Catholic Online Forum

My husband of 35 years died in September of '07. Shortly afterward his cousin which we hadn't seen for 15 to 20 years came to offer his condolences. As I got to know him, he told me he was divorced. Two years later I found out he wasn't divorce but in fact married. I immediately told him to leave my house and me. (We weren't living together, we had a date that night.)

Of course, I felt destroyed again.

He since filed for divorce and had been sleeping in his truck. In fact, he was homeless. My feelings softening for him and let him move into my guest room. He does the hard work on the 6 acres that I own and helps with expenses and recently gone back to work else where.

I am growing to trust him once again and love him.

Was I an adulteress when I didn't know he was married. Am I an adulteress now??

Ellen Schroer

Ellen,

My sympathies on the death of your husband.

Regarding adultery, this is committed when there are sexual relations between two people, one or both of whom are married to someone else. You would have to know the other person was married for you to be guilty of adultery. However, if there are sexual relations between two people who are assumed by each not to be married, and they aren't married to each other, then the sin of fornication is involved. If there were no sexual relations, then neither of those sins applies. You shouldn't feel the need to say here whether there was sex involved or not. Let's all assume there wasn't.

Regarding dating this man...in my opinion, dating is meant to determine suitability for marriage. If you are Catholic, you are required to be married in the Catholic Church, or receive a dispensation for form, or the marriage will be invalid in the consideration of the Church and you will be considered to be committing adultery. If the man's prior marriage has not been examined by the Church for validity and has not been declared null, then you do not have the possibility of marrying this man in the Church. Therefore, dating him is a problem, since there is no place this relationship can develop that will legitimize anything but a non-physical relationship.

Of course, if all you are doing is maintaining a platonic relationship and you see no danger that something else will develop, then it is not necessarily a problem.

_________________
Dean
Most people's sense of history goes back to breakfast time - Benjamin Netanyahu