God makes no provision in Scripture for annulments. When two people have sex, they become one flesh. It creates a soul tie to the other person.
Malachi 2:13-16 And this second thing you do. You cover the Lord's altar with tears, with weeping and groaning because he no longer regards the offering or accepts it with favor from your hand. 14 But you say, “Why does he not?” Because the Lord was witness between you and the wife of your youth, to whom you have been faithless, though she is your companion and your wife by covenant. 15 Did he not make them one, with a portion of the Spirit in their union? And what was the one God seeking? Godly offspring. So guard yourselves in your spirit, and let none of you be faithless to the wife of your youth. 16 “For the man who does not love his wife but divorces her, says the Lord, the God of Israel, covers his garment with violence, says the Lord of hosts. So guard yourselves in your spirit, and do not be faithless.”
I have heard over and over all kinds of rationale for allowing annulment and most of the scenarios which are presented are so rare that they could virtually never happen, especially if the priest had been doing his job in pre-Cana classes in counseling the couple.
Scripture and Jesus allow for an out for a married person for adultery by their spouse. So there is no need to have an annulment.
For all the RCC's great stand on abortion, euthanasia, homosexual marriage, they sure dropped the ball on protecting marriage by allowing annulments.
I must disagree with your principle that "When two people have sex, they become one flesh. It creates a soul tie to the other person."
Taken strictly, this leads to the rule that a rapist is required to marry his victim. Earlier this year I read about a 16-year-old girl in Morocco who committed suicide because of the decree under Sharia that she marry her assailant. The same is true in Deuteronomy.
A little reflection reveals that this one-intercourse=one-flesh view, paradoxically, would require most Christian spouses to annul their present marriages, since surveys show that the majority of Christians do not marry the first person they had intercourse with. In other words, even in the Christin world, most marriages are not marriages of two virgins.
There cannot be a covenant without an agreement to the terms of the covenant, and in the case of Christian marriage, there cannot be a Sacrament if the vows of one or the other wee fraudulent or intentionally deceptive from the git-go.
For a Christian marriage, the spouses must be eligible to marry, and choosing freely. They must intend a union which is permanent until death, exclusively faithful, open to the transmission of life; and the spouses must physically engage in marital intercourse, which consummates their union.<> Without these spiritual dispositions, there is no sacrament.
Unless you think that mere ritual words and physical actions convey the grace of the sacrament, regardless of the spiritual reality.
???
IN which case, I would be very much surprised!