Contraception and Unbelieving Spouse

[NHLove777]

What is the basis of your wife’s strong aversion to having her own children? Why is a healthy young women preferring adoption to natural motherhood?

She has a great passion for medicine, including service. She works in free health clinics, has traveled all over the world, etc. Surgeons, which is what she is, frown sternly on women in the profession who take time off for children or who burden the departments with a pregnancy. Women are discouraged from having kids in surgical residencies. I mean, if you think about it, they are required to work 90 hours per week and it’s just very difficult to pull off for most. Everyone in a department is working so hard that pregnancies can really slow everything down. It’s just the way it is.

 

[NHLove777]

Hi there! Welcome to the forum! I will give you a more full and explanatory response to your original post tomorrow. In the meantime, I have a link to recommend to you.

Pontifical Council on the Family

Vademecum for Confessors Concerning Some Aspects of the Morality of Conjugal Life (section no. 13-14)

    [vatican.va/roman_curia/pontifical_councils/family/documents/rc_pc_family_doc_12021997_vademecum_en.html](http://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/pontifical_councils/family/documents/rc_pc_family_doc_12021997_vademecum_en.html)

Thanks for this. I have already read through it, and it’s somewhat helpful, although the formula is pretty vague for people in my situation.

 

[NHLove777]

Well, if she is adamant about using some form of barrier method, perhaps she should be fitted for a diaphragm. That way she is the one using the barrier method instead of you. Keep praying for her and occasionally talk to her about it and see what happens. I understand NFP not working for everyone, but it works very well for most as long as they are willing to follow their chosen method. Perhaps you can see if your wife is willing to begin charting while using the diaphragm until she becomes confident with NFP. My husband and I are facing abstinence for an indefinite period of time because we are one of the couples NFP does not work for. Marriages can survive and even thrive without sex, but it is not always an easy road, rarely is it necessary, and never is it ideal. You are right that it is wrong to use abstinence to push her into using NFP. That is awfully close to using as a punishment and will only lead to resentment. Personally I think your best option is putting it in her hands in terms of barrier method, continue to pray and discuss, and ultimately trust God to work on her heart. I’ll pray for your family.

Thank you for your advice and prayers. I think this course of action may make the most sense in the end.

 

[NHLove777]

“We have agreed not to use oral contraceptives (the pill, the morning after pill, etc.) because we are both opposed to abortion and we realize that these methods could cause for an abortion (granted, at a very early stage of life).”

This makes absolutely no sense. You do know the pill is more effective than condoms alone correct?

•Less than 1 out of 100 women will get pregnant each year if they always take the pill each day as directed.
•About 9 out of 100 women will get pregnant each year if they don’t always take the pill each day as directed

If you/your wife choose birth control the pill could not “cause for an abortion.” Plus it would be obviously more intimate feeling than a barrier method.

Hi Crow,
Um…my wife is a doctor. She knows how birth control works, and in certain situations, yes, it can cause an already fertilized egg to essentially be aborted. I suggest you look into the matter more closely. We know how effective it is, but effectiveness is not the problem.

 

[NHLove777]

It makes perfect sense. Birth control pills do not always prevent ovulation, and some secondarily prevent implanting - hence the abortion concern. I understand you may have been unaware of that possibility, but the wife is a doctor and would likely be aware.

Yes. This is exactly right. She learned about it in medical school and that’s when we stopped using birth control pills.

 

[Marie5890]

Sending prayers for you.
My only suggestion is be very very careful withe this with your wife so that it doesnt put a really bad stessor on your relationship and marriage.

When you got married and exchanged vows you were both on the same page and in agreement.

Now you have changed. The two of you are now on separatie pages on the issue.
Seek counsil from your priest as oppose to strangers on a forum.

Issues like this can destroy a marriage… Don’t let that happen.
Like I said you are the o e who has changed in this marriage. You are not the same man she married and the teaching of the Church on this could rip you apart if you push you new found devotion on her.

 

[NHLove777]

Sending prayers for you.
My only suggestion is be very very careful withe this with your wife so that it doesnt put a really bad stessor on your relationship and marriage.

When you got married and exchanged vows you were both on the same page and in agreement.

Now you have changed. The two of you are now on separatie pages on the issue.
Seek counsil from your priest as oppose to strangers on a forum.

Issues like this can destroy a marriage… Don’t let that happen.
Like I said you are the o e who has changed in this marriage. You are not the same man she married and the teaching of the Church on this could rip you apart if you push you new found devotion on her.

Agreed. We have a wonderful relationship and things have been improving with our spiritual life together, so I really don’t want to do anything that will risk that.

 

[Marie5890]

Agreed. We have a wonderful relationship and things have been improving with our spiritual life together, so I really don’t want to do anything that will risk that.

That is truly wise! Dont risk your marriage.

Prayers for the both of you!

God Bless

 

[TexCatholic4JMJ]

I am very appreciative of the prayers and suggestions. We have discussed abortion many, many times and she is adamantly opposed to it. We had a very close friend who had an abortion and she was very passionately against it. Like I said, we have even discontinued birth control pills to avoid the possibility of abortion.

As far as allergic reactions are concerned (since it was brought up in the first response as well), she doesn’t have any. We have used condoms for years.

She has read a few works by Janet Smith and she was very, very antagonistic about it (this was a few years ago now). She is very opposed to banning birth control because she believes it will help prevent abortions. I actually agree with her on that point. Again, my objections are purely religious.

You are right that condoms are not 100% effective, but they have been for a long time now and honestly, if a pregnancy occurred, abortion wouldn’t even be on the table.

The only options, I truly believe, are to either have sex using contraceptives or to abstain from sex completely. NFP is off the table and so are birth control pills.

Again, my fear with abstinence is the effect it will have on our marriage. If I had to sacrifice sex for the rest of my life, it would be completely awful, but I would do it if I had to, but I will not, in any way, risk my marriage. This is my ultimate concern at this point in the ordeal. Thank you very much for your prayers

In the cases of allergic reactions, it was not known until the couples stopped using the
condoms and tried getting pregnant. Apparently, the women had developed an allergic
reaction to the husband’s sperm. I wish I could remember where I read it, probably
around the time one of my daughter’s and her husband were going through infertility
struggles, maybe around 15 years ago.

 

[Marie5890]

The only options, I truly believe, are to either have sex using contraceptives or to abstain from sex completely. NFP is off the table and so are birth control pills.

NH, you seemed to have narrow down your options knowing your relationship with your wife…

The rest you will read here most likely will not be of any help other than cause you frustration.

Again, I recommend taking with your priest.

 

[mommamaree]

I hesitate to mention this, but I hope that by mentioning it, it might provide you with a stepping stone away from condoms (which would be a sin of grave matter for you to use) toward fertility awareness method (or NFP).

Women who choose to contracept without their husband’s involvement have several options that do not require hormonal contraceptives. There is the sponge, the diaphragm, the cervical cap, all typically used with spermicidal jelly. There is also spermicidal foam, which is used by itself, and there is the female condom. All of these options would respect her free will without putting you into a state of mortal sin. It would give you the ability to accept what she is willing and able to offer now, while giving you time to pray and discuss and wait on the Holy Spirit to work in her heart on the matter. All of these methods carry lower risk to her body than hormonal contraceptives, too.

This topic has been addressed many times by the apologists here as well, so a quick search of the Ask An Apologist Forum should yield a definitive answer for your situation. Of course, you can also seek counsel from your priest. But the advice generally given to the faithful spouse is that as long as they themselves are not using contraceptives, and as long as they have made known their moral objections on the matter (not each time, but just making sure that the nonbelieving spouse is aware), then they are not required to refuse their spouse sexual relations, which could damage the marriage and chase the nonbeliever away from the Truth.

I hope this is helpful to you. God bless you and your wife.

 

[Ana_v]

First, I commend you for your desire to do the right thing. Be of good cheer for that! Second, I sympathize with the situation you are in. I realize it is hard. It is easier to be the one giving the advice than the one putting it into practice.

I will explain the morality of the issue you raise in your original post, and then give you a suggestion for how you can help your wife become open to conceiving.

There is a basic principle in Catholic moral theology (which draws from both Divine Revelation and the Natural Law) which states that it is never permissible to (intentionally) do evil in order that good may come of it. As such, you (as an individual) cannot contracept in order to please your wife or preserve peace in the marriage.

The question then becomes, can you have marital relations with a contracepting spouse?

Here is where we need to distinguish between formal cooperation with evil and material cooperation with evil.

Formal cooperation occurs when you intend the evil to be committed by the principal agent and/or you directly participate in the evil act (e.g. an accomplice to a bank robber bears a handgun to intimidate the customers). Formal cooperation is never permissible.

Material cooperation occurs when you do not share in the intention of the principal agent to commit the evil act, yet in a technical sense are involved in the realization of the evil act (e.g. a bank teller is coerced into giving money to a robber).** Material cooperation is permissible depending the circumstances and how remote or proximate your cooperation is. **

The document I linked to in my previous post answers that yes, you may have marital relations with a contracepting spouse in a materially cooperative sense, provided that certain conditions are jointly met:

1. the action of the cooperating spouse is not already illicit in itself

There are certain forms of contraception which pervert the marital act itself — for example, oral “sex” (more accurately called oral masturbation) or barrier methods. These interfere with the integrity of the sex act itself.

2. proportionally grave reasons exist for cooperating in the sin of the other spouse.

The reasons for consenting to marital relations with a contracepting spouse must be serious enough. I cannot judge for you whether you have serious enough reasons. You have to discern the answer with prayer, some study, and the objective evaluation of a trustworthy confessor. These are to assure that you arrive at an informed decision.

3. one is seeking to help the other spouse to desist from such conduct (patiently, with prayer, charity and dialogue; although not necessarily in that moment, nor on every single occasion).

This one is self-explanatory and leads into the advice I can give you for how to help your wife become open to life.

You mentioned that she is opposed to abortion and considers herself pro-life. Help her to see that anti-abortion and pro-life are not the same. Pro-life is a whole worldview; anti-abortion is a particular stance. Gently reason with her on how contraception and abortion are fruits of the same tree. They are both a rejection of the relationship between sex and procreation. They both presume a mindset in which children are good only insofar as a couple “opts in to” having them, rather than accepting children as naturally good, and the fulfillment of making love. Love is not selfish, it is about giving! Make love, give life!

There is an article recently shared on CAF titled “What 10 Priests Say About Contraception”, and Msgr. Charles Pope nails it:

At the root of contraception is the flawed and fatal notion that there is no necessary connection between sex and procreation. We have divided what God has joined…contraception is a catastrophic rebellion that has undermined Marriage by fostering promiscuity,** and caused untold suffering to children born into a culture increasingly unprepared and unwilling to raise them.**

How many of those children who are up for adoption, are in that situation because they were the result of an “unwanted” pregnancy in which contraception failed. Contraception might fail, but the contraceptive mentality carries over. “I don’t want this child”.

Entrust yourself to the care of the Blessed Virgin and St. Joseph. I will pray for you!

 

[Rau]

…You mentioned that she is opposed to abortion and considers herself pro-life. Help her to see that anti-abortion and pro-life are not the same. Pro-life is a whole worldview; anti-abortion is a particular stance. Gently reason with her on how contraception and abortion are fruits of the same tree.

That’s a dangerous line to tread. Contraception and abortion have very little in common, and I would not be suggesting otherwise to a person who already rejects abortion.

And btw, “pro-life” is a colloquial expression and in common use means no more than opposing abortion and euthanasia.

 

[Rau]

She has a great passion for medicine, including service. She works in free health clinics, has traveled all over the world, etc. Surgeons, which is what she is, frown sternly on women in the profession who take time off for children or who burden the departments with a pregnancy. Women are discouraged from having kids in surgical residencies. I mean, if you think about it, they are required to work 90 hours per week and it’s just very difficult to pull off for most. Everyone in a department is working so hard that pregnancies can really slow everything down. It’s just the way it is.

From your original post you also said:
*"Since my wife and I first met, we have always agreed that we did not want children…at all. Even if we did have kids, we always agreed we would adopt. "*The original attitude expressed by you and your wife to “never have children” is ordinarily considered an impediment to valid marriage for Catholics. I presume your wife was thinking about career issues when she expressed that view, though that does not explain why you would have approached the marriage with the same position. Perhaps just going along with your wife to be?

Nevertheless, everyone seems to have moved on now (with your wife indicating children after her residency is a possibility), and the issue now is about not getting pregnant during the surgical residency. If interrupting that phase of career is a major problem for her (eg. scarcity of opportunities, etc.), it is probably a sufficient reason to seek to avoid pregnancy for a time (eg. via NFP).

The notion that surgeons “frown” on women surgeons having babies, or that such is a major inconvenience to the “department” strikes me as an outrageous social issue that women ought to be up in arms about! My guess is that young doctors are so consumed by their careers that they become willing co-operators with such family un-friendly working arrangements.

I do hope that you do not find yourself in a situation over time where the opportunity for children is forever being “put off” till after the next “phase of career” has been navigated.

 

[NHLove777]

In the cases of allergic reactions, it was not known until the couples stopped using the
condoms and tried getting pregnant. Apparently, the women had developed an allergic
reaction to the husband’s sperm. I wish I could remember where I read it, probably
around the time one of my daughter’s and her husband were going through infertility
struggles, maybe around 15 years ago.

Interesting…I have never heard of this.

 

[NHLove777]

I hesitate to mention this, but I hope that by mentioning it, it might provide you with a stepping stone away from condoms (which would be a sin of grave matter for you to use) toward fertility awareness method (or NFP).

Women who choose to contracept without their husband’s involvement have several options that do not require hormonal contraceptives. There is the sponge, the diaphragm, the cervical cap, all typically used with spermicidal jelly. There is also spermicidal foam, which is used by itself, and there is the female condom. All of these options would respect her free will without putting you into a state of mortal sin. It would give you the ability to accept what she is willing and able to offer now, while giving you time to pray and discuss and wait on the Holy Spirit to work in her heart on the matter. All of these methods carry lower risk to her body than hormonal contraceptives, too.

This topic has been addressed many times by the apologists here as well, so a quick search of the Ask An Apologist Forum should yield a definitive answer for your situation. Of course, you can also seek counsel from your priest. But the advice generally given to the faithful spouse is that as long as they themselves are not using contraceptives, and as long as they have made known their moral objections on the matter (not each time, but just making sure that the nonbelieving spouse is aware), then they are not required to refuse their spouse sexual relations, which could damage the marriage and chase the nonbeliever away from the Truth.

I hope this is helpful to you. God bless you and your wife.

I appreciate you mentioning this. I am aware of the various female contraceptive methods other than the birth control pill, which my wife and I do not support.

We have talked about having kids and I have told her that is something I want to do, but I have not told her that part of my motivation is for religious reasons. She knows all about the Catholic position and knows I am a conservative Christian, but I have not come right out and said, “Yeah, I think what you are doing is a sin.” The reason I haven’t done that is, quite frankly, because she will take that position even less seriously than just trying to reason with her on other grounds. If I tell her I want to have children because of the joy it would bring in my life and the desire to have a family, she is totally accepting of that. If I were to tell her that I want kids because the Catholic Church tells me I should have kids, she would probably lose her mind. I mentioned this before, but when I first became a Christian, it was very tough on us, and only has become better over the past year or so. I don’t want to do anything to jeopardize that. After years of never offering to come to church with me and after years of completely rejecting the idea of having kids, she has now, in just the last month, agreed to come to church with me if I ask and agreed to have kids at some point in the future if that’s what I want. I see things moving in a positive direction and I only want to rock the boat as little as possible.

I understand your position and the Church’s position, but I fear that telling her outright that I think she is sinning by choosing to use contraception will only alienate her and make her question my motivations for wanting kids at all.

All I am saying is that I want to tread lightly here. I believe there are times when the most moral choice, which should always be the choice that is most Godly, is when you lead someone to a particular place rather than push them.

On the issue of using contraception myself: Although I believe you when you say that is the Church’s position, I think it’s a very poor one. In my opinion, anytime two people have sex and both know contraception is being used, I don’t really see how it matters which person is “using it.” It reality, they both are; that’s the purpose of contraception. I know there are situations when a person doesn’t know the other one is using contraception, but this is a different situation entirely. I feel really odd about that piece of the puzzle.

 

[NHLove777]

First, I commend you for your desire to do the right thing. Be of good cheer for that! Second, I sympathize with the situation you are in. I realize it is hard. It is easier to be the one giving the advice than the one putting it into practice.

I will explain the morality of the issue you raise in your original post, and then give you a suggestion for how you can help your wife become open to conceiving.

There is a basic principle in Catholic moral theology (which draws from both Divine Revelation and the Natural Law) which states that it is never permissible to (intentionally) do evil in order that good may come of it. As such, you (as an individual) cannot contracept in order to please your wife or preserve peace in the marriage.

The question then becomes, can you have marital relations with a contracepting spouse?

Here is where we need to distinguish between formal cooperation with evil and material cooperation with evil.

Formal cooperation occurs when you intend the evil to be committed by the principal agent and/or you directly participate in the evil act (e.g. an accomplice to a bank robber bears a handgun to intimidate the customers). Formal cooperation is never permissible.

Material cooperation occurs when you do not share in the intention of the principal agent to commit the evil act, yet in a technical sense are involved in the realization of the evil act (e.g. a bank teller is coerced into giving money to a robber).** Material cooperation is permissible depending the circumstances and how remote or proximate your cooperation is. **

The document I linked to in my previous post answers that yes, you may have marital relations with a contracepting spouse in a materially cooperative sense, provided that certain conditions are jointly met:

There are certain forms of contraception which pervert the marital act itself — for example, oral “sex” (more accurately called oral masturbation) or barrier methods. These interfere with the integrity of the sex act itself.

The reasons for consenting to marital relations with a contracepting spouse must be serious enough. I cannot judge for you whether you have serious enough reasons. You have to discern the answer with prayer, some study, and the objective evaluation of a trustworthy confessor. These are to assure that you arrive at an informed decision.

This one is self-explanatory and leads into the advice I can give you for how to help your wife become open to life.

You mentioned that she is opposed to abortion and considers herself pro-life. Help her to see that anti-abortion and pro-life are not the same. Pro-life is a whole worldview; anti-abortion is a particular stance. Gently reason with her on how contraception and abortion are fruits of the same tree. They are both a rejection of the relationship between sex and procreation. They both presume a mindset in which children are good only insofar as a couple “opts in to” having them, rather than accepting children as naturally good, and the fulfillment of making love. Love is not selfish, it is about giving! Make love, give life!

There is an article recently shared on CAF titled “What 10 Priests Say About Contraception”, and Msgr. Charles Pope nails it:

How many of those children who are up for adoption, are in that situation because they were the result of an “unwanted” pregnancy in which contraception failed. Contraception might fail, but the contraceptive mentality carries over. “I don’t want this child”.

Entrust yourself to the care of the Blessed Virgin and St. Joseph. I will pray for you!

I appreciate this detailed response. I think it’s laid out very well and will be helpful to others who may stumble on this thread in the future (in addition to being helpfully to me now).

You brought up an interesting approach to discussing this issue, and while I think it may help for some, I think there is absolutely no chance it will work in this situation. My wife is not opposed, in any way, to people having sex without procreation in the mix. In fact, she doesn’t see anything wrong with unmarried people having sex either. Morally, she isn’t a whole lot different than most twenty-somethings we know. In fact, if anything, she is more conservative because she absolutely opposes abortion. I am not making excuses, but I think it is important to remember the role society has played in this mess. We live in a world where requesting your own twenty-something-year-old wife to have kids instead of pursue a lucrative career is really considered a selfish and shameful act. In fact, our position on abortion alone makes us both feel like outcasts in many of our friend groups as it is.

It’s not that she doesn’t ever want children, but she has made it clear she wants to wait until her career allows for it. Again, I also blame the professional climate she works in. They have made it absolutely clear that they do not want residents having children. They won’t officially say this of course (they would be sued if they did), but all of the women involved know the score and that’s why female surgeons, for the most part, rarely have kids until after residency is over (some deliberately have children before residency to avoid this problem).

I guess what I am saying is: In the world my wife and I live in, the kind of conversation you are recommending just doesn’t happen, and I am quite certain, since I have seen her have these conversations with her own father (who is a devout Catholic) that there is no convincing her on moral or religious grounds.

She opposes abortion because she believes human life has started, but since there is no human life prior to conception, it just doesn’t make sense to her to oppose any other form of sex.

 

[NHLove777]

From your original post you also said:
*"Since my wife and I first met, we have always agreed that we did not want children…at all. Even if we did have kids, we always agreed we would adopt. "*The original attitude expressed by you and your wife to “never have children” is ordinarily considered an impediment to valid marriage for Catholics. I presume your wife was thinking about career issues when she expressed that view, though that does not explain why you would have approached the marriage with the same position. Perhaps just going along with your wife to be?

Nevertheless, everyone seems to have moved on now (with your wife indicating children after her residency is a possibility), and the issue now is about not getting pregnant during the surgical residency. If interrupting that phase of career is a major problem for her (eg. scarcity of opportunities, etc.), it is probably a sufficient reason to seek to avoid pregnancy for a time (eg. via NFP).

The notion that surgeons “frown” on women surgeons having babies, or that such is a major inconvenience to the “department” strikes me as an outrageous social issue that women ought to be up in arms about! My guess is that young doctors are so consumed by their careers that they become willing co-operators with such family un-friendly working arrangements.

I do hope that you do not find yourself in a situation over time where the opportunity for children is forever being “put off” till after the next “phase of career” has been navigated.

As I already said in another post, the way I wrote the first post was a little misleading. She always said she would consider having kids, but she also said she considered not having kids and she never said, until recently, “yes I think I would like to have kids.” So it’s a little more complicated than the way I described.

Moving on from that issue, you made several good points. The first, about the professional pressure she feels not to have kids, is widespread in her profession. Since I just posted a long comment about it, I won’t repeat myself, but it’s fair to say that the medical profession, especially in the more competitive programs, discourages women from pursuing a family because, quite frankly, they believe it will distract them.

Second, you are also right about the possibility that this gets delayed forever. I can’t honestly say with any certainty that she will definitely come around on this someday. She says she will now, but in a few years, things could change (for better or for worse). I know that going in, but again, ruining my marriage over it would also be sinful in my view, and I don’t think it would be very helpful at all to push her into doing something she isn’t ready for. She doesn’t see the world the way I do morally on many topics (because I am a Christian and she isn’t any longer), so while I am trying to lead her to the right answers, any attempts I have made in the past, even very slight ones, that tried to push her in one direction or another ended in absolute failure. She’s a brilliant, kind, loving, compassionate woman, but she is very stubborn and has a grudge against religion, especially Catholicism. If there is any hope of moving things in the right direction, I just don’t want to jeopardize that just for the sake of being self-righteous. I would love to tell her, “hey, I think morally what we are doing here is wrong because the Catholic Church has taught xyz for 2,000 years and you should trust their decisions and authority for xyz and …” I think you get the picture. I would live to say that, but if I do, it will be giant disaster. I really believe that.

So another question I have is: Do you think I am obligated to tell her that I believe it’s sinful to use contraception? If so, how the heck can I do that without making it feel like I am attacking her view of morality?

 

[Rau]

…We have talked about having kids and I have told her that is something I want to do, but I have not told her that part of my motivation is for religious reasons. She knows all about the Catholic position and knows I am a conservative Christian, but I have not come right out and said, “Yeah, I think what you are doing is a sin.” The reason I haven’t done that is, quite frankly, because she will take that position even less seriously than just trying to reason with her on other grounds. If I tell her I want to have children because of the joy it would bring in my life and the desire to have a family, she is totally accepting of that. If I were to tell her that I want kids because the Catholic Church tells me I should have kids, she would probably lose her mind. I mentioned this before, but when I first became a Christian, it was very tough on us, and only has become better over the past year or so. I don’t want to do anything to jeopardize that. After years of never offering to come to church with me and after years of completely rejecting the idea of having kids, she has now, in just the last month, agreed to come to church with me if I ask and agreed to have kids at some point in the future if that’s what I want. I see things moving in a positive direction and I only want to rock the boat as little as possible.

I understand your position and the Church’s position, but I fear that telling her outright that I think she is sinning by choosing to use contraception will only alienate her and make her question my motivations for wanting kids at all.

All I am saying is that I want to tread lightly here. I believe there are times when the most moral choice, which should always be the choice that is most Godly, is when you lead someone to a particular place rather than push them.

On the issue of using contraception myself: Although I believe you when you say that is the Church’s position, I think it’s a very poor one. In my opinion, anytime two people have sex and both know contraception is being used, I don’t really see how it matters which person is “using it.” It reality, they both are; that’s the purpose of contraception. I know there are situations when a person doesn’t know the other one is using contraception, but this is a different situation entirely. I feel really odd about that piece of the puzzle.

In regard to children, it is quite appropriate to simply “desire” them. No other rationale is required, and I can not imagine any other rationale would have greater influence on your wife than the desire of her husband and hopefully her own desire.

As to the contraception question - the Church rationale makes complete sense. You are not the instigator of the contraceptive action, nor happy about it. The other person is the instigator. Your refusal to engage in sex in this situation has no redeeming quality. It will likely harm the marriage. How is the other spouse to view this behaviour - as a threat? Retribution? Dummy Spit? The situation only becomes intolerable for you when you are asked to do something wrong [but see next para].

I am no expert on the fine details of the Church teaching in this regard – but what I do find a fraction odd is that any distinction is drawn between you wearing a condom [solely at your wife’s request] and your wife having some barrier device fitted. In both cases, your wife is the instigator, the one requiring the contraception, and I would have thought that is the key issue. Nevertheless, if we accept what Ana posts, you wearing a condom is not OK, but your wife having a barrier is “OK” (as far as your conduct is concerned).

 

[Rau]

…
So another question I have is: Do you think I am obligated to tell her that I believe it’s sinful to use contraception? If so, how the heck can I do that without making it feel like I am attacking her view of morality?

I guess you each already understand you have some different views on what is moral? From this must surely flow a desire on your part to avoid the immoral thing? This need not (must not) be done by condemning her (and certainly not on a regular, repeated basis), but rather explaining your personal feeling on the matter. I presume she knows the “Catholic” score on this point anyway?

The difficulty I would envisage in such a discussion is that if you suggest that she acquire a barrier for herself, you’re essentially saying "I prefer you to do this ‘bad’ thing which I don’t want to do myself’. It sounds like one of those situations where you’d like to hope she may just come to the view - on her own initiative - that she should get the barrier herself without direct prompting from you.