re-Married after Divorce

We have a member that was Married in 2001, Sealed in 2006, Divorced? (not sure). The member came to me and said they were remarried in 2014 and wanted to update their civil marriage record in MLS. When I tried to update it says your marriage date cannot be after the sealing date. I will be asking the brother on Sunday if they were Divorced or not, but would like to know what needs to be done to update their civil marriage.

Thanks,
Mark M.

Jester_ag wrote:remarried in 2014

To the same spouse? Or someone else?

Same Spouse.

Jester_ag wrote:Same Spouse.

If there wasn't a divorce then the remarriage wasn't really a legal matter, just a re-commitment. In that case, I don't think there is anything to record because the original marriage date is still the legal marriage date.

But assuming there was a divorce then you should find out the divorce date, terminate the marriage using that divorce date and then record the new civil marriage.

eblood66 wrote:terminate the marriage using that divorce date and then record the new civil marriage.

You can try, but I suspect MLS will complain about a sealing date before marriage date when it's to the same spouse.

I'd give Local Unit Support a call, or send in a Special Request. But even if it's recorded, don't be surprised if it comes up as an exception at a future date. Maybe LUS can do something to suppress that.

I'm almost tempted to just put in the original marriage date and leave it at that. The member's status would be correct (married), and no exceptions would be created that would cause future clerks to poke their nose into it. There's a number of things that happen that are not reflected on a membership record - I don't think there's anything that the ward sees that would show that someone was re-baptized and had their blessings restored after excommunication. What difference does it make if they were divorced and remarried? But as I said: almost. I'd talk with LUS first.

russellhltn wrote:

eblood66 wrote:terminate the marriage using that divorce date and then record the new civil marriage.

You can try, but I suspect MLS will complain about a sealing date before marriage date when it's to the same spouse.

Actually it works just fine with no complaint, at least in the test install. However, the sealing date no longer shows up. I'm sure it would still be on the complete membership record at CHQ but it disappears at least temporarily from MLS. Of course, I can't tell what happens after you do a send/receive. It's possible the sealing would show back up and potentially cause problems in the future. So contacting LUS would probably be a good idea.

Jester_ag, if you do, please report back so if anyone else ever encounters the same situation they can find the answer here.

eblood66 wrote:However, the sealing date no longer shows up.

That's odd. I assume we're talking about a civil divorce, not a sealing cancellation. As a saving ordinance, I wouldn't expect it to disappear until canceled regardless of what happens to the civil marriage.

The record will show a sealing to a prior spouse, who happens to have the same name as the current spouse.

I would record the divorce (if there was one) and the remarriage, then call LUS and ask them to have the sealing information display again.

I imagine that the MLS programmers did not consider this situation as a test case.

russellhltn wrote:

eblood66 wrote:However, the sealing date no longer shows up.

That's odd. I assume we're talking about a civil divorce, not a sealing cancellation. As a saving ordinance, I wouldn't expect it to disappear until canceled regardless of what happens to the civil marriage.

Yes, civil divorce. Like I said, I'm sure it's still there at CHQ. But given the way MLS shows things it would not look correct to continue to show the sealing after the divorce and remarriage to another spouse because it would appear they are sealed to the wrong spouse.

It sticks in my mind that there's a "prior marriage" field/page. The sealing may still be there - just not where you're used to seeing it. I'm not in front of my test machine, so I can't test that.

So I have a test MLS that I use to search for items before I make changes in the Ward MLS, what I am seeing is this:

1. I grabbed an account and did a Terminate Marriage
2. Closed out & went back in, tried to add the re-marriage
3. I get the same error "The Sealing Date you enter cannot be earlier than the marriage date."

I cannot send/receive because its a test account but that shouldn't really matter.

Jester_ag wrote:So I have a test MLS that I use to search for items before I make changes in the Ward MLS, what I am seeing is this:

1. I grabbed an account and did a Terminate Marriage
2. Closed out & went back in, tried to add the re-marriage
3. I get the same error "The Sealing Date you enter cannot be earlier than the marriage date."

I cannot send/receive because its a test account but that shouldn't really matter.

Did you try to re-enter the sealing date? I did basically the same and it didn't give that error.

Did you re-enter the marriage by using the Membership > Ordinances > Record Civil Marriage menu option or by just re-editing the marriage on the Current Spouse tab? I used Record Civil Marriage.