Ex wants a Catholic annulment 10 yrs after civil divorce?

I was briefly married in my early 20s to a trans woman I’ll call Carrie, birth name Charles. We were together for about four years, I helped her with her transition process, and we explored our respective de-conversions from conservative Christianity together (I was raised deeply, deeply conservative German Baptist, she mainstream Evangelical).

We eventually divorced because she became uncomfortable being intimate any longer and asked for a sexless marriage. It was a relatively amicable split, with no children or property to speak of. We haven’t spoken in a decade.

This week, I received the below message from her.

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Hi Arya,

This is Charles Brown. A lot of things have changed in my life and I wanted to give you a heads up that you will be seeing some Declaration of Nullity paperwork coming soon from the Catholic Diocese of Local Town.

You read that correctly. I've detransitioned and am going by my birth name once again. I've also come back to Christ and have entered into full communion with His Catholic Church. This is probably the least expected thing you were probably thinking you'd ever hear. But Jesus is real, Arya, and He changes lives. During our time together as atheists I never thought Jesus was anything other than myth, but He reached me in the only way possible that would have made me believe; He spoke to me out loud and called me by name, Joshua. He saved me out of the sinful life I was living and He brought me home - a miracle of a completely changed heart and a turned around life.

I am trying to repair the damage I've done in my life, in my body, and in my past relationships. Part of my repentance means seeking a Declaration of Nullity regarding our civil marriage. We didn't have anything close to what could be considered a Sacramental Marriage in the eyes of the Church. It's not my intention to deny our civil marriage, but it's to heal it and make it possible for us both to move forward with a clean slate in the eyes of God and His Church - to allow us to both be free to enter into any new relationships (or whatever vocation God has in mind for each of us) without being guilty of sin.

I am deeply sorry for how I hurt you and for how I repeatedly led you into mortal sin during our time together. I hope my reaching out to you now doesn't cause you any additional pain, but I figured it'd be easier to hear from me first before you receive paperwork from the Diocese. I sincerely hope you've been able to heal and are living a happy life now.

On a practical level, do you have an updated mailing address you're willing to share to save time during the annulment process? Also, do you remember if you were ever baptized before we met (I can't recall)? I was planning on giving your sister the opportunity to comment on the relationship too, if she wants (you can give her my info if she would like to comment).

Arya, I want you to know that Jesus loves you. More than you can possibly imagine. And if He can save me, He can save and heal you too if you let Him. I specifically pray for you every single day and I hope to one day call you my Sister in Christ.

May God Shed His Grace on You,

Charles Godwin Brown

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I find this confusing, hilarious, deeply weird, and pretty offensive all at the same time and cannot figure out how to respond at all. I’m glad Carrie(who I will now call Charles) is apparently at peace, though I have major doubts about their choices. I find the proselytizing and accusations of mortal sin to be incredibly rude, particularly given my background and our history together. He’s also aware that I have other trans relatives, so the anti-trans content is incredibly rude also.

From some research, it looks like this is an internal Catholic process and I assume it is taking place because Charles wants to marry someone in the church and have a “real” marriage. I’ve been happily married with kids for many years and don’t begrudge Charles any relationship he wants, but I do find this abrupt demand for cooperation in his new cult’s internal processes to be quite offensive and it definitely has my hackles raised.

I’m finding all of this quite stressful, as I thought I’d never have to deal with Charles again, and this communication style is very reminiscent of the end of our relationship, which was deeply painful for me. I’m torn between ignoring him, telling him to only speak to me if he can have a genuine conversation with me, or filling out the paperwork with every detail of why we split. I try to be the bigger person, but it’s quite difficult here.