Is it acceptable to deny my wife in this way?

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xspike77x

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Ok, so my wife and I practice NFP and I feel that during infertile periods we should abstain completely and if we are going to be sexually intimate then we should be involved in complete intercourse. Problem is that my wife greatly disagrees with this to the degree that it is causing some serious tension within our marriage, both sexually and overall. In other words, she wants to do other stuff not involving artificial contraception, just other types of mutual stimulation. I have explained to her the passage relating to Onan, the positions of the early church fathers, and that for the majority of christian history that this has been the position of all of christianity. However, she remains unconvinced and is still very disappointed, hurt, and distant as a result of it all. My wife is not technically catholic (though she agrees with many large catholic theological positions) which partially explains why my reasons have remained unconvincing to her. Is it worth it to stand my ground even though our marital oneness and relationship appears to be suffering as a result? Believe me, I personally am not trying to find some wiggle room to meet my satisfaction sexually, I just have a hard time maintaining my position when it appears that our marriage is suffering due to it. I am not seeing the fruits here, what does everyone think? We just had our first child a few months ago and things are not good.
 
xspike77x said:
We just had our first child a few months ago and things are not good.
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Just some speculation but after my wife had our first child her hormones took a long time to settle down. during that time she would say she felt unloved for a variety of reasons that didn’t seem all that rational to me at the time. I am guessing you are also both not getting much sleep. All of this together can be a lot to handle. You may want to talk to your priest or someone who can help you address this in a way that she doesn’t feel you are not showing her love or that you are not “interested”.
 
Well this started to become an issue quite a while ago, even before the pregnancy started. Therefore, I do not believe that hormones have all that much to do with it.
 
Hi xspike77x:wave:

Heres a book I’ll be buying soon.

Man and Woman He Created Them: A Theology of the Body - John Paul II
ourfatherswillcommunications.com/Merchant2/merchant.mvc?Screen=PROD&Store_Code=TOTBMC&Product_Code=BTOB

Theology of the body
theologyofthebody.net/

And as a wife:yup: can I just say that it is so hard sometimes to understand my husband and where hes coming from.We did a Marriage Encounter and from it we learned to dialogue.It helps to sometimes put the question (he/she) comes up with then you

Write - a 10 minute love letter focusing on feelings.

Exchange - and read twice, once for the head and once for the heart.

**Dialogue **- 10 minutes on the strongest feeling in one of the letters.

**Select **- a question for your next dialogue.

Then sometimes you can see where your both at.

Diologue Guidelines
wwme.org/already.html
 
You say that you practise NFP and then say that *you believe *that you should not have sexual intercourse during the infertile time. NFP does not say that you should refrain from intercourse during the infertile time.

I think that you should contact the Couple to Couple League for some assistance.

ccli.org/
 
Your wife also has a responsibility to live with your moral convictions and not to force you to offend your conscience. She needs to keep educating herself . If it works for you both you can study together. She needs to form her conscience to the church.

You need to be charitable and loving and really be Christ to her. Christ would not participate in a sinful act in order to make that person feel better. He’d help them to grow in understanding and faith.

A couple of resources that might be helpful in addition to the ones above.

amazon.com/Good-News-About-Sex-Marriage/dp/1569552142

giftfoundation.org/naked_without_shame.htm

Perhaps she doesn’t relate to other ways of affection and intimacy as being acts of love and she is confused that sex is love.

Consider looking for some resources on Marriage. One I found helpful was by Greg Popcak.

exceptionalmarriages.com/book1.htm

If you consider your marriage to be good a Marriage Encounter weekend as was mentioned above could be helpful. If you don’t think it is good you might go for a Retrouvaille Weekend.
 
Yes, it is acceptable to not participate in acts that are against the teachings of the Church. It is NOT acceptable, though, to deny her the marital embrace during infertile times. Paul is extremely clear on the point that once we’re married our bodies are not our own and our spouses have a correct claim on us. We are not to deny each other unless it is by mutual consent, not just because one partner has an erroneous view of Church teaching. Please, for the sake of your marriage and your child, read the Theology of the Body, go to Reconcilliation and then apologize to your wife.
 
Did you mean, abstain during the **fertile **time? Your post would appear to have a typo.

You are absolutely correct, acts that do not end in sexual intercourse are not licit. Masterbation is wrong, and that is already spelled out as a sin against the sixth commandment. When you stimulate each other in this way-- without intercourse-- it is plain old masterbation.

I concur with the poster who said your wife should not attempt to force you to go against your conscience. It sounds as if you have some problems, of which this is only a symptom. Get some counsel from a solid priest or Catholic counselor on what you should do.
 
Thank you everyone for your replies. To clarify for some, I do not withhold intercourse from my wife during the infertile times, I only withhold sexual activity when it is not going to result in intercourse, in other words, all of the other stuff, this is what she is upset about. She doesn’t understand why we cannot “express our love” in this way even though it is not intercourse. I do not plan on moving on this topic. I think I will stand by my convictions, sometimes being a man is doing what you know is right even though you may suffer for it. Therefore, I will do what I believe to be right, otherwise I am lying to myself.
 
Just be careful. My marriage almost ended when I told my wife NFP was the only option. Sometimes you have to go very gently with the other side…

We’re not all at the same point on our spiritual journey…sometimes when you try and force something on someone, it could have disaterous consequences.

Saying that, I don’t have any advice on what to ‘do’ or not do. But PLEASE tread gently. Talk to a priest…
 
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