Amoris Laetitia came out while I was sitting in a hospital with my Tio (Uncle) Roy when he was dying in the ICU. At the time, my husband and I were on very shaky ground as far as our marriage was concerned.
After many years of struggle that caused a lot of damage, pain and debt I considered that maybe it was time to go back to the divorce lawyer I had contacted once before, and get divorce papers drawn up.
I began therapy when our marriage was at its lowest point. We started out going together, but that didn’t work out. We realized that before we could do therapy as a couple, we both had to deal with ourselves, and what we had been through before we ever even got married.
Neither of us had done that. We both assumed that getting married, and becoming Catholic after encountering and falling in love with Christ, would just “fix” all that stuff.
It doesn’t, and we had had a major setback while I was in the hospital with my uncle. It was bad.
I was looking forward to Pope Francis’ exhortation, because it was about love and marriage. I do think that marriage prep needs a lot of work. After decades and decades of divorce in this country, many people are really not prepared to enter into the sacrament with a sufficient understanding.
My husband and I had the best priest, and support of very holy people to help prepare us for marriage, but what we had not done was deal with the addictions, struggles, traumas and personal sins that contributed to the breakdown of our first marriages. I was raised by a single mother, and my husband’s parents were divorced and remarried multiple times, so neither of us had ever seen a well-functioning marriage up close and personal. We had no models for marriage. Continue reading
- Leticia Ochoa Adams is a writer, blogger, student, mother of 4, step-mom of 3 and grandmother of 2.