Controling sexual desire in sexless marriage

[gibbs]

Sex is very important to a marriage. It sounds to me like there is something going on with your wife that is keeping her from seeing sex in a positive light (unless she’s having an affair, but it doesn’t sound like it). I would personally judge you to have a weakened moral culpability for the big M. I could say you have “conjugal rights” that she is denying, but that sounds cold and demeaning to women. What you have is the right to be totally and completely and of course sexually loved by your wife. I believe the big M is likely motivated from your inner loneliness, rather than lust in this situation.

I would make sure you’re seeing a regular confessor and explain that your wife is sexually denying you. I would ask him what he recommends for confession: how frequently you should go, and about dealing with the anxiety of feeling like you’re perpetually out of a state of grace.

Try not to demonize your sexual desire, and strive to be merciful with yourself. That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t go to confession, but you shouldn’t have to live in a heightened state of anxiety because of your sins.

You’re right. As this thread has progressed, the “obligation” for conjugal rights has come up multiple times. However from my experience, making love with my wife when she doesn’t really want to but just feels like she must is worse than never doing it at all. A very hollow experience to say the least that only intensifies a feeling of emptiness.

I understand what you are saying about culpability. When thinking about it I’ve always assumed that my loneliness leads to the lustful thoughts etc… in a typically human effort to try and escape the feelings. In the end it leads to sin. So I try and avoid the diminished responsibility angle so I don’t end up falling into a pattern of excusing it or putting the blame on her for my own sin.

The last part is something I’m finding impossible. Posting here is the first time I’ve ever told anyone about this in the +20 years of my marriage. As someone earlier pointed out, the anonymity and distance of a forum is the only thing that’s helped me get by the feelings of humiliation. It’s helping to know I’m not the only person in the world experiencing this.

 

[clem456]

You’re right. As this thread has progressed, the “obligation” for conjugal rights has come up multiple times. However from my experience, making love with my wife when she doesn’t really want to but just feels like she must is worse than never doing it at all. A very hollow experience to say the least that only intensifies a feeling of emptiness.

I understand what you are saying about culpability. When thinking about it I’ve always assumed that my loneliness leads to the lustful thoughts etc… in a typically human effort to try and escape the feelings. In the end it leads to sin. So I try and avoid the diminished responsibility angle so I don’t end up falling into a pattern of excusing it or putting the blame on her for my own sin.

The last part is something I’m finding impossible. Posting here is the first time I’ve ever told anyone about this in the +20 years of my marriage. As someone earlier pointed out, the anonymity and distance of a forum is the only thing that’s helped me get by the feelings of humiliation. It’s helping to know I’m not the only person in the world experiencing this.

While one could say that a spouse has an obligation to have sex with a spouse, that would be a VERY superficial reading of the teaching. Obligation springs out of love, which is not a decree or demand. I too have cajoled and whined my wife into bed, and the results are not love or fulfillment, but emptiness, as you say. My obligation to respect my wife’s disposition and dignity are just as valid as hers’ to have relations with me. It’s a reciprocal obligation or submission as some would call it.

That being said, the spousees have an obligation to work towards intimacy, to not shut down and reflexively say no to sexual relations. Really the obligation is to live in intimacy, spousal communion. Sex may or may not spring from that.

If you read Theology of the Body, JP2 talks very little about actual physical relations between spouses. He teaches lots about the foundations of marriage.

 

[Sillara]

I hope that this is not unhelpful, but I must disagree slightly with some of the most recent posters.

The conjugal debt is a real thing. It is a genuine obligation, and any wife (it is usually, though not always, the wife who is refusing, and it certainly is in this case) who denies it wrongs her husband. It is grave matter, as are all matters pertaining to sex, and if done with her will would be a mortal sin.

Speaking as a wife, even if I were not “feeling” like having sex, knowing that my husband wanted me would make me very happy to go along!

Yes, I know the difficulties of day-to-day married life. Yes, I know how having children affect things. (We have six children.) I still stand by my statement.

I am sorry, OP, about your situation. I hope that things improve for you.

 

[fpt]

She has to pray for her conjugal sexual desires, for her conjugal sexual life, for her husband, for her and her couple. Her husband has to pray for her, for him, for his couple, for his conjugal sexual life, for his conjugal sexual desires.

The conjugal sexual union is, before all , a prayer, a liturgy, an act of love, a language, a communion, a sharing, a donation, a gift, a present: this marital act is the sign of unity between the duality of humanity (male and female at the Image of God, a symbol of link between the couple and the Holy Trinity, it is the image of Holy Trinity). The ends of marital act are the love (from love to love and for improving love): the true and real conjugal carnal charity wanted by God.

But

Between wife and husband, it is also a right and a duty, and an obligation and a debt.

Each member of couple has moral rights on the body of the other. The non respect of this rights, the obligations and duties without good, objective and realistic reasons, is a violation of the vows: it is an infraction and a non respect of marital debt. (See the doctrine of catholic church).

Sorry, I think again to an action for getting the declaration of nullity of your marriage, perhaps, it would be an mental electroshock that could help her to change and to progress.

By definition the state of marriage is sexed and by principle it is also sexual. It is not negotiable. If the day of wedding one spouse simulates the agreement on the donation of body (the right on the body), the marriage is not a marriage, it is a fake conjugal link.

Saying again the things very directly in link with catholic doctrine can be a mental electroshock with a positive end.

 

[fpt]

I do not understand that many catholic couples are not in the situation to understand the totality of the catholic teaching concerning the marital act his mixed nature (from the institution and from the contract), his meanings, his functions, his ends, his corollaries, his obligations, his rights…etc.

There is an unity of the catholic doctrine , but the fact of wanting to separate each part of the teaching is, in my opinion, a wrong approach.

 

[clem456]

I hope that this is not unhelpful, but I must disagree slightly with some of the most recent posters.

The conjugal debt is a real thing. It is a genuine obligation, and any wife (it is usually, though not always, the wife who is refusing, and it certainly is in this case) who denies it wrongs her husband. It is grave matter, as are all matters pertaining to sex, and if done with her will would be a mortal sin.

Speaking as a wife, even if I were not “feeling” like having sex, knowing that my husband wanted me would make me very happy to go along!

Yes, I know the difficulties of day-to-day married life. Yes, I know how having children affect things. (We have six children.) I still stand by my statement.

I am sorry, OP, about your situation. I hope that things improve for you.

1. The conjugal debt is reciprocal. It is not merely unilateral submission of one party to the sexual needs of another. That is not a marriage, that’s more like a mortgage or civil bond. In addition to the wife’s(husbands) sexual obligations, the husband (wife) also has an obligation to be chaste with all that entails…patience, self control. I am referencing TOB by Pope JP2.
2. Very rarely does refusing sex amount to mortal sin. Depends…is it done spitefully to injure the spouse? Is it done repeatedly for months, years? Does the person enjoy sex? Are they capable of enjoying sex? We had a poster whose wife was molested. Do you honestly think she is committing mortal sin by not engaging is sex? What if a husband is viewing porn and the wife refuses? Is that mortal sin on her part? Or is she doing the right thing? The mortal sin part of this really is a very small part of the discussion.
3. That being said, both spouses have an obligation to nurture intimacy in the marriage. That would include a wife making an effort to get herself in the mood. That also includes a husband accepting the word “no” graciously, but still spending that time with his wife talking, praying, doing the dishes, picking up his underwear, playing with the kids. This obligation on the part of the husband is no less “mandatory” than the obligation of the wife to jump in bed.

Notice the tone of mutual sacrifice in the imitation of Christ:

21 Being subject one to another, in the fear of Christ. 22 Let women be subject to their husbands, as to the Lord: 23 Because the husband is the head of the wife, as Christ is the head of the church. He is the saviour of his body. 24 Therefore as the church is subject to Christ: so also let the wives be to their husbands in all things. 25 Husbands, love your wives, as Christ also loved the church and delivered himself up for it: 26 That he might sanctify it, cleansing it by the laver of water in the word of life: 27 That he might present it to himself, a glorious church, not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing; but that it should be holy and without blemish. 28 So also ought men to love their wives as their own bodies. He that loveth his wife loveth himself. 29 For no man ever hated his own flesh, but nourisheth and cherisheth it,** as also Christ doth the church:** 30 Because we are members of him, body, of his flesh and of his bones. 31 For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother: and shall cleave to his wife. And they shall be two in one flesh. 32 This is a great sacrament: but I speak in Christ and in the church. 33 Nevertheless, let every one of you in particular love for his wife as himself: And let the wife fear her husband.

TOB by Pope JP2 has several chapters dealing with this
Here is one: ewtn.com/library/papaldoc/jp2tb88.htm
A short excerpt:

No one-sided domination

1. The author of the letter underlines this love in a special way, in addressing himself to husbands. He writes: “Husbands, love your wives…” By expressing himself in this way, he removes any fear that might have arisen (given the modern sensitivity) from the previous phrase: “Wives, be subject to your husbands.” Love excludes every kind of subjection whereby the wife might become a servant or a slave of the husband, an object of unilateral domination. Love makes the husband simultaneously subject to the wife, and thereby subject to the Lord himself, just as the wife to the husband. The community or unity which they should establish through marriage is constituted by a reciprocal donation of self, which is also a mutual subjection. Christ is the source and at the same time the model of that subjection, which, being reciprocal “out of reverence for Christ,” confers on the conjugal union a profound and mature character. In this source and before this model many elements of a psychological or moral nature are so transformed as to give rise, I would say, to a new and precious fusion of the bilateral relations and conduct.

1. The author of the Letter to the Ephesians does not fear to accept those concepts which were characteristic of the mentality and customs of the times. He does not fear to speak of the subjection of the wife to the husband. He does not fear (also in the last verse of the text quoted by us) to recommend to the wife that “she respect her husband” (5:33). It is certain that when the husband and wife are subject to one another “out of reverence for Christ,” a just balance will be established, such as to correspond to their Christian vocation in the mystery of Christ.

Here is the link to the whole TOB doc: ewtn.com/library/papaldoc/jp2tbind.htm

 

[mommamaree]

Clem,

Thank you so much for your contribution. This talk of debt and obligation sounded like domination and using. It really frightened me. I like all your points here, and the quoted section, very much!

 

[fpt]

My wife and I have been married for over 20 years. Long story short: She has no desire for sex (yes we do love each other). we did have it a little bit when we first got married but quickly weeks in between turned into months turned into years etc… I can’t remember the last time. I did all the things you read about in “sexless marriage” threads, talking, being more romantic/helpful, prof-help etc…long ago.

She’s always been up front about not wanting sex and being happy with the situation so it was all for naught. (it is a problem for her, for her husband and her couple), she does not respect her vows concerning the sexual state of marriage).

I even battled (and won) the “I hate this, I want out” internal struggle. I’ve long since gotten used to the dead feeling inside when I think about never having physical intimacy. But I am human and do have the desire (still alive everywhere else). Problem is it leads me into mental fantasy’s that are sinful or worse eventually the big “M”. I fight it but inevitably fail in time. I’m getting sick of going to confession and saying the same things over and over. I feel like a hypocrite and a liar. I do pray about accepting it and for grace to handle it but…

(her wife seems not to avoid the sexual sins of her husband)

No marital act during many years because the wife says no without real and objective reasons, while her husband wanting the marital union of bodies, is a wrong situation. This type of behaviors looks to be unnatural and to go against the global teaching of catholic church.

Of course, the fact of refusing sex can be a venial or a mortal sin, per se. That will be in function of each situation of refusing. It is necessary to analyse in concreto, each time, the situation that will end by a refusing and the feects of the other spouse: (see with priest);

 

[fpt]

My wife and I have been married for over 20 years. Long story short: She has no desire for sex (yes we do love each other). we did have it a little bit when we first got married but quickly weeks in between turned into months turned into years etc… I can’t remember the last time. I did all the things you read about in “sexless marriage” threads, talking, being more romantic/helpful, prof-help etc…long ago.

She’s always been up front about not wanting sex and being happy with the situation so it was all for naught. (it is a problem for her, for her husband and her couple), she does not respect her vows concerning the sexual state of marriage).

I even battled (and won) the “I hate this, I want out” internal struggle. I’ve long since gotten used to the dead feeling inside when I think about never having physical intimacy. But I am human and do have the desire (still alive everywhere else). Problem is it leads me into mental fantasy’s that are sinful or worse eventually the big “M”. I fight it but inevitably fail in time. I’m getting sick of going to confession and saying the same things over and over. I feel like a hypocrite and a liar. I do pray about accepting it and for grace to handle it but…

(her wife seems not to avoid the sexual sins of her husband)

No marital act during many years because the wife says no without real and objective reasons, while her husband wanting the marital union of bodies, is a wrong situation. This type of behaviors looks to be unnatural and to go against the global teaching of catholic church.

Of course, the fact of refusing sex can be a venial or a mortal sin, per se. That will be in function of each situation of refusing. It is necessary to analyse in concreto, each time, the situation that will end by a refusing and by the effects of the other spouse: (see with priest);

 

[Baralinel]

It sounds to me that either:
A. Your wife is asexual.
OR
B. Your wife has some very intense issues regarding sex.

Was she ever sexually abused? Has she always had such a non-existent libido?

 

[SerraSemper]

You and the previous poster are absolutely right. Other than the time early in our marriage when my wife and I went to marriage counseling I have never confided in anyone about this problem. Too humiliating to look at a friend, priest etc… and describe it. It’s been more like a dark secret you have to keep hidden from others. The anonymity of this forum has made it possible. Just hearing the words of help, concern, prayer has helped. Especially the promises of prayer, It’s the one ability God has given us that should be in the category of superpower. I wouldn’t have made it this far without it.

to answer some of the questions in the multiple posts… no children unfortunately but that shouldn’t be surprising and yes My wife and I still love each other. If we didn’t, the marriage would have failed a long time ago sex or no sex.

that being said, many of the posts have reduced sex to duty or obligation or like an itch that needs to be scratched. I don’t see it as that one dimensional or utilitarian and I suspect a lot of others here don’t either. I do see it as the church teaches in that it is a unifying act between the couple that draws them closer and into deeper intimacy. That moment when you are giving yourselves to each other, wrapped in each others arms and the world just melts away. That’s what I want with my wife. It saddens me that we will go through our lives/marriage together never experiencing that in the way would could have. But I do know love and marriage are much more and that is why I believe in our love and why we are still together. But the struggle with the desire and this cross to bear is difficult and why I’m looking for a way through it.

Praying for you. If you’re up to it, I would suggest you call a canon lawyer at your local Tribunal and have a conversation with him/her about this situation. You will get the Church’s teaching on the role of the marital act and your options in working with your wife. I vividly recall attending a marriage prep class conducted by a couple (for continuing ed, not as an engaged person) and the husband greatly desired sex and the wife felt it cheapened her, was gross, etc. It took the fed up husband to say “Divorce” for the wife to wake up to her duties. It made her (finally) realize that sex is actually an extremely important part of marriage and she had an obligation to have intercourse if reasonably requested and if her husband was serious…

Now, having worked on tons of annulment cases, I can tell you I was not too terribly surprised when they said the wife had been sexually abused as a child. Abused by an uncle. She told her mom, who defended the uncle whom the mom admitted had abused herself. Accused of lying about the abuse. Felt like garbage… For the most part, sexually abused women either become very frigid and have little desire for sex (and often pain with intercourse and flashbacks) or they become promiscuous (often because they figure they are already in deep doo doo and what the heck)… Anyway, no healing or therapy had taken place prior to the wedding. Given the ultimatum (remember, marriage debt is a grave obligation) to begin sexual activity or he would file for divorce, she had the choice of working towards a reasonable sex life with her husband… or getting divorced with the likelihood of a Church annulment almost certain. She chose to work with a therapist skilled in working with child sexual abuse victims and a priest knowledgeable in the field, and eventually was able to have sex with her husband and enjoy it. They have many kids.

A lot of people on this thread were trying to judge the morality of the OP’s wife’s disinclination to have sex (saying/implying she was committing mortal sins by refusing to have sex for so long). This is not appropriate because we do not know her circumstances and heart and soul. If she was a child abuse victim, she might have serious and grave reason to reject intercourse (thereby committing no sin at all- it could be sinful for the OP to “force” having sex in such a situation. Basically, you will learn from a tribunal person what the obligations and rights are and they will give you pointers for your own situation. In one area you could even pick up the phone and call someone working in the Tribunal in a different diocese!!! Talk to a professional. The diocese pays their salary [USA Tribunals]… If you’re terrified of talking to your Tribunal officials, call someone in a different diocese… it could be next door, or it can be thousands of miles away who will not associate your voice or self with a person who has not had a lot of sexual congress with his wife.

To wrap up, it did take the “D” word** to motivate** my friend’s wife to get therapy so they could have a solid physical foundation for their marriage. Somehow she had blithely thought that since she was doing fine not having “dirty s e x”, the marriage was going perfect… didn’t register in her mind as serious… Had she not chosen to go to therapy and been healed, the man could have almost certainly gotten an annulment and could have gone on to find another woman who liked to have the marital act with him on a reasonably frequent basis and married her!

Canon lawyers are trained in the theology and law of marriage and can help a person understand their rights and obligations as part of the couple in situations like this.

 

[fpt]

Praying for you. If you’re up to it, I would suggest you call a canon lawyer at your local Tribunal and have a conversation with him/her about this situation. You will get the Church’s teaching on the role of the marital act and your options in working with your wife. I vividly recall attending a marriage prep class conducted by a couple (for continuing ed, not as an engaged person) and the husband greatly desired sex and the wife felt it cheapened her, was gross, etc. It took the fed up husband to say “Divorce” for the wife to wake up to her duties. It made her (finally) realize that sex is actually an extremely important part of marriage and she had an obligation to have intercourse if reasonably requested and if her husband was serious…

Now, having worked on tons of annulment cases, I can tell you I was not too terribly surprised when they said the wife had been sexually abused as a child. Abused by an uncle. She told her mom, who defended the uncle whom the mom admitted had abused herself. Accused of lying about the abuse. Felt like garbage… For the most part, sexually abused women either become very frigid and have little desire for sex (and often pain with intercourse and flashbacks) or they become promiscuous (often because they figure they are already in deep doo doo and what the heck)… Anyway, no healing or therapy had taken place prior to the wedding. Given the ultimatum (remember, marriage debt is a grave obligation) to begin sexual activity or he would file for divorce, she had the choice of working towards a reasonable sex life with her husband… or getting divorced with the likelihood of a Church annulment almost certain. She chose to work with a therapist skilled in working with child sexual abuse victims and a priest knowledgeable in the field, and eventually was able to have sex with her husband and enjoy it. They have many kids.

A lot of people on this thread were trying to judge the morality of the OP’s wife’s disinclination to have sex (saying/implying she was committing mortal sins by refusing to have sex for so long). This is not appropriate because we do not know her circumstances and heart and soul. If she was a child abuse victim, she might have serious and grave reason to reject intercourse (thereby committing no sin at all- it could be sinful for the OP to “force” having sex in such a situation. Basically, you will learn from a tribunal person what the obligations and rights are and they will give you pointers for your own situation. In one area you could even pick up the phone and call someone working in the Tribunal in a different diocese!!! Talk to a professional. The diocese pays their salary [USA Tribunals]… If you’re terrified of talking to your Tribunal officials, call someone in a different diocese… it could be next door, or it can be thousands of miles away who will not associate your voice or self with a person who has not had a lot of sexual congress with his wife.

To wrap up, it did take the “D” word** to motivate** my friend’s wife to get therapy so they could have a solid physical foundation for their marriage. Somehow she had blithely thought that since she was doing fine not having “dirty s e x”, the marriage was going perfect… didn’t register in her mind as serious… Had she not chosen to go to therapy and been healed, the man could have almost certainly gotten an annulment and could have gone on to find another woman who liked to have the marital act with him on a reasonably frequent basis and married her!

Canon lawyers are trained in the theology and law of marriage and can help a person understand their rights and obligations as part of the couple in situations like this.

Saying the things very directly in link with catholic doctrine can be a mental electroshock with a positive end.

The hypothesis of judicial catholic action in order to get a declaration of nullity of your marriage, perhaps, an mental electroshock that could help her to change and to progress.

I had had the same idea.

Do you (Gibbs) want an almost josephite marriage without the agremment of two spouses, knowing that at each minutes one member of couple has the right to request the marital act? The fact of refusing, without objective and true reason, the conjugal sex, is so wrong.

 

[daponte2]

I am a recent Catholic convert. My husband is Catholic too. However, he is ill and on disability. It is not a physical illness. We were married in City Hall with his mother and stepfather as witnesses. He was a cradle Catholic and I was a non Christian at the time. We have been married for 25 years.

I have a full time job. He lost his job due to misbehavior on the job.

He does most of the housekeeping since I am going to work.

Despite my repeated requests for intimacy, there has been no intimacy for over a year.

I have read that my marriage could be annulled due to ‘lack of canonical form’ at the time of the marriage.

He does not go to Church with me (with the exception of going to my recent baptism). I guess he is excused because he is really ill, but it is not a good situation for me, as I go every Sunday and Holy Days of Obligation. In the five months I have been a baptized Catholic, I have been to confession four times.

The lack of intimacy is lately causing me to feel like something is very wrong here. Also, he suffers from social anxiety, and has no friends or interest in having any.

I am in my 50s now. My only daughter moved out five years ago. There are no relatives I can reach out to. A telephone support group is practically my only social outlet.

I do not want to be alone. I guess that is the only reason I put up with this situation.

 

[JoyIsLikeRain]

I think what she’s doing is cruel, wrong, and emotionally violent.

Let’s not get carried away. Not everyone has the same libido, man or woman.

 

[clem456]

I am a recent Catholic convert. My husband is Catholic too. However, he is ill and on disability. It is not a physical illness. We were married in City Hall with his mother and stepfather as witnesses. He was a cradle Catholic and I was a non Christian at the time. We have been married for 25 years.

I have a full time job. He lost his job due to misbehavior on the job.

He does most of the housekeeping since I am going to work.

Despite my repeated requests for intimacy, there has been no intimacy for over a year.

I have read that my marriage could be annulled due to ‘lack of canonical form’ at the time of the marriage.

He does not go to Church with me (with the exception of going to my recent baptism). I guess he is excused because he is really ill, but it is not a good situation for me, as I go every Sunday and Holy Days of Obligation. In the five months I have been a baptized Catholic, I have been to confession four times.

The lack of intimacy is lately causing me to feel like something is very wrong here. Also, he suffers from social anxiety, and has no friends or interest in having any.

I am in my 50s now. My only daughter moved out five years ago. There are no relatives I can reach out to. A telephone support group is practically my only social outlet.

I do not want to be alone. I guess that is the only reason I put up with this situation.

You have my prayers for your difficult situation.
Are there ministry groups at your church? Soup kitchens, rcia, choir?
You could involve yourself in those, and may find that as you become in involved in a ministry or activity, your husband may start to come around also.
I have had similar problems socially. It is tough in a marriage to be together constantly without other outlets. My wife joined the choir about 12 years ago and I finally joined about 4 years ago, and it has been such a blessing.

 

[Phemie]

I am a recent Catholic convert. My husband is Catholic too. However, he is ill and on disability. It is not a physical illness. We were married in City Hall with his mother and stepfather as witnesses. He was a cradle Catholic and I was a non Christian at the time. We have been married for 25 years.

I have a full time job. He lost his job due to misbehavior on the job.

He does most of the housekeeping since I am going to work.

Despite my repeated requests for intimacy, there has been no intimacy for over a year.

I have read that my marriage could be annulled due to ‘lack of canonical form’ at the time of the marriage.

He does not go to Church with me (with the exception of going to my recent baptism). I guess he is excused because he is really ill, but it is not a good situation for me, as I go every Sunday and Holy Days of Obligation. In the five months I have been a baptized Catholic, I have been to confession four times.

The lack of intimacy is lately causing me to feel like something is very wrong here. Also, he suffers from social anxiety, and has no friends or interest in having any.

I am in my 50s now. My only daughter moved out five years ago. There are no relatives I can reach out to. A telephone support group is practically my only social outlet.

I do not want to be alone. I guess that is the only reason I put up with this situation.

Catholics who marry outside the Church without the required dispensations/permissions from their bishop are in invalid marriages. Should they divorce, they don’t require an anullment.

Since you were allowed to convert, I suspect that either your husband did follow the rules or someone at the parish missed something during your interview.

As for your intimacy problem, I feel your pain. For years I endured that with my husband. Now that he’s impotent it’s rather a relief – at least I know it’s got nothing to do with me.

 

[catholicguy25]

hi
wow this thread is very discouraging for guys like myself who have decided for religious reasons to save our virginity for marriage, i mean, for a guy, saving our virginity for marriage is something that requires lots of effort… However, after reading some of the posts by men who are married and have lived in a sexless marriage for years and years, i can’t help to feel sad and worried…

 

[TheRealJuliane]

hi
wow this thread is very discouraging for guys like myself who have decided for religious reasons to save our virginity for marriage, i mean, for a guy, saving our virginity for marriage is something that requires lots of effort… However, after reading some of the posts by men who are married and have lived in a sexless marriage for years and years, i can’t help to feel sad and worried…

My advice is not to read these sorts of threads. They have nothing to do with your situation and most husbands and wives do not go through this situation. You are borrowing trouble, as they say, and there is sufficient trouble for today. Pass it by, my friend, pass it by.

 

[prstoessel]

Catholics who marry outside the Church without the required dispensations/permissions from their bishop are in invalid marriages. Should they divorce, they don’t require an anullment.

That is not entirely correct, or is misleading. It is best to consult with a priest, deacon, or a trained marriage advocate to get the correct information about what an anullment actually is and/or what is actually needed.

 

[Kelfa28]

My advice is not to read these sorts of threads. They have nothing to do with your situation and most husbands and wives do not go through this situation. You are borrowing trouble, as they say, and there is sufficient trouble for today. Pass it by, my friend, pass it by.

This!

Without any offense towards the OP…as his situation is tragic and sad (I’ve been tracking this thread and keeping you in my prayers OP)…

Well, these threads tend to be similar to something like a shark attack. In reality, it doesn’t happen often at all…but when it does it attracts so much attention and seems so real that you start avoiding all bodies of water including pools and bathtubs!