Relevant Radio – Reducing Divorce, Supporting the Abandoned

Seasoned licensed marriage and family therapist, Doug Hinderer, had me as a guest on his Relevant Radio show “Marriage Unhindered” on June 30, 2025.  We talked about no-fault divorce in the United States, Church teaching on divorce, and the challenge of annulments.

Hear Full Broadcast HERE

Highlights

The State thinks you’re a control freak if you believe you’re married (4m.:29s.)

Bai: When you go through the no-fault divorce process as a defendant, ..  the State is empowered to force a breakup. So there there’s no option to try to stop a divorce. There’s no option to try to keep your own home if the two of you can’t support the home financially with one person living in a separate space.

… And the other thing is …if you come across as the person who believes “Hey, you know, my spouse promised ‘good times and bad, sickness and health.’ You know? There are other people who’ve experienced the same issues that we’ve experienced, and all we need is the right kind of help and direction, and I’m willing.”

Well, if you say that kind of thing, the State, kind of, labels you as a control freak who just doesn’t get along with it. It’s kind of like if you were a widow. If I was a widow and I’m telling (I don’t know), some court entity about my husband’s assets or whatever. If I was a widow who kept claiming my husband was alive, the mindset the civil the court would have about me … the mindset they have about a separated faithful person who still believes they’re married.

Doug: Yeah. Exactly right.

One cannot be one’s own judge(24m.:47s.)

Bai: (regarding the Catholic Code of Canon Law) Prior to approaching the civil court (i.e the State) It’s absolutely required that one cannot be one’s own judge to determine if one situation is tolerable to go to the civil court.

Doug: Interesting.

Bai: Which in my mind … Yeah … That makes sense. If we’re both attempting to be serious Catholics, that makes sense.

Doug: Yeah. Right. If we really take our marriage vows seriously and we intended to do this thing until death do us part, and now there’s some big problem that’s putting that in jeopardy, turning to the church to help, to get some help to fix it,  is the deal. But I normally, right, … you know …  part of the experience that I’ve had as a marriage therapist is couples wait too long to come to therapy. And by the time they come, one of them has already made the decision, “I’m not living like this anymore.”

And they’ve already checked out. And to get input early … It’s kind of like cancer, right? Early detection, you got a much better cure rate. And same with marital disharmony. Right?

If we can get on it early, we got a really good chance to fix whatever’s not working right before somebody gets to the point where they’re like, “I’m out of here.”

Bai: Mhmm. And the Church says that that’s supposed to happen before anyone goes to the state.

Heart of Separated Faithful (36m.:52s.)

Doug: What’s going on in the in the heart of the separated faithful person (the abandoned person)? What’s happened for that person?

Bai: A separated faithful person would view their spouse kinda like somebody whose spouse was a prisoner in war, or maybe the spouse was in a hospital in a coma. Because, one is still married and one lives like one is married … keeps their wedding rings on, certainly not acting like they’re free to date a new person. I think of 2 Tim. 2:22 … How do we treat the person who’s doing something unjust to us? And, we aptly correct we correct them with forbearance. So maybe, you know, we won’t pretend that evil is good, but we have forbearance. So, we’re just waiting, and waiting, and waiting. And, you know, they might wake up and reconcile. They might not. But our position is waiting. And there’s also forgiveness… working on forgiveness.  … it’s one thing to forgive someone that, you know, you were a victim of a crime five years ago or twelve years ago.

But with divorce, it never ends. There’s a there’s always a reminder. There’s a holiday. There’s a graduation.

There’s living alone where you should have your partner. There’s all of the troubles of life that it’s so much better to have two people in a household instead of the other, or just the companionship. So, all that is lost. And it’s not like a crime that happened a long time ago..

And this is very different than the people who say, you know, you’re kind of like the widow. The diocesan support groups put widows and divorce people together, but it’s not the same.

Doug: No. Not even close. Yeah. Because, yeah, when you’re a widow, I mean, there’s a finality to that. But when you’re divorced, it’s not final because it’s still that person is still around and still in your life, in a lot of ways. And that’s a tough thing.

Bai: And we do have a support group for people who have this position.

Doug: Tell me about that. Book The Gift of Self. Ah, okay. Fill me in on that.

Bai: … This book ends up being a good basis for a monthly conference support call where we just go through a chapter. Every month, we’ll go through a chapter, and we have a structured meeting for about a half an hour or an hour. And then anyone is welcome to stay on the call as long as they want and just chitchat….

Doug:  Right. Right. … Yeah, there’s just so much psychological value in connecting with people who are in the same predicament you’re in, whether it’s alcohol addiction, you know, with AA or whatever it is. To be able to connect with other people who are there and can commiserate with you is, in and of itself, can be very therapeutic and very healing.