + mercy. Fairness is the bare minimum that God owes you. God can choose to show you mercy Himself, or He can delegate His mercy to a creature, who may deliver it to its destination or not.
-> Lucifer was a very exalted angel, given an enormous degree of mercy to pass on, but decided to do his worst to destroy it all. The test in Eden would have been far easier for Adam and Eve if Lucifer had chosen to be good (and second God's warning) rather than evil (and tempt against God's warning).
-> Even the expulsion of Satan from Heaven was hard-won by St. Michael and the angels of God. Perhaps God wanted Adam and Eve to participate in the final binding themselves. Can you fault God for allowing self-chosen evil to test good, and conversely, for allowing good creatures to fight evil, even though this places them in peril?
-> I admit that I do not understand blood guilt well enough to be confident of explaining it fairly. But I don't think your logic holds when you say that if we could have resisted the temptation in the Garden of Eden, we should not be bound by Original Sin. I think that some people could have resisted. But they are not only victims of Original Sin - they have also learned from the punishment visited on our ancestors, and perhaps even from the Fruit of Knowledge (that is, from consciousness of sin - do you think that Adam and Eve liked knowing that they were naked)?
-> We have also learned and received grace from Chrst Himself. Some of these things (though not necessarily the last) only happened because we (collectively, I know) failed. And sometimes when one fails a test, it is fair to have to take a different test in order to pass the course.
No, celibacy is the state of remaining unmarried, so no marriage is a vocation to celibacy. Yes, sometimes marriages require *continence* (the state of sexual abstinence for a greater good) but one assumes that such continence is undertaken voluntarily out of love, not because one is abandoned by their spouse. So if your wife might die if she gets pregnant, or she's in a coma after a car accident, or whatever, yes, you may have to endure continence out of love for her because of unavoidable circumstances. And yes, it will be hard, because yes, sex is the primary way men access emotional pair bonding through oxytocin. But like priestly celibacy -- an unnatural choice, sublimated to a higher good -- it can be borne because it is being done for a noble reason.
What is the noble reason when a wife tells her husband that intimacy in the marriage is over at her unilateral and sole discretion? What is the noble reason for remaining faithful to someone who abandons vows they very likely never intended to keep without exception? How is a husband supposed to respond to a wife who tells him she just doesn't have those kinds of feelings for him anymore?
-> I accept your correction of terms - we are talking about continence. And the situation is different, when one is abandoned, versus when one's spouse is incapacitated. But in both cases continence is equally voluntary: it is physically possible to violate, but is morally mandatory. In both cases, it is an act of love for one's spouse.
-> On one hand, the spouses are one flesh, so adultery against an absent spouse does harm to his/her spousal body. On the other hand, if a man abandons his wife, and she faithfully awaits his return, isn't that an act of love for him?
-> I understand that this is a hard teaching, but if I were married, and my wife left me, I believe that I would wait for her, without reservation.
There’s a lot here I could reply to, but this risks turning the thread into a theological back and forth that goes nowhere. Many of my deepest doubts about Christianity are peeking through here, and I don’t think I want to take the conversation in that direction.
I hear you, but I’m going to leave it here or we could spend days debating this stuff and not get anywhere, and I really want to make this week more productive. One of the underlying things in this whole discussion is how much being abandoned and exiled in this way has flatlined my identity, my ability to desire anything, my sense of there being any purpose in life at all. It’s the most disorienting thing I’ve ever experienced, and I’m trying to lock in on stuff that pulls me out of the morass, not stuff that keeps me stuck in it.
One of the most difficult things I've had to come to terms with over the past 5 or 6 years is that nobody is coming to save us, especially God.
I'm not telling people not to believe in him. I just think his interventionist reputation is ill-deserved. Most people don't get miracles. Most people don't even get intuitions that are obviously from him. They just have to muddle through.
Cardinal Sarah's opinion that God is silent is a hard lesson to learn, but one we can agree on. Muddling through does seem to be the order of the day..
Does anything seem better now, that fewer people are getting married and divorce is easy? Did kids shoot up schools back when people were forced, by shame and religion, to stay in their marriages? Stay married and miserable for the kids. Are our little lives so important that we need to find some greater meaning than: you lived, you reproduced and you did you duty. Then, you died.
There's a lot going on here in a relatively brief comment, but I want to try to address this:
You have a combination here of assumed (but false) causality, and post hoc ergo propter hoc reasoning.
The problems you describe are multifactorial, but you tie them innately to this one issue without any evidence of the connection.
Could widespread divorce be a contributor? Of course. I don't think it's good for anyone, especially kids. I hate it. I hate that I even have to think about what it means in my life.
But my purpose here is in trying to understand how to survive it reasonably.
We have so many societal issues that lead to mental health crises among kids. From screen time to hormone changes to peer interactions to social propaganda to broken homes. I don't think we know the full extent of why. I do think it's very obvious, though, that the young people who engage in these activities are often deeply disturbed and socially exiled and frequently on prescribed psychiatric medications.
As for the "are our little lives so important" question, I can only answer that subjectively. Yes, I feel like my life is important enough that forcing me to suffer unjustly matters. And I think yours does, too. If God is truly essential being, in need of nothing, then he does not require our suffering. It would be nice to believe that if he loves it, he cares about consoling us in it when it comes, not just submitting us to as much as possible because it "builds character" or something.
Well, I'm too old to get divorced and never wanted divorce anyway, so take all my wanderings with a grain of salt. It has been my observation that there are four horsemen of the marriage apopcalypse. If you or your spouse do not engage in ANY of these, chances are, your marriage will survive. They are the 4 "A's" to avoid: adultery, abandonment, abuse and addiction. Dodge those bullets at all cost. It may cost a person a lot to dodge all those bullets, such as "don't argue back," and "forgive and forget," and "there's 50 ways to leave your lover that do NOT constitute abandonment." Yes, it's true. One can get some space from one's spouse without technically leaving them--just make yourself available. If the person is busy or otherwise engaged, carry on, working, praying, checking in. And I think sometimes that separation helps. So do not give up hope. "To every thing, turn turn turn, there is a season..." one such season in marriage is sometimes giving eachother space (but making yourself available).
Now, what does one do if the spouse or oneself has engaged in one or more of those A's? Well, one can try to stop engaging in the A's and apologize, turn over a new leaf, and start again. And there may be a time to sort of "leave your lover (but being available)" to let them breathe and forgive. Hope springs eternal. Do not give up. Do not start dating. Engage in other social activities, even if you don't feel like it. Even if you have to drag yourself.
Return to God. If God gets in, stuff happens. God is pro-marriage and pro-family and cares about children. So I'd be patient, but I'd also reach out and join groups to get around people. Sometimes I just go to the gym to be around people if I feel lonely. I am often alone, Steve, I have a black-belt in solitude. I've written many techniques for being productive, things like list-making, etc., so not repeating. I am a master list-maker and I obey the list. Sometimes I procrastinate. Start with the task that irks you least, I find. If the mind is tired, use the body (scrub, etc.) If the body is tired, use the mind (make youtubes, write).
Try praying 2 hours a day. Just do it. You'll be amazed. I had a pre-prayer life, and a post-prayer life, and they're not on the same planet. I pray when I don't feel like praying. Not praying is like being "unplugged" from the spiritual electricity. It's like being an Eveready Bunny with the batteries removed. One cannot get through life without God's help. I know I can't. Two hours of prayer every day, and that doesn't mean piling up a ton of words. Put yourself in God's presence. Then: ask forgiveness, worship and adore, give thanksgiving and make petitions. That's it. And talk to Him likes He's in the room (because God is omnipresent).
Waiting for those youtubes. Your fan base will watch anything you put out video-wise, so go for it.
When my first marriage ended in divorce I sought an annulment. Not because I wanted to get married again (the first one was so miserable that I couldn't imagine wanting to do that at the time) but because I wanted nothing to tie me to him. My annulment took six months to be granted, which the pastor assisting me said was the shortest he had seen - that tells you what the testimonies were like, and my ex didn't even participate in the process. Nine years later I remarried, and we've been married for 30 years. A lot of growing and healing occurred in those nine years which was the only thing that made a successful second marriage possible. Two of my first cousins were divorced, and remained faithful to their vows. Both very devout Catholics they didn't consider themselves free to remarry. Both have passed on now, but I can say that it was far more difficult for my male cousin than for my female cousin. Men, in general, have a much harder time being alone. Sex is a big part of it, but it's also true that women tend to have close friendships outside of their marriages (with other women), whereas most men often don't have close relationships besides their wives. Navigating the world alone is very difficult. The nine years I spent as a single parent were the hardest of my life, and I had a lot of family support. No one can tell you what the right path is for you, but I would caution that you give yourself time to heal. No good decisions can be made until that happens.
You nailed it. This whole comment makes a ton of sense. I was actually watching the video below last night, about why it affects men differently.
As for me, I'm not hurrying toward anything. This is a set of philosophical distinctions I'm making because it keeps coming up. I'm nowhere near ready to even seriously consider moving on. Nothing will be officially over until later this year (she won't tell me if she's going to file for some reason, but all signs point to it.) But I'm also suffocating in my isolation, so I do think about it a lot.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C6IUUl0nRE4
Been there, done that - divorce, conversion, annulment, marriage again. My son is currently in the priesthood formation program, and he had to undergo a comprehensive psych eval (and it was a lot more than some old monseigneur asking "Now, Son, are you gay?". Thankfully, he passed.) Perhaps any couple seeking marriage in the Church should be required to undergo the same. Looking back, it could have saved me lots of grief, but on the other hand, I wouldn't have my son.
Steve, actually the Old Order Amish and Mennonites and conservative Mennonite churches have a much more stringent view on the permanence of Christian marriage (actually, any marriage) than the Catholic Church: No civil or ecclesiastical divorce (even in cases of abuse or abandonment), no annulments (civil or church). Even for those couples who convert in from outside Christianity, if there were previous marriages, and the persons converting are in new marriages, they are required to separate (unlike the early Church, they believe even baptism doesn't erase previous marital vows) . And yes, there are deep relational and societal bonds and "one-anothering" in those circles. And yes, there are also chronicles of loveless marriages and spousal abuse - humans gonna human after all, no matter how idyllic the setting might seem to those on the outside. Feel free to criticize; I'm not making any sort of judgment of moral or doctrinal superiority here, but those are just the facts.
I married "young and dumb" thinking that "love can conquer all". My marriage was short-lived, but the pain remains until this present day almost 30 years later. Despite marrying outside the Church (as a lapsed Catholic), I never felt good about abandoning my marriage vows, even years after my divorce (in good part due to scriptural prohibitions in Matthew 19:3-9). I experienced extreme guilt in subsequent relationships when there was even a bit of intimacy. I never understood how other men who were divorced could enter into other (sometimes serial) relationships without these feelings after years of marriage. A vow was a vow after all. I concluded that maybe I was just wired differently or simply had theological or personal scruples that others didn't have.
I was well aware by time I returned to the Catholic Church that my marriage in a Protestant Church being declared invalid due to canonical lack of form was a "slam dunk". But you could also fairly say that I was still a bit "fundamentalist" about this issue, my conscience now also well informed by the patristic writings about marriage, divorce and remarriage, as well as my understanding about how the Catholic Church handled these types of cases prior to the second Vatican council. Despite my spirited conversations about all this with my Catholic priest who walked with me through my separation and divorce (for which I will be forever grateful), when Pope Benedict XVI released his teaching that essentially, "once a Catholic, always a Catholic", it "sealed the deal" that my marriage would always be seen as invalid in the eyes of the Church.
What compounded this issue personally was reading a statement from a diocesan canon lawyer at that time that there probably wasn't a Catholic marriage in the United States that he couldn't find some way to declare null and void (similar to your quote from Pope Francis). To this day, I still find this hard to swallow from a theological perspective because words like these have consequences, your comments about psychology not withstanding. I also was going through the rawness of my divorce right around the time that notable Catholic writers Bud (of Catholicity fame) and Bai McFarlane were also separating and saw the fallout from that as Bai tried desperately to hold onto her marriage (and who has subsequently become an advocate for others who have had annulments granted that they never desired).
Now that I teeter with an almost complete loss of belief in God and the Church (not to mention the loneliness you alluded to), I wonder sometimes why I bound myself up with such scruples in a Church that, for me anyway, has diminished the sanctity of the bonds of marriage to the point that it's pretty much unrecognizable and disposable. It seems odd to me that the Church demands at least four to six years of seminary formation because of the seriousness of the priestly vocation, but it is still standard practice to marry people within 6 months (and wink wink, much less if you are a traditionalist Catholic attending Mass with one of the priestly fraternities or societies) with extremely poor preparation. I played organ for many a wedding - and I'll tell you that most of that "marriage preparation" was mainly wedding preparation jammed into six one-hour sessions, plus a Pre-Cana retreat. Clearly the Church, at least in practice here in the United States, doesn't take marriage all that seriously anymore.
No answers from me here, Steve. I'm just a deeply flawed individual and struggling Catholic who wishes to honor both history and science and who is trying hard to reconcile the former immemorial practices of the Church with how the modern Church chooses to write and apply canon law. I wish you nothing but healing and good health as you navigate all this.
Foolish Debby!
I sent my first comment without spell check or correcting sentences.
I failed to tell you that you bring to light some very good points.
Not foolish! Also, you can edit your comment if you click on the little three dots to the top right of it.
Of all the sayings of Pope Francis on airplanes, off the cuff remarks and supposed interviews which were so telling, I remember his statement about most marriages not being sacramental and I absolutely agree.
My first debacle was joining a cult which entertained the notion that the group was the last bastion of true Catholics in the world. Three single men and 5 young women made up the future of the Church.
Slim pickings to say the least.
Decades later, the cult became more mainstream once the cult leader was ousted for drug use and alleged homosexual tendencies but not before he was ordained and consecrated a Bishop by a schismatic.
He really adhered to the "stand in your marriage" though the priests he ordained had to be reorganized by another schismatic. What a total disaster.
Granted a Decree of Nullility, different from an annulment process, I married a man in the Novus Ordo Church. And to be honest, the only preparation the priest offered was 6 words:
"You know what it's all about".
Who are these people?
I believe God forgives foolish vows.
I have no guilt about my divorce, but then I wasn't raised Catholic. It was devastating, and I didn't want to do it, but I wanted children and he didn't. I have two now and they are my delight and I have brought life and more love to this world by having left him. So I know I have followed Jesus' teaching, and feel no regret.
Interestingly, Roy Mills in his book "The Soul's Remembrance" shares his memories of pre-birth in which he specifically saw both his first wife *and* his second wife.
I cannot fathom a God who would turn his face from you because you got divorced. God is love; this is what Jesus taught. God understands the complications of this world, and lifelong healing that is required when you suffer trauma as a child and it messes up your. nervous system, or even when you are born neurodivergent which is a spiritual challenge. Thank God all these things (that you mentioned in your article) are coming to light now.
Thank you, Steve.
This is excellent. And it could be reworded to apply to other things (subjects, issues, challenges) than you intended, as well.
Each generation, each faith, and each culture seemed to be different in how they deal with marriage. My grandparents generation never heard of "attachment wounds" or the impact of "childhood traumas", and they rarely divorced. An Indian couple I knew of, who marriage was arranged, had to obey the husband's parents who they lived with and the wife had to work 20 hours a day serving others. My parents ran marriage encounters where couples simply wrote letters to each other that had dramatic results. My mom said she never saw two people so much in love as my dad's parents - a half breed Cherokee cowboy and a Scottish woman - and yet he would get into fist fights with men nearly every day. Go figure.
A couple may even be well matched until something happens - like a man who comes back from military service with PTSD. I don't know how Catholics handle such things, but for me, it requires inner healing to mend such deep wounds. And I've personally seen God do that.
I was on a prayer team and went to pray for a lady, and felt that God wanted to show her something. I told her to pray and just ask God to show her, and I left her. Later I asked her what God had showed her. She told me she had a vision of herself as a child playing in her backyard. She saw her mother come out with scissors and proceed to cut her long hair off - the thing she felt made her beautiful - and the incident that had left a deep wound in her soul. But then she saw Jesus. He walked up after her mother had left, knelt down, and lovingly picked up her hair that fallen to the ground. That simple vision showed her that He cared about her and had felt her wounding.
A person may well be anxious, controlling, or wounded from traumas. But I don't think God intends for us to remain that way. I know it isn't easy, and it certainly takes a choice on our part to get free of our past. But it can be done. The choice though isn't to fix the other person. The choice is whether we want to let go of those wounds and judgements we've held on to. This is a difficult subject, but I'll just add that our present culture doesn't make this easy with it's focus on self, our rights, and holding on to injustices. And of course, dysfunctional families breed more dysfunction.
I think your first paragraph, in particular, speaks to my point about societal and family structures that supported marriage. They made it possible where, under modern conditions, most of those marriages would likely fail.
But cognitive neuroscience is new. Just because we didn't have terms for "complex trauma" or "attachment wounds" or all the rest doesn't mean they weren't real. It means we didn't know how to describe them.
And if you probe back into people's family histories you find a ton of dysfunction: alcoholism, physical and emotional and even sexual abuse, hidden affairs, insanity, etc.
I was talking to a Catholic recently who told me that their great grandfather beat one of his own children to death. Never went to jail or anything, just kept on being who he was.
I don't buy romanticized visions of the past any more than I buy them about the present.
We need tools to make assessments that result in course corrections. We can't simply assume that because culture and taboos and brute force made things work in the past that they were actually healthy.
And here's another thought along those lines: what if the people God chose to be born in a certain generation are different than the next generation?
My friend, Betty Eadie, in her NDE said she saw generations of people waiting to be born, specifically pioneers. She said that we would have made lousy pioneers because we don't have the same strengths. Similarly, the pioneers would have done poorly in our generation with our challenges. We are where we need to be.
You don't have to believe this, and nothing excuses the fact that we need to be as Christ-like as possible with the grace of the Holy Spirit, but her explanation makes perfect sense to me.
This may not be the best comment here, and sure isn't the most pleasant, but:
Full disclosure, I have never been married. I am also on the spectrum. But I am hoping for a good match someday, in my Catholic faith.
Suppose that refusing to date/marry another can make a person abandoned by his/her spouse miserable, lonely, and even shorten his/her life.
Didn't Jesus undergo (if you believe) all of those things for us?
I sure hope that such a person can find solace, but if there is none in this life, there will be in the next.
As for men needing sex, every vocation to marriage is potentially a vocation to celibacy.
Don't believe me? What about a man whose wife suffers brain damage and enters a permanent coma, and can no longer consent to intercourse.
"...In sickness and in health..."
What about a man who got his genitals blown off by an IED in Iraq? Shouldn't his wife be faithful to him?
"...Until death do us part..."
For some reason(s), our age has suffered a decline of various institutions, marriage being one of them.
But it is the same God of All Ages who consecrates and judges spouses.
That means that a Catholic couple today can contract a marriage just as holy, just as sacred, as ever.
And that means that God is just in holding them to timeless standards of faithfulness.
I call that fair.
Some people have it harder than others. Some people have it very hard indeed. That may mitigate failure, but it does not excuse it.
----
I recognize that some attempted Catholic marriages are invalid in God's Eyes. I severely doubt that most of them are. I do not judge whether the author's marriage is or is not.
I do ask him to do what he thinks that the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob would have him do.
If God was a party to a marriage covenant, that marriage deserves full respect. If He did not bless it, then respect for the institution of marriage requires an honest process for determining that.
Please, do not confuse the failures of men in and of the Church for a failure of God Himself, or proof of His nonexistence. I know that it requires faith.
You raise some interesting points, so let me address what I can:
"Didn't Jesus undergo (if you believe) all of those things for us?"
Voluntarily and unnecessarily, yes. One of the things I despise about the Christian story is the way it's used to guilt trip us: "Jesus did this for you. And you can't do X thing you've been told you're obligated to do for him?"
We need to dispense with the idea that the crucifixion was necessary. It wasn't. It was a choice. God didn't need to do that to save us, even according to Christian theology. In fact, there's a venerable tradition among theologians to say that Christ's blood was so precious and powerful that the blood shed at his circumcision was enough to save mankind.
Personally, I have huge objections to the entire soteriological narrative in Christianity. The Garden of Eden was pure entrapment; a setup from the beginning. If you have any doubt, why the hell was Satan allowed to enter the garden when he was supposed to be chained up? There's no justice in original sin if any of us could have resisted the temptations of the serpent, so we are forced to assume that NO human being, ever, anywhere, could have done better than Adam and Eve did. It was a pre-ordained fall.
And there's no reason why a human sacrifice was necessary to appease God after it happened, either. You ever think about how weird that is? That was a divine choice (sticking within the framework of the story, which I don't grant as true) through and through.
So no, I don't buy this as an argument, but I do see why people do.
"As for men needing sex, every vocation to marriage is potentially a vocation to celibacy."
No, celibacy is the state of remaining unmarried, so no marriage is a vocation to celibacy. Yes, sometimes marriages require *continence* (the state of sexual abstinence for a greater good) but one assumes that such continence is undertaken voluntarily out of love, not because one is abandoned by their spouse. So if your wife might die if she gets pregnant, or she's in a coma after a car accident, or whatever, yes, you may have to endure continence out of love for her because of unavoidable circumstances. And yes, it will be hard, because yes, sex is the primary way men access emotional pair bonding through oxytocin. But like priestly celibacy -- an unnatural choice, sublimated to a higher good -- it can be borne because it is being done for a noble reason.
What is the noble reason when a wife tells her husband that intimacy in the marriage is over at her unilateral and sole discretion? What is the noble reason for remaining faithful to someone who abandons vows they very likely never intended to keep without exception? How is a husband supposed to respond to a wife who tells him she just doesn't have those kinds of feelings for him anymore?
I should note -- and perhaps this is a function of my age more than anything -- that I'm far more concerned with the loss of daily companionship and mutually shared love than I am about the loss of sex. That said, the possibility of sexual intimacy deepens emotional intimacy, and the two are inextricably related in opposite sex relationships.
But when a person who is wired for connection is forced into a lifetime of isolation and loneliness, it's not entirely dissimilar to putting a prisoner in solitary confinement. It's damaging to mental and physical health in the long term. And when someone is put in that position unjustly, it is corrosive in ways that are extremely damaging.
"I recognize that some attempted Catholic marriages are invalid in God's Eyes. I severely doubt that most of them are. I do not judge whether the author's marriage is or is not."
Why do you doubt? Do you think people who enter marriage with the belief that they can get out of it if they feel unhappy at some point are offering valid consent? Do you think people who grow up in homes where parents divorced, and in a world where most marriages end in divorce, really understand and commit to the idea that marriage is truly forever? You think they don't have in the back of their mind, "Well, if it doesn't work out, I'll do what I've seen everyone else do..."
And of course, the reason I brought up the societal context is that couples don't have the support of extended family. Younger married folks don't get a lot of sage advice from their elders on what to do when they feel or don't feel a certain way after hardship in their marriage. They don't get help taking care of their kids. Very few of them get to experience a traditional marriage where the wife stays home with the kids while the husband works, and even when they do, many of the women end up resenting it, because that's not the life they see elsewhere. I think all of this has an effect. We are all products of our environments.
"If God was a party to a marriage covenant, that marriage deserves full respect. If He did not bless it, then respect for the institution of marriage requires an honest process for determining that.
Please, do not confuse the failures of men in and of the Church for a failure of God Himself, or proof of His nonexistence. I know that it requires faith."
OK, so how do you KNOW, with any degree of certitude, whether God was a party to a marriage covenant? If the Church is the body appointed by God as the judge, then aren't the rather prolific number of annulments she grants evidence of the fact that he isn't? And if not, why are individual Catholics arrogating to themselves the idea that they know the mind of God better than the Church does? It seems we have a discrepancy of competing claims.
-> Thank you for your counterpoints. I'll try to reply point by point. My new replies are marked with arrows.
-> I will try to address the issue with annulments and invalidity in a further reply tomorrow.
"Didn't Jesus undergo (if you believe) all of those things for us?"
Voluntarily and unnecessarily, yes. One of the things I despise about the Christian story is the way it's used to guilt trip us: "Jesus did this for you. And you can't do X thing you've been told you're obligated to do for him?"
We need to dispense with the idea that the crucifixion was necessary. It wasn't. It was a choice. God didn't need to do that to save us, even according to Christian theology. In fact, there's a venerable tradition among theologians to say that Christ's blood was so precious and powerful that the blood shed at his circumcision was enough to save mankind.
-> Jesus's Sacrifice was voluntary in a similar (though not identical) way to the way that your marriage to your wife was voluntary - a free gift of love, imposing certain hardships (which Jesus technically could have refused, but you must not).
-> Within the framework of Jesus's consent and the Father's will, we made it necessary for Jesus to die - first by sinning in the Garden and onward, and finally by refusing to show Him mercy (or even justice) on Good Friday.
-> I think that part of the essence of the Incarnation was that Jesus became like an ordinary member of human society, fully vulnerable to our injustice (though He got a reprieve when the Angel warned Joseph, and another one when He passed through the hostile crowd).
-> Analogously, when spouses marry, they become fully vulnerable to each other. Either one can crucify the other, though thankfully they can also choose not to. If you want to see Jesus spared from Calvary, just look at a husband and wife who are kind to each other.
Personally, I have huge objections to the entire soteriological narrative in Christianity. The Garden of Eden was pure entrapment; a setup from the beginning. If you have any doubt, why the hell was Satan allowed to enter the garden when he was supposed to be chained up? There's no justice in original sin if any of us could have resisted the temptations of the serpent, so we are forced to assume that NO human being, ever, anywhere, could have done better than Adam and Eve did. It was a pre-ordained fall.
And there's no reason why a human sacrifice was necessary to appease God after it happened, either. You ever think about how weird that is? That was a divine choice (sticking within the framework of the story, which I don't grant as true) through and through.
-> This gets to the essence of collective justice, which I have had great trouble understanding and accepting myself. The way I explain it is that whenever God allows the actions of one creature to affect the salvation of another, you have collective justice.
-> Suppose that you rescue a drowning man who was in a state of mortal sin, and he repents. You saved his soul. But suppose you could have decided to let him drown. How is it fair that your choice could determine whether he is judged when he is unready, or when he is ready?
-> My answer is that justice = fairness + mercy. Fairness is the bare minimum that God owes you. God can choose to show you mercy Himself, or He can delegate His mercy to a creature, who may deliver it to its destination or not.
-> Lucifer was a very exalted angel, given an enormous degree of mercy to pass on, but decided to do his worst to destroy it all. The test in Eden would have been far easier for Adam and Eve if Lucifer had chosen to be good (and second God's warning) rather than evil (and tempt against God's warning).
-> Even the expulsion of Satan from Heaven was hard-won by St. Michael and the angels of God. Perhaps God wanted Adam and Eve to participate in the final binding themselves. Can you fault God for allowing self-chosen evil to test good, and conversely, for allowing good creatures to fight evil, even though this places them in peril?
-> I admit that I do not understand blood guilt well enough to be confident of explaining it fairly. But I don't think your logic holds when you say that if we could have resisted the temptation in the Garden of Eden, we should not be bound by Original Sin. I think that some people could have resisted. But they are not only victims of Original Sin - they have also learned from the punishment visited on our ancestors, and perhaps even from the Fruit of Knowledge (that is, from consciousness of sin - do you think that Adam and Eve liked knowing that they were naked)?
-> We have also learned and received grace from Chrst Himself. Some of these things (though not necessarily the last) only happened because we (collectively, I know) failed. And sometimes when one fails a test, it is fair to have to take a different test in order to pass the course.
No, celibacy is the state of remaining unmarried, so no marriage is a vocation to celibacy. Yes, sometimes marriages require *continence* (the state of sexual abstinence for a greater good) but one assumes that such continence is undertaken voluntarily out of love, not because one is abandoned by their spouse. So if your wife might die if she gets pregnant, or she's in a coma after a car accident, or whatever, yes, you may have to endure continence out of love for her because of unavoidable circumstances. And yes, it will be hard, because yes, sex is the primary way men access emotional pair bonding through oxytocin. But like priestly celibacy -- an unnatural choice, sublimated to a higher good -- it can be borne because it is being done for a noble reason.
What is the noble reason when a wife tells her husband that intimacy in the marriage is over at her unilateral and sole discretion? What is the noble reason for remaining faithful to someone who abandons vows they very likely never intended to keep without exception? How is a husband supposed to respond to a wife who tells him she just doesn't have those kinds of feelings for him anymore?
-> I accept your correction of terms - we are talking about continence. And the situation is different, when one is abandoned, versus when one's spouse is incapacitated. But in both cases continence is equally voluntary: it is physically possible to violate, but is morally mandatory. In both cases, it is an act of love for one's spouse.
-> On one hand, the spouses are one flesh, so adultery against an absent spouse does harm to his/her spousal body. On the other hand, if a man abandons his wife, and she faithfully awaits his return, isn't that an act of love for him?
-> I understand that this is a hard teaching, but if I were married, and my wife left me, I believe that I would wait for her, without reservation.
There’s a lot here I could reply to, but this risks turning the thread into a theological back and forth that goes nowhere. Many of my deepest doubts about Christianity are peeking through here, and I don’t think I want to take the conversation in that direction.
I hear you, but I’m going to leave it here or we could spend days debating this stuff and not get anywhere, and I really want to make this week more productive. One of the underlying things in this whole discussion is how much being abandoned and exiled in this way has flatlined my identity, my ability to desire anything, my sense of there being any purpose in life at all. It’s the most disorienting thing I’ve ever experienced, and I’m trying to lock in on stuff that pulls me out of the morass, not stuff that keeps me stuck in it.
Thanks for engaging.
Those last two sentences...I'm speechless.
Why is that?
They're both very profound. I don't know that I could have written them.
One of the most difficult things I've had to come to terms with over the past 5 or 6 years is that nobody is coming to save us, especially God.
I'm not telling people not to believe in him. I just think his interventionist reputation is ill-deserved. Most people don't get miracles. Most people don't even get intuitions that are obviously from him. They just have to muddle through.
Even now, I still ask, and I still get nothing.
Cardinal Sarah's opinion that God is silent is a hard lesson to learn, but one we can agree on. Muddling through does seem to be the order of the day..
Does anything seem better now, that fewer people are getting married and divorce is easy? Did kids shoot up schools back when people were forced, by shame and religion, to stay in their marriages? Stay married and miserable for the kids. Are our little lives so important that we need to find some greater meaning than: you lived, you reproduced and you did you duty. Then, you died.
There's a lot going on here in a relatively brief comment, but I want to try to address this:
You have a combination here of assumed (but false) causality, and post hoc ergo propter hoc reasoning.
The problems you describe are multifactorial, but you tie them innately to this one issue without any evidence of the connection.
Could widespread divorce be a contributor? Of course. I don't think it's good for anyone, especially kids. I hate it. I hate that I even have to think about what it means in my life.
But my purpose here is in trying to understand how to survive it reasonably.
We have so many societal issues that lead to mental health crises among kids. From screen time to hormone changes to peer interactions to social propaganda to broken homes. I don't think we know the full extent of why. I do think it's very obvious, though, that the young people who engage in these activities are often deeply disturbed and socially exiled and frequently on prescribed psychiatric medications.
As for the "are our little lives so important" question, I can only answer that subjectively. Yes, I feel like my life is important enough that forcing me to suffer unjustly matters. And I think yours does, too. If God is truly essential being, in need of nothing, then he does not require our suffering. It would be nice to believe that if he loves it, he cares about consoling us in it when it comes, not just submitting us to as much as possible because it "builds character" or something.