The Eastern Catholic Churches established annulment processes in the 20th century at Rome's insistence. The Romanian and Melkite Catholic Churches followed the Orthodox Church's practices as recently as 100 years ago.
It does allow them the ability to maintain the fiction that there's a difference between every annulment and a divorce.
"The Eastern Catholic Churches established annulment processes in the 20th century at Rome's insistence. The Romanian and Melkite Catholic Churches followed the Orthodox Church's practices as recently as 100 years ago."
FWIW, I would prefer that we had skipped the adoption of that innovation.