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Hoosier_Daddy
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What is disturbing is the amount of posts and threads on CAF. That seem to be spawned by red pill thought.
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stinkcat_14
Guest
I have a friend whose wife has not been intimate with him for two years. She refused to go to counseling about it. The last time he brought up the subject she threatened divorce. He went to counseling on his own for the issue, the counselor told him to get his needs met elsewhere. Are you really going to say my friend is not a victim? With the attitudes like I see on these forums I would not send him to CAF for advice.
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smichhertz
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Hi Billycourty,
I’m so sorry to hear about your situation. Perhaps the title was a bit one-sided, but I was thinking about it in terms of a “dead bedroom” issue that affects both husband and wife in a marriage. The video is simplistic in nature, but that’s what I found so interesting about it. Perhaps a simple “back to the basics” approach could help resolve some dead bedroom marriages, which is what interested me.
Presumably,in your situation, if it’s been going on for 18 years, there’s probably not much in terms of the simplistic approach of the video that will be of aid to you. I just want you to know that I am praying for you and your marriage. I sincerely hope that your situation is rectified.
Peace and God bless!
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smichhertz
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Hi egretps,
I think that this is an excellent point. Porn DESTROYS marriage and is one of the single greatest threats to the sacrament of marriage. What’s horrifying is how many young men watch it regularly, and how it so negatively affects their view of women, sex and even themselves. I even recall seeing a survey that said many men preferred it to actual sex with their partner.
I think getting down to the specifics of who is the cause of a dead bedroom is a bad approach, so in retrospect, perhaps the gender specific title of the video was not the right way to word it. When I watched it, I was thinking of it in terms of a dead bedroom issue and saw a simplistic approach as a possible remedy. Sometimes issues can be caused by over-complication.
In any case, thanks for your (name removed by moderator)ut, it’s an uncomfortable issue to talk about, but I think it’s still an important one regardless.
Peace and God bless!
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Allegra
Guest
How in the world are we supposed to know if your friend is a victim of his wife? For all we know, he might be an absolute brute during sex. He might completely ignore all of her emotional needs or be abusive towards her. Or she might have torn herself from stem to stern giving him a baby and have trauma over it. Or she might have developed a disorder that makes sex painful for her. Or he might have cheated on her and she’s afraid of getting a disease. I mean, it’s possible that she just a shrewish ice princess, but most normal women like having sex under normal circumstances and don’t tend to forgo it for a year without some sort of reason.
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smichhertz
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Hi Xantippe,
Excellent point! And thank you for the research. I will look into this and come back if I have any questions.
I generally agree with you, NFP does make a huge difference and I have seen how happy married couples are who practice NFP.
A majority of American Catholics (unfortunately) do use birth control, which could likely be a contributing factor to the problem.
Peace and God bless!
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pensmama87
Guest
In terms of casting blame, I agree, I don’t think it’s particularly useful, but it can be useful to address causes. If hormonal changes in the wife (pregnancy, breastfeeding, menopause, for example) make sex very uncomfortable, that should be looked at. If the husband has a very physically demanding job and is exhausted when he comes home, maybe that can be addressed. Maybe other priorities come up and sex gets put on the backburner. The solution might be scheduling it - which sounds unromantic but can give the lower-interest partner time to prepare and help the higher interest partner not feel so desperate. You can’t just say, “boink more.” The question is how, for that particular couple.
One thing that frequently bugs me on these threads when they pop up (and I’m not saying I see it here and I’m not saying it’s one sided on either husbands or wives), is an extreme reluctance on the part of the spouse who wants more sex to change anything else about how they relate to their spouse. It’s absolutely wrong for one spouse to completely deny the other without good reason, so I’ll be clear about that. But sex is very much a part of the overall communication pattern of the marriage. It’s true that it can be a bit of a chicken and egg question, but as in everything else, you can’t control what other people do. You can only control what you do, and your spouse refusing to have sex or help out at home or whatever doesn’t relieve you of your responsibility to be the best spouse you can. Sometimes that’s going to mean holding them accountable, but that’s really difficult to do if you’re being hypocritical in other areas of the marriage.
And if this is something that’s been going on for years and years and you don’t know what to do, it’s time to swallow your pride and get outside help.
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stinkcat_14
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Here is my problem with this line of questioning. The presumption is that if the wife doesn’t to have sex the man is guilty until proven innocent. For example, in the case of my friend, I would argue that it could very well be that she is more emotionally abusive towards him than he is towards her. Part of the problem is that his wife was sexually abused as a child. She will not deal with that issue at all, so my friend is stuck. If he asks her to deal with the sex problem, she becomes emotionally abusive. He is at the brink of divorce, I have even had him stay at my house a couple of times to get away from her wrath.
Now the question is, if he is truly a loving husband and not an abuser in any way, is he a victim?
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stinkcat_14
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I think the other side of the coin is that there are some refused spouses are willing to do anything to solve the problem and the refusing spouses are willing to do nothing. A refused spouse in that situation is really stuck. Secular counselors are often of little value since like in the case of my friend, their advice is often either get divorced or have an affair. As we have seen on this thread, if it is a guy who wants more intimacy he is sometimes treated as a whiner and given the third degree as to what he did to deserve it.
I agree that the advice, from what little I saw is overly simplistic. I think part of the problem is we don’t really know if anyone has ever recovered from a dead bedroom. The real problem is how do you fix a problem that one spouse does not think is a problem?
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Xantippe
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Oh, **now **you mention that she was sexually abused as a child.
Previously, she was just an inexplicable meanypants.
That probably goes far to explaining why she doesn’t want to do counseling–she probably is afraid of winding up re-living her abuse if she talks about it. (Unfortunately, there are inept therapists who don’t understand that sort of thing–I’ve encountered at least a couple people who had that trouble with therapists who walked them straight into their PTSD.) So her avoidance of therapy is also not a sign of her being mean or illogical–bad therapy itself can be damaging.
Here’s a piece by a woman talking about how her childhood sexual abuse affects her marriage and her husband:
natalierose-livewithpassion.blogspot.com/2017/02/intimacy-after-abuse-my-childhood-abuse.html
A whole lot of women have either a history of childhood sexual abuse or rape.
Maybe people should be madder about rapists, not madder at victims of sexual assault or abuse?
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Xantippe
Guest
I assure you that tens of millions of women have recovered from the postpartum blahs, where sex is painful and sounds gross.
waves hand
In that particular case, it’s just demonstrably true that a lot of the time, all that’s needed is adequate sleep, finishing up (or tapering off) breastfeeding, getting some free time, and not feeling out of control with regard to home and childcare. I realize that that’s a big “all that’s needed,” but it’s really not amazing that a woman who recently broke her tailbone and got a 4th degree tear during childbirth, or has a big ugly c-section scar, or is squirting milk randomly doesn’t feel thrilled about marital sex.
A 4th degree tear, in case anybody didn’t know, “goes through the anal sphincter and the tissue underneath it.”
babycenter.com/0_perineal-tears_1451354.bc
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stinkcat_14
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I am not sure what the point of your last sentence is? There is no doubt that the wife is a victim, but the husband is a victim too. Being a victim of sexual abuse does not give you carte Blanche to avoid the marital debt. I agree that it would be insensitive of the husband to demand that she give in whether she wants to or not. But for her to treat her husband like an ogre for wanting to deal with is issue is wrong on all counts. She does not have the moral right to demand that her husband gets no intimacy and gets to do nothing about it.
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stinkcat_14
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I was thinking more long term than you. Do you know of anyone who has recovered from 2 or more years without sex?I assure you that tens of millions of women have recovered from the postpartum blahs, where sex is painful and sounds gross.
waves hand
In that particular case, it’s just demonstrably true that a lot of the time, all that’s needed is adequate sleep, finishing up (or tapering off) breastfeeding, getting some free time, and not feeling out of control with regard to home and childcare. I realize that that’s a big “all that’s needed,” but it’s really not amazing that a woman who recently broke her tailbone and got a 4th degree tear during childbirth, or has a big ugly c-section scar, or is squirting milk randomly doesn’t feel thrilled about marital sex.
A 4th degree tear, in case anybody didn’t know, “goes through the anal sphincter and the tissue underneath it.”
babycenter.com/0_perineal-tears_1451354.bc
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Allegra
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Again, I have no idea, as I’ve never met the man, the wife, and would have to judge based on a third person’s impression of a one-sided complaint. But in general, the spouse who isn’t getting any might be a victim, but it’s important to realize that in the vast majority of instances, he or she isn’t the victim of their spouse, but of the circumstances that have victimized both spouses. This is very clear in the example of your friend and his wife. I guarantee you that no woman aspires to a lifetime of wallowing in trauma from sexual abuse. Seeking treatment isn’t something as easy as going to the pharmacy at Walmart and saying, “I’m here for my weekly cure for sexual abuse trauma.” It is a long process with forward and backward steps and it doesn’t always work. I’m sure your friend’s wife is suffering from the situation at least as much as your friend is. I’m sure there are some genuinely narcissistic women out there who seek to hurt and manipulate their husbands by withholding sex for no good reason, but they are few and far between.
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Allegra
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As much as people are always on about males having physical needs met by sex while females have emotional needs met by sex, I actually think that for many or even most husbands who feel “sex starved”, the issue isn’t necessarily frequency, but whether or not he feels desired by his wife. I don’t have research to back this up, but I observe that husbands are much happier waiting for fertile periods or post-partem periods to finish up if they feel their wives are waiting with them and looking forward to sex and not considering the dry spells as getting out a chore. Meanwhile, I suspect that lots of men who are intimate with their wife frequently don’t really feel satisfied if their wife acts as if she’s just crossing another chore off the list. Sexually healthy men have emotional needs met by sex just like women do, and a 10 minute boink isn’t going to do the trick if the couple looks at it as quickly dealing with a purely physical need like handing a hungry child a nutrigrain bar.
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stinkcat_14
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I think it is important to remember that it is called the marital debt, not the marital suggestion. If one spouse complains about the lack of intimacy, the other spouse has a mortal obligation to take the issue seriously. When one spouse digs in her heels and says “you will get nothing and I will do nothing about it” then that is definitely grave matter for the marriage, now it may not be mortal sin because the prior abuse may affect his or her free consent. In my opinion, however, the refused spouse is being abused and it can be grounds for divorce because tolerating abuse sets a very bad example for children.
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Hoosier_Daddy
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You are kidding right!? Tons of people!!
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stinkcat_14
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Give me some examples.
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Hoosier_Daddy
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What a weird request? You want names and addresses? I
Can’t do that.
But I assure you in my time as an nfp instructor there were many couples who abstained for long periods of time. Medical reasons, a bout with cancer, or another disease. Life threatening pregnancy issues etc. marital issues, addiction, infidelity, abuse.
Physiological issues, depression, sexual abuse victims, etc. these are all things that can cause periodic or even permanent abstaining. And it’s the character of the people that shines through. Or doesn’t.
Nobody has exploded for lack of sex.
Also and as an aside, these threads absolutely amaze me on CAF.
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Allegra
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As long as the complaint is a serious one and not just whining. A serious discussion about the lack of intimacy in a marriage would involve an acknowledgement or at least a seeking to understand the circumstances which are causing the lack of intimacy and to make or take suggestions about how to alleviate the problems.
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