“Can they never marry again?”
From the Church’s standpoint, if you are divorced and do not receive an annulment from the church (in other words, the church declaring after an investigation that the marriage was never valid) then you can not marry again. Doesn’t matter if you wanted a divorce or not.
However, they do very often grant annulments, though it’s not a pleasant process.
Seems to me that is what I was told when I asked the local parish priest too - you need to get an annulment. Thanks for responding.