Marriage til death do us part.

Even after divorce.

As a (then very) devout catholic, i married my (then adored) catholic husband decades ago.

A few years ago, he surprised me, unilaterally deciding to divorce me for another woman, and leave our adolescent children and me to fend for ourselves.

A landslide.

God pulled me out of the agnostic mud where I had plunged deeper to find relief and companionship. I was drowning. I almost died.

Mother Mary patiently waited as i was slowly coming back to my senses and finally grasped the deeper meaning of chastity.

My conscience gradually emerged from the cesspool of mortal sin i was in, and a few good priests patiently heard my several sobbing confessions as layer upon layer of repentance opened my eyes to the horror of past sins i had not measured before. Contraception was one of them. From med school on, it had been so easy to tell myself that it was the only way to get rid of the intense pains of my periods, so I could survive the regular 24 to 36 hours shifts that were required of the good hospital physician my husband wanted me to be.

There is no "getting over it" when a catholic marriage ends in civil divorce. Every day I am married to a husband who stopped caring long ago, every day I am called to uphold my marriage vows, every day my children suffer the consequences of their fatherless coming of age, every day is bizarre, lonely, yet full of God's grace.

I wish I had friends who would simply hold my hand and sit in in silence with me when the weight of praying daily for a husband who now scares me and who “is living his best life" with serial concubines weights a bit heavily on my lonely, ashamed, married, catholic shoulders.

But no.

"Get over it"

"What do you mean you're married? Didn't you get a divorce?" (The civil divorce does not change the catholic marriage.)

"Can't you get an annulment?" (No. It's called declaration of nullity and my vows were oh-so-valid. As for asking my husband who lied all through the divorce proceedings if his vows were valid… it would be silly to rely on his word. At least the bishop gave me formal permission to not live with my spouse.)

I don't have close catholic friends. Women in good marriages are known to whisper that women like me must have done something wrong to deserve this. Oh, they are right about us abandoned women being flawed. But did we deserve getting discarded like yesterday's trash? I hope not.

I could definitely use a hug from one of these blessed homeschooling mothers whose husbands blog about how their trad wife gets everything right.

I pray more than i ever did before. I pray for my suffering children, especially the one whose life is stuck, the one who is angry at God and who was most dismissed by his father.

Mass is a fountain of grace. However, i sometimes get distracted in my novus ordo parish, as i am made to see priests who knowingly give holy communion to couples in adulterous relationships, couples living together for years without being married... how is that helping them follow Jesus? What is that teaching children and young men about the sanctity of marriage? How is that encouraging me to suffer well for the Glory of Christ?

I suppose the humiliation of being that old bitter weirdo who doesn't “get over it” is a blessing.

May God have mercy on us all

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