Asking for thoughts about the marriage duty

[Mary_Poppins]

I’m a married man who hasn’t fullfilled his marriage duties in over a year. My wife resents this (and a lot of other things). I want to work on communication and marriage issues, sex will come afterwards to me. She wants it now. We are at a stand still. Just so you know it’s not only woman.

Peace,
Bill

Of course! I’m sorry if I sounded like women are the only ones who suffer with issues in relating to their spouse in a sexual manner. It can feel really “icky” for lots of us, men and women, when the other spouse is “demanding” something that, yeah, they have a right to, but…it still feels icky, guilt-tripping, triggering, and just plain wrong. It’s literally taken me about 5 years to get to the point that all of you reading read about! That is, 5 years of resentment, anger, fighting, counseling, etc… I was beginning to lose hope for it had been so long since either of us had any kind of a breakthrough. Then, after reading some of the threads on sexuality in marriage, I found some of my icky, used feelings were lifting! I realized I had responsibility to talk to my spouse about all of my feelings, in a gentle way, if there was to be any hope of saving us. The triggering seemed to be stopping, I felt more open to asking for what I need. I talked to my spouse about the emotional pain he was causing me- right or wrong, there it was, and I couldn’t help the feelings, they just were. And through the grace of God, I was able to to talk to him without any anger, just showing him my raw vulnerable pain that his “demands” so to speak, caused me. It has pulled us so much closer together! Now I will admit that I have an unusually forgiving spouse. The constant rejection from me has weakened our bond, but he is more than willing to work on repairing it…I bet your wife will, too, but it may take some real open honesty about your feelings around the issue, the whys and the wherefores, the details of why you feel the way you do, no pride allowed in that convo. Not easy ground. Pray for grace first.

Will be praying for you! God please heal our marriages!

 

[hurting]

I’m a married man who hasn’t fullfilled his marriage duties in over a year. My wife resents this (and a lot of other things). I want to work on communication and marriage issues, sex will come afterwards to me. She wants it now. We are at a stand still. Just so you know it’s not only woman.

Peace,
Bill

Bill,

I say this as a fellow Catholic husband (sorry, I assumed you are in a Catholic marriage) and offer it in all charity. Absent your marriage suffering from a short, narrowly defined set of circumstances (for example, adultery), you are obligated to engage in the marital embrace with your wife. If none of these matters is at issue, you are doing grievous harm to your marriage by withholding intimacy from your wife.

Get with the program. You’ll be glad you did.

 

[fpt]

I’m a married man who hasn’t fullfilled his marriage duties in over a year. My wife resents this (and a lot of other things). I want to work on communication and marriage issues, sex will come afterwards to me. She wants it now. We are at a stand still. Just so you know it’s not only woman.

Peace,
Bill

Bill,

you should to try to offer yourself to your wife , because that is your moral catholic obligation coming from the sexed and sexual contract, the marriage, if there is no objective and realistic reason. The fact of making one flesh, in the human fashion with sexual cooperation is the rule: it is the hard core of natural marriage. Do you have relevant causes, serious motives, objective and realistic reasons for not to fill your sexual duties toward your wife?

In catholicism, each spouse has the moral obligation** to discern the why of the refusal of marital request of marital act or of the refusal to ask for marital act.** You need to identify the very deep reasons. You should to have a nice discussion with your wife about your conjugal sexuality. It is may be difficult for you, but the try is always the good start. The fact of attempting is the very good thing. In the real world, it is not always easy, I know.

I hope the best for your couple.

You are right, also the man can be in this situation. Each couple, each female , and each male is different.