I am a Catholic but my husband is not. He wants a divorce and I do not. What can I do?

First you must accept that you cannot force your spouse to remain married.

If your spouse is asking you for a divorce, then your marriage is obviously in dire straights. Whatever breakdown occurred you have a few responsibilities and a few options. As the Catholic Church teaches, you understand that marriage is an unbreakable bond ordained by God Himself, and no judge, arbitrator, or attorney can undo this sacramental bond. As such the first thing on your mind should be doing everything in your power to salvage the relationship you have with your spouse. Counseling, forgiveness, acceptance, prayer...whatever it takes so long as you or your children are not endangered by staying in the marriage.

Once you have done all you can to salvage your relationship, you may find that divorce is your only option. If this is the case, the Catholic Church does not forbid a civil divorce, which will end the marriage legally under civil law. But what you must remember is that a civil divorce does nothing to end the marriage in the eyes of the Church.

Misunderstanding this principle leads many people into situations that are gravely sinful and separate them from the grace of Christ and His church. The most common example of this is remarriage. You cannot marry again in the Church.

You have one other option. You can request an annulment by speaking to your parish priest. He can give you all the information you need to proceed in your local diocese. There are specific grounds on which an annulment can be granted. A tribunal will be held to determine if your marriage was valid and sacramental. General grounds for annulment are as follows:

• Psychological state precluding ability to consent
• No intention, when marrying, to contract a lifelong relationship
• No intention, when marrying, to have children
• Deception of one party by the other in order to obtain consent, and if the partner had been aware of the truth, would not have consented to marry
• Criminal defect (forced marriage through abduction, or murder of a spouse to free one to remarry)
• Failure to adhere to requirements of canon law for marriages.
• Undispensed defect of form (not married in a Catholic Church by a priest or deacon)
• Closely related to partner

If it is determined that you did not enter into a valid and sacramental marriage in the first place, then your marriage will be declared to have never existed. This would of course allow you to remarry if you wished. While your spouse does not need to cooperate in the process, their noncooperation will likely delay the process. This answer applies equally regardless of your spouse's religion or lack thereof, and applies to men and women.

If your spouse is not Catholic: You may not have been married in a Catholic Church (see the second to last bullet point). Many people today do not fully know what it means to be Catholic, and as such don't understand the proper reasons and process for getting married in the Catholic CHurch. This may result in a civil marriage or an undispensed marriage in another church, which is not allowed. This still requires an annulment before remarriage, but there would likely be a finding of nullity in the end.