Reading the pdf that the Tribunal has online for the Diocese where I live, regarding annulments in the Church.
The PDF in question is located here.
Mine is "point #3," 'Marriage between two non-Catholics (Christians or not) who are married by a nonCatholic' - I was Mormon and my first husband was a Satanic High Priest (yes, you're reading that right) when I married the first time (I was 19, he was 21). I was Protestant Christian and my 2nd husband was (as he calls it) a "recovering Catholic," which is a snarky way of saying, "nonpracticing" Catholic (I was 25 and he was almost 28), and neither marriage happened in the Church. The first one was with a JP (Justice of the Peace), and the 2nd one was with a Protestant Minister. My first marriage didn't last for a myriad of reasons, but the main two being I married him for the WRONG reasons, and we were both incredibly young and had NO idea what we were doing. The 2nd marriage, I was in the throes of depression and thought "Why not? I can't do any better, I guess I can't do any worse." Both husbands cheated on me, the 2nd one tried to blame me for his indiscretion. I am not going to endure being with someone I cannot trust. So, there's that. In order to be married in the Church one day, I have to go through this annulment process, too. Going to have to relive some stuff I'd rather not even remember, but I'll work through that with LJ, talking with those closest to me. I know I also have Holy Mother, and I have Jesus to talk to about this stuff, too, so I'm not floundering while I go through this.
There's several things that are concerning me about this annulment process. And I read the entire thing. I got as far as the "no less than 4 witnesses" part, and alarm bells started going berzerk in my head.
1 - it's asking for my childhood and family. I will talk about my marriages, no problem, but to talk about my childhood is a major sore spot for me to the point of anxiety. My Mom has lied to me from day 1 about my biological father, the man she married when I was 4 is NOT my father. I remember meeting him when I was 2. He was abusive in literally every sense of the word, and she was abusive, too. She enabled the abuse that went on at his hand, even encouraged a lot of the physical, emotional, verbal, and psychological. When I came out and told her when I was 15 about the sexual, she hit me and said I was "sick" and "making the whole thing up" and sent me to my Grandparents' house because she "couldn't control" me. Her words. Verbatim. :'( This is the same woman and man that would call me a "whore" all the time, even though how could I have been doing unspeakable, naughty things with boys? I wasn't ever allowed to go out with friends, and the rare times I was allowed, nothing EVER happened, I remained a virgin until after High School! I was usually only ever allowed Church and school, and I can count on two hands and probably still have fingers left over how many Church dances I was allowed to attend, plus the one dance when I was in 7th or 8th grade, I forget, and the Senior Prom that I had to beg and plead to go to that. So, yeah. Somehow I'm a "Whore."
2 - I told a friend who's a Seminarian earlier on the Facebook conversation we had through the comments that I can round up at least my best friend that I've known since childhood as far as both marriages. My first husband's step-monster and father only met me the day of the wedding. His roommate in the barracks when we got together, I don't talk to anymore because his wife put a stop to that because I am also friends with his ex-wife. She doesn't like that, his current wife doesn't, so she forbid my friend from ever talking to me again. Alrighty fine, I'm not going to go against that. I can try to track down the drummer and the bassist for my friend's band, because we used to hang out on weekends and go to their shows, but they didn't know me much before we got married. My friend knew me for about a week before my first husband and I got married, and the drummer met me once as we were moving my first husband out of the barracks that week, and the bassist and lead guitarist didn't meet me until AFTER we got married, and I was painfully shy back then, so it was difficult to get to know me, so they didn't know me all that well. He and I didn't have much of a courtship before we got married. I was very angry with my Mom (long story), and she hated him, so I married him to spite her. I have no problem reliving some of the stuff that went down between he and I, that's not the issue. I'll suck it up and deal with it, because it needs to be done, but tracking down "no less than four witnesses," that's unfortunately not a possibility. I can only think of my best friend of going on 30 years. She's been through everything with me, carried me through the divorce, all of it. So, I KNOW she'll be a willing party. But three other people? I can't think of anyone. Most everyone I knew back in Texas when he and I got together, they were all his friends, and didn't know me real well, even after we got married, and most of them were military personnel that were in his unit when he was in the Army, and I've not talked to them in so long, I don't even remember 99.999% of their names.
3 - Second husband. Well, I can track down a couple people that knew me before we got married, but most of my friends in that relationship were friends of his long before I came into the picture. The one constant friend I've had, again, is my best friend I've known for 30 years, and she wasn't a visual witness to anything, as she's back in California, but we've stayed in touch all this time. He and I didn't have a long courtship, either, we dated for.....3 months? Something like that? And there were only a tiny handful of people at the ceremony, all his friends that sort of accepted me - but I've lost touch with one of them, years ago, I don't even know her last name anymore, or where she lives to try to track her down. It's been so long, I sincerely doubt she even remembers either of us. There's one guy that we both knew that has known him since childhood, but he's in Cinci (last I heard), and I don't have a way to reach him anymore. I was friends with his ex-wife for awhile, but because of a huge mistake I'd made with a mutual friend back at the end of 2011, there was a HUGE falling out with that friend I'd made the epic mistake with, HIS ex-wife (who is a compulsive liar, anyway, so I don't trust anything that woman has to say), I stopped talking to the ex-wife of the guy that now lives in Cinci that's known my ex-husband since childhood because she's still friends with that lot, and I don't need that coming to my doorstep. I've worked very hard to extract all those people from my life, and maintain a semblance of privacy and I'd prefer it that way (I used to be painfully shy when I was younger, then I trusted the wrong people and they really hurt me, so now I'm more of a recluse now, except on here, b/c of the anonymity I'm allowed and because of the "Friends Only" feature that makes me feel safe enough to post stuff), rather than go through the stalking and nightmares all over again. She and her current husband were both at our wedding, as were another couple that now HATES my ex-husband for a different reason than his indiscretion toward me during our marriage. I don't talk to her anymore because she got too poisonous to be around. Plus I'd found out she was lying about a bunch of stuff, and I refuse to be around people I don't trust. I just can't. I've endured enough lies from my own Mom since childhood, I don't need a "friend" to lie to me, too. Plus there's the matter of my address and phone number getting "accidentally" or "on purpose" leaked to these people, and I really am terrified of that happening. I do NOT want these people to find me, they've already made nasty threats to me back in 2012 when things exploded. Thus why I cut them out of my life for good. Being I live in Ohio, and there's no stalking law in place, the law is NOT on my side. So, it's best if I remain in hiding from them.
I mean, both marriages I did my part, I stayed true to my vows, NEVER strayed, and when my first husband pressured me into allowing another female into the relationship (he told me he would divorce me if I didn't, and being that Mormons tell their daughters, "Good girls do what their husbands say," I went along with it for the duration of our relationship, even though I really didn't feel comfortable with it, but I didn't want to get a divorce. Divorce meant failure, and my Mom and the old man were all about putting me down because I "never follow through" on stuff. I've never measured up in their eyes, and won't, ever, so it's whatever now. The 2nd marriage, he cheated NUMEROUS times, and I got sick of being blamed for HIS stupidity leak, so we ended things. I was not going to risk MY health for him sleeping around and possibly bringing me home something! Neither marriage should've happened, but they did. Neither time these things that THEY did are MY fault, so I hope the Tribunal sees that.
The first marriage, it's going to be difficult to find more than one person that knew us both through the duration of our marriage. I know my best friend knew both of us (we all went to school together, that's how we all met, I met her in 4th grade when we were 10, she and I met him when we were 13 and he was 15), but to find another person, that's going to take some doing. I know how to get in touch with my ex-step-monster-in-law, I've found her on Facebook, but that's going to be tricky. I've not spoken to her in almost 20 years. The 2nd marriage, not AS tricky to find people, but it's going to be painful, b/c all the friends we had together here in Ohio, knew him before they met me. My best friend will again vouch for me for the 2nd marriage, she was my "go-to" when the crap was going down, but to find someone else....I can TRY, but like I said, it's going to take me getting back in touch with people I have cut ties with because of all the drama they have caused. All over something I should NEVER have allowed to happen, but was misled into believing was alright. Turns out, I'd been lied to, so to reach out to these people, and as dishonest as they were to ME, I cannot trust that they would be entirely honest with holy people who are trying to see my case for an annulment......
So, in short, I think I'm irreparably screwed. :'(