Intimacy following marital struggles

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tinamn

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Some of you have read my posts about my husband and his struggle with alcohol.

Through the latest part of my journey, I’ve realized that in addition to the alcohol, he has been rather emotionally… abusive (abuse seems strong, but from all I can tell, that’s what it is). As he struggles with staying sober, he has increased some of that behavior (trying to keep me from my family, working from home so he can keep tabs on me, telling me if I’ll just do this or that, he’ll do better, etc), but it’s made me realize that that kind of thing has been there all along.

I do want to work towards healing our marriage, and we have set up counseling for that - though it will not start until July. (For those who will say this isn’t a question for here and that I should be talking to a therapist. That is in the works!!)

What I’m curious about from those on this board is what, if any, teaching the Church may have regarding marital obligations through the struggle/healing process. He insists that if he can’t get the emotional closeness from me, that he will need to return to the alcohol, but I am seriously struggling with a complete lack of a desire because I feel so… damaged through all of this (for lack of better way of describing it). I have tried for him, but I honestly feel “dirty” afterwards - I just want to shower and get clean and not think about it again.

I have shared this with him, in a calm, kind manner - I don’t want to hurt him after all - and all he has to say about it is that he feels his need is stronger than my feelings, and that, again - if he can’t get what he needs he’s just going to go drink again. According to him, he is doing all the “trying” here and I need to step up my game.

Maybe he’s right? I guess I’ve always felt the marital act was supposed to be more special than “sucking it up” and the other person “getting their needs met.”
 
He is emotionally blackmailing you to get sex in exchange for temporary sobriety. It is little wonder you feel dirty afterwards. Anyone would feel that way if they felt used by their partner instead of loved. This is not your fault.

I do not know if the Church specifically addresses this particular kind of marital crisis, but I do know that it is not healthy or Christ-like for a spouse to extract compliance in regards to sexual relations as the price of a safe and sober home life.

I would not wait until July to address this with a counselor. I think you should make an appointment with your pastor (tell the secretary it is an urgent situation so you don’t get delayed) and tell him about these new developments. Then see what he says. I think even a deacon could be very helpful in clarifying the applicable teachings for you, if the priest is too busy in the immediate future.

Edited to add: the marital act IS special. You are right about that. He cannot use you as a substitute for his vice. Christians are supposed to use marital relations to show their love for their spouse. They are not supposed to use their spouse because they “have needs”.
 
Dacinom said:
Spouses in a sacramental marriage are one flesh, and have an obligation to share sexual intimacy with each other it is an important part of their union!
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This is the heart of the matter for me - I realize there is an obligation, and while I would like to fulfill that obligation, I feel like there has been damage done to our relationship that makes fulfilling it difficult for me to do and still feel like it is the sacramental union.

But I guess at what point do I have to set aside my feelings to fulfill this obligation? Is there a point of damage being done where I can say I’m not comfortable with this, and keep it from turning around on me as not fulfilling my obligation, and I’m withholding, and technically that is emotional abuse as well?

I don’t know where the line is… if there is a line… etc. I’m well aware of the alcoholic issue; I think the hard part for me with that is that when he stops drinking, it seems as if he doesn’t have a problem for that period of time. At which point I tend to kind of quickly feel like it’s a “normal” when in reality, in the last 10 years, there’s been a lot more of the drinking pattern than what I would hope to be “normal.”
 
I’m so sorry you’re now facing this new strategy of your husband’s. But like my friend jmjZelie said. This is blackmail. There’s no other way around it.

So I think you need to face this down for what it is. But I’ll tell you. Alcoholics are born losers. We always look for an excuse to fall backwards. That’s our thing. It’s the rock we hide under. And yeah. It’s always your fault.

So I’d like to see you tell him you’ll agree to give him sex when he agrees to join Alcoholics Anonymous. Or, if he’s already done that? Then when he’s gone X months without backsliding. I mean blackmail can cut both ways. If he’s up for it give it back.

I’m sorry this is not taking into account the emotional turmoil this leaves you in. But in a situation where you’re thinking of maybe giving into bullying tactics anyway? Just to keep the ‘peace’? Take control back. At least get something for your pain.

I don’t know if this helps. It’s just thoughts.

Peace tinamn.

-Trident
 
tinamn said:
This is the heart of the matter for me - I realize there is an obligation, and while I would like to fulfill that obligation, I feel like there has been damage done to our relationship that makes fulfilling it difficult for me to do and still feel like it is the sacramental union.

But I guess at what point do I have to set aside my feelings to fulfill this obligation? Is there a point of damage being done where I can say I’m not comfortable with this, and keep it from turning around on me as not fulfilling my obligation, and I’m withholding, and technically that is emotional abuse as well?

I don’t know where the line is… if there is a line… etc. I’m well aware of the alcoholic issue; I think the hard part for me with that is that when he stops drinking, it seems as if he doesn’t have a problem for that period of time. At which point I tend to kind of quickly feel like it’s a “normal” when in reality, in the last 10 years, there’s been a lot more of the drinking pattern than what I would hope to be “normal.”
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I think this confusion you’re experiencing is exactly the reason you need a priest, counselor, support group, etc. to help you negotiate and sort through all of this. Those people get it, because of their professional expertise or because they’ve been there in a way that random people on the Internet have not. You still make the decisions, but since they’re not emotionally invested in the same way you are they can be very good at helping you see the information you have clearly.

Continued prayers for you and your family.
 
Ideally, partners in a marriage would meet the need for intimacy at any time when it is desired by one of the parties.

In this case, perhaps it IS being used as an excuse, or some kind of bargaining chip, in a disordered way.

At the same time, perhaps he really IS struggling and needs that closeness, that support, and attentiveness in order to get on with his fight. Perhaps his physical urges and perceived “need” to satiate them really are threatening to throw him off course.

We can’t say for sure, but it’s something to consider. When there is addiction, the brain is used to having its cravings met, and having the endorphin supply that comes with it. Now that the craving is not being met, he could really be struggling and his brain is nagging him to do something about it. “WHERE ARE MY REWARD CHEMICALS?” Sex within marriage is alternative, more healthy way to get those endorphins.

Only you (and perhaps the therapist) can say – it could be abusive, or he could be depending on it as a legitimate stop-gap to get over the drinking. I would say to try to be there for him, and instead of feeling dirty, see it as a show of your support and help in recovery. If you don’t feel like it, is that just “sucking it up”? Perhaps. But it’s also an act of love.

As far as addictions go, Alcoholism is a monster. IF he really isn’t drinking any more, he has taken a huge step in the right direction, even if there are other unhealthy things happening in the meantime.
 
tinamn said:
Some of you have read my posts about my husband and his struggle with alcohol.

Through the latest part of my journey, I’ve realized that in addition to the alcohol, he has been rather emotionally… abusive (abuse seems strong, but from all I can tell, that’s what it is). As he struggles with staying sober, he has increased some of that behavior (trying to keep me from my family, working from home so he can keep tabs on me, telling me if I’ll just do this or that, he’ll do better, etc), but it’s made me realize that that kind of thing has been there all along.

I do want to work towards healing our marriage, and we have set up counseling for that - though it will not start until July. (For those who will say this isn’t a question for here and that I should be talking to a therapist. That is in the works!!)

What I’m curious about from those on this board is what, if any, teaching the Church may have regarding marital obligations through the struggle/healing process. He insists that if he can’t get the emotional closeness from me, that he will need to return to the alcohol, but I am seriously struggling with a complete lack of a desire because I feel so… damaged through all of this (for lack of better way of describing it). I have tried for him, but I honestly feel “dirty” afterwards - I just want to shower and get clean and not think about it again.

I have shared this with him, in a calm, kind manner - I don’t want to hurt him after all - and all he has to say about it is that he feels his need is stronger than my feelings, and that, again - if he can’t get what he needs he’s just going to go drink again. According to him, he is doing all the “trying” here and I need to step up my game.

Maybe he’s right?** I guess I’ve always felt the marital act was supposed to be more special than “sucking it up” and the other person “getting their needs met.”**
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You are right. This seems to be a sort of emotional blackmail more than anything else. Sobriety from alcohol should not be conditional on his getting any sorts of “benefits” - it is a reward in itself. (Moreover, alcohol and alcohol withdrawal can mess with sexual desire and function, so that might be a complicating factor.)
 
I really sympathize with your situation.

Your husband is in a terrible place right now, and he has a long way to go to be emotionally healthy. For that reason, he also has a long way to go in behaving as a Christian husband should.

You’re correct that marital intimacy is supposed to be more than just sucking it up, and the fact that you are feeling “dirty” afterward is really, really troubling. I know your therapist will be able to help you with this.

I’m not a therapist, but having been through a really hard time with my husband (who suffered a personality change after he was hit by a truck due to a mild-traumatic brain injury), I will offer you this bit of advice. It’s okay to make a sacrificial gift of sexual intimacy with your husband, but you first need to look at is as a sacrificial gift. That helps a lot. For a while, my husband was like a different person, and it was really difficult for me. I was even frightened of him once in a while, and since he was misdiagnosed for the first 10 months after his injury, I didn’t even know why he was behaving the way he was. After we found out why his personality had changed and healing was able to begin in earnest, it was easier for me because I knew that rebuilding our relationship was an important part of his healing. It wasn’t perfect, and I had to work at being willing more times than I care to admit, but in the long run, it was the right decision for our marriage. Weird thing is now, he doesn’t even remember behaving that way. Those memories didn’t stick in his brain, and it’s been important for me to be able to forgive his poor behavior thoroughly in order for us to have a healthy marriage today.

Second, you need to establish some ground-rules with your husband who is still healing. That might mean saying something like this to your husband (not in the heat of the moment!), “I want marital intimacy, too, but it can’t just be because you need it or want it. If you demand sex from me or threaten to start drinking again if I don’t have sex with you, then no, I will not participate in that kind of emotional blackmail. If you speak to me in a mean way or insult me or blame me for things that I have no control over, I will not want to have sex with you. But if you are kind to me and the kids…if you are making progress in your therapy…if you are making the smallest attempt to love me as your wife as you vowed to on our wedding day, then yes, of course we will be sharing those intimate moments again. This will only work if we are equals who are equally concerned for one another.”

Praying for you!
 
With regards to counseling, many counselors will not do marriage counseling when one is an alcoholic until the alcoholic party is already in some form of therapy, AA, rehab., something.

The best counselors know that without the alcoholism being under control, little can be done to help a marriage.

For you, are you going to Alanon or Codependents Anonymous? Both work on the same issues of boundaries, how not to enable, etc.

Good luck with counseling! 👍
 
I don’t know how theological this answer is but I think it is downright sinful to chance bringing a child into this situation before there is a solution to his behavior.
 
Hoosier_Daddy said:
I don’t know how theological this answer is but I think it is downright sinful to chance bringing a child into this situation before there is a solution to his behavior.
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He got a vasectomy after our 4th was born. I wasn’t sure what to think at the time, but I’m relieved right now because at least that is one less thing to worry about.
 
Dacinom said:
Okay has your husband actually gone through treatment or an alcohol program? Is he on the road to recovery or is he simply sober for a few days here and there? It is hard to discern what exactly is going on in your marriage. Is your husband legitimately seeking intimacy from you because he is in recovery and hopes for emotional closeness? Is he honestly afraid of falling off the wagon (a true fear) or is he throwing it in your face as blackmail for sex after a couple of days of not drinking?

If your husband is clean and sober and is in recovery, then yes it would be an act of love on your part to try and put the past aside as best as you can and engage in intimacy. This is a gift to him to help rebuild your marriage, just as his sobriety is a gift to help rebuild your marriage. Yes both are difficult and awkward and stressful and hard but both the sobriety and intimacy are needed to help rebuild.

If your husband is sober for a few days, asks for sex then drinks again this is a bad pattern I can’t tell what is going on here really. Has he gone through a treatment program or is he going to AA meetings? Please be assured of my prayers.
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He did an outpatient treatment program a year ago. He thought it was a joke; he told me how he was better than everyone there because he volunteered to go and they were all there ordered by a judge or because they were going to lose their families, jobs, etc. He got it down to a science how much he could drink and how to get it out of his system before the urine tests, and he lied through his teeth to his counselor.

Since then he has been on again/off again drunk. His longest stretch has been 6 weeks, currently we are at 10 days with the latest stretch. The last drunken episode he had, he blacked out, doesn’t remember two days of it, and ended up driving drunk and running into our lake cabin (damaging both the car and the cabin, but thankfully not anyone).

That particular time, I left with my parents to go to the cabin without him, because he was passed out and we’d been promising the kids we would go. It was late afternoon, and I decided I was tired of waiting for him. He woke up shortly after we arrived and demanded that I drive back and bring him out there. He said if I didn’t, and he had to find his own way out there, “It wouldn’t be pretty” and “You won’t like the results.” I took that to be a threat, and my parents felt the same way.

We packed up the kids and went to a hotel, and I called the sheriff. They caught up with him at the cabin (after he’d driven there drunk), but according to the sheriff, he didn’t technically see him drive, so anyone could have brought him out there and anyone could have hit the cabin. He blew 3x the legal limit at that point. The sheriff backed me on staying away and not telling him where we were, so they brought him back to the house where he texted and called me repeatedly until I would let him tell me about how wrong it was for me to take the kids, etc.

This is the kind of thing that happens repeatedly. Same pattern… drink a bunch, I take an action he doesn’t like (that is justified based on his condition), he swears he won’t drink again, then badgers me for a week on how he should be able to drink when he wants, and he can’t live under the threat of me leaving with the kids, and he can’t leave the house for fear I’m going to pack up and go, he needs sex as reassurement that I won’t leave (or whatever… etc etc etc. Wash, rinse, repeat…
 
I think by the sounds of it that you are under no obligation to fulfill your “marital duties”. The point of marital sex is not to be used as a negotiating tool to keep a spouse from certain behaviour. It is the ultimate expression of love between a man and woman in marriage. Every sexual act is supposed to have the good of the other spouse as the priority.

Part of marriage is willing the good for your spouse. The question in this situation, I think, is what is the good for your husband in this situation?

Will it do him any good if this pattern is allowed to continue? If you give in to his wishes for sex, are you helping him or facilitating his behaviour?

Is giving in to his requests good for the ultimate salvation of his soul?

You’ll have to figure out for yourself what course of action is appropriate to this situation. But I would say that it is legitimate to refuse to have sex with your spouse if you feel that the damage is enough that it is no longer a loving act.

If he had an affair, nobody would condemn you for refusing sex for a period of time.
 
tinamn said:
This is the kind of thing that happens repeatedly. Same pattern… drink a bunch, I take an action he doesn’t like (that is justified based on his condition), he swears he won’t drink again, then badgers me for a week on how he should be able to drink when he wants, and he can’t live under the threat of me leaving with the kids, and he can’t leave the house for fear I’m going to pack up and go, he needs sex as reassurement that I won’t leave (or whatever… etc etc etc. Wash, rinse, repeat…
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You need to be the one to stop the repeat cycle because your husband doesn’t appear that he will. You have to stop. You have to say what you are going to do, and stick to it. Right now he knows you will give in with just a minimal amount of trying on his part. He needs to prove himself, and you need to find out why you keep letting him back into your kids lives. This is really not fair to them. He has the drinking problem, but you are allowing the children to be around his dysfunction. Is this really what you want them to grow up with? Be their hero and save them from your husbands chaos.

As for your original post, I agree with other posters: your husband blackmails you, and you are a part of the dance every time you let him back into your home.
 
Well he is off to the liquor store to buy “just beer” according to him. I am not surprised; I wish I could say I’m not hurt because I know it is the disease that is doing this but yes, I keep holding out hope that this is the time he is truly going to change and when that doesn’t happen it does hurt.

He thinks if he only buys a 6 pack and that is all he has this weekend, that he is just fine and it proves that he doesn’t really have the problem we think he does.
 
tinamn said:
Well he is off to the liquor store to buy “just beer” according to him. I am not surprised; I wish I could say I’m not hurt because I know it is the disease that is doing this but yes, I keep holding out hope that this is the time he is truly going to change and when that doesn’t happen it does hurt.

He thinks if he only buys a 6 pack and that is all he has this weekend, that he is just fine and it proves that he doesn’t really have the problem we think he does.
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You are really in denial, are you aware of that? How many times are you going to do this?
 
I don’t feel like I’m in denial as much as I am worried about not trying hard enough(even though I know there is really nothing I can do about the alcoholism) for the marriage itself. When he isn’t drinking, even though I know the problem hasn’t gone away, I don’t feel I have any real justification for taking the drastic steps that seem to need to be taken, but nothing usually can be done on the days he does drink (weekends and holidays).

Sometimes I wish someone would just say “Do this.” And tell me when, where and how… Because I don’t feel like I have the ability to figure it out on my own in the midst of the roller coaster.
 
tinamn said:
I don’t feel like I’m in denial as much as I am worried about not trying hard enough(even though I know there is really nothing I can do about the alcoholism) for the marriage itself. When he isn’t drinking, even though I know the problem hasn’t gone away, I don’t feel I have any real justification for taking the drastic steps that seem to need to be taken, but nothing usually can be done on the days he does drink (weekends and holidays).

Sometimes I wish someone would just say “Do this.” And tell me when, where and how… Because I don’t feel like I have the ability to figure it out on my own in the midst of the roller coaster.
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Do this. Go reread your other threads. Tell us what has changed.

You say you can’t figure it out in the midst of the roller coaster… Get off the roller coaster. And take your kids off it too.
 
You are right, I do feel like I am waiting for the next bad thing to happen… It seems like doing something when things appear to be going well would be giving up when he seems to be trying. Like right now - as far as I can tell, all he did was actually buy beer, and he seems to be doing ok (but it seems like he is doing it to prove he can do that I can’t try to use that against him, if that makes sense).

All the things I have posted about and all the replies I have gotten make sense. I agree that he needs help, I know I can’t fix him and nothing I do is going to change/fix him.

I just keep getting pulled back into complacency I suppose, because of those brief periods where he isn’t drinking. I also hear him saying he doesn’t feel there is any biblical justification for divorce/separation except adultery, and since he has already forgiven me, then it’s my duty to forgive him for “lesser” sins of drinking etc. He will say that even in an abusive situation that the person being abused has an obligation to try to make things better and even still only a separation is “allowed.” (He is not Catholic, not sure that matters with all of this or if I have mentioned it).

So the short of it is… I understand the gravity of the situation, I understand I need to do something, at this point I don’t care who he tells (he told my sister and she has already threatened to tell all the parents in my girls’ small parochial school… So oh well I guess). I think my biggest hold back is that I am not sure I am strong enough to withstand the badgering, incessant calling/texting with crying and promises of fixing it etc. I wish I was exaggerating talking about this, and knowing I’m not should make it easier to do what needs to be done, but somehow it just doesn’t.

Btw, my parents have been nothing but supportive through this. That itself has caused problems with my husband because he feels they are too much a part of the situation and I just run to them when I don’t like how things are going. I went to them the first time I posted here, and this last incident with him threatening me, they were with me at the time, and did go with us to the hotel. But regardless, they have been there and I don’t feel like they have overstepped at all, though they are on my side so of course I would feel that way.
 
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