Marriage has ruined my prayer

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I have just been married. Everything is fine, and my wife is a wonderful girl, except that this marriage has ruined my prayer life.

The Eucharist, adoration of the Blessed Sacrament, and my personal prayer now feel so void (barren).
I know they are not so, but before marriage I used to receive graces every time (except some periods of spiritual desolation). Now I feel like a blind man. As if my prayer was powerless. As if I was not ascending to God anymore. As if I was thrown from a high mountain down into a shadow valley. I can no longer see the Sun. I used to be an eagle, now I feel like a rat.

I am not aware of any sin, neither mine nor my wife’s. We pray together every day, we go to Mass and we receive Eucharist. Our marriage is a Catholic sacramental one, and neither of us has ever been married (nor had sex) before.

I think I know why this is: that’s because of my sex drive, which used to be directed towards God (however this may sound), and is now directed towards my wife.

Is this what marriage is?! A child-bearing union that kills your prayer?! Over 30 years of regular, active Catholic Church involvement (Holy Mass, holy sacraments, prayer, community groups, retreats, pilgrimages, Bible, books, newspapers, even preaching the Gospel and serving the poor) and I’ve never heard a single word of warning about this!

… and the best: our marriage is not fulfilled (consummated) yet. Yes I was hugging her and this alone is so devastating. What to expect after the real sex?..
My poor wife is suffering because of me, because she can see I am deferring the fulfillment (consummation).
I am not aware of any physiological/psychological/whatever problems of my own nor her. I am having normal erection whenever she comes close. I used to be tempted towards pornography in the past but rejected that and perhaps that’s the point where my sex drive became so sublimated. That was really good.

I just wanted to raise kids (I think I do have more than 2 talents for this), have somebody help me with the cooking & the rest and with preaching the Gospel. Yes I am ready for self-sacrificing love, and suffering. But I would never expect a sacrament to separate me from God! What is going on here?..

Did you have a similar experience?
 
Congratulations on your marriage!!

Perhaps God wants you to focus on that aspect of your life. The conjugal relationship between a husband and wife is a holy, good thing. You should not be putting that off and it’s curious to me that you have absent any physical difficulties (if I’m reading you rightly.)

Does your wife know how you feel? Some of what you say about marriage is strange and troubling me. Your location says Poland so I’m wondering if English isn’t your first language?
 
STF said:
I have just been married. Everything is fine, and my wife is a wonderful girl, except that this marriage has ruined my prayer life.

The Eucharist, adoration of the Blessed Sacrament, and my personal prayer now feel so void (barren).
I know they are not so, but before marriage I used to receive graces every time (except some periods of spiritual desolation). Now I feel like a blind man. As if my prayer was powerless. As if I was not ascending to God anymore. As if I was thrown from a high mountain down into a shadow valley. I can no longer see the Sun. I used to be an eagle, now I feel like a rat.

I am not aware of any sin, neither mine nor my wife’s. We pray together every day, we go to Mass and we receive Eucharist. Our marriage is a Catholic sacramental one, and neither of us has ever been married (nor had sex) before.

I think I know why this is: that’s because of my sex drive, which used to be directed towards God (however this may sound), and is now directed towards my wife.

Is this what marriage is?! A child-bearing union that kills your prayer?! Over 30 years of regular, active Catholic Church involvement (Holy Mass, holy sacraments, prayer, community groups, retreats, pilgrimages, Bible, books, newspapers, even preaching the Gospel and serving the poor) and I’ve never heard a single word of warning about this!

… and the best: our marriage is not fulfilled (consummated) yet. Yes I was hugging her and this alone is so devastating. What to expect after the real sex?..
My poor wife is suffering because of me, because she can see I am deferring the fulfillment (consummation).
I am not aware of any physiological/psychological/whatever problems of my own nor her. I am having normal erection whenever she comes close. I used to be tempted towards pornography in the past but rejected that and perhaps that’s the point where my sex drive became so sublimated. That was really good.

I just wanted to raise kids (I think I do have more than 2 talents for this), have somebody help me with the cooking & the rest and with preaching the Gospel. Yes I am ready for self-sacrificing love, and suffering. But I would never expect a sacrament to separate me from God! What is going on here?..

Did you have a similar experience?
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Do most people have wonderful experiences when they pray? The best I’ve ever gotten is a feeling of peace and that isn’t very often. If you feel great when you pray, I envy you (in the not-sinful sense :P) but I am not sure many people are that fortunate.

I do not think your marriage is to blame. At least not the sex part. Or, if it is, it shouldn’t be, since now your sex drive is actually directed in the way God intended.

If this is the only reason you aren’t having sex, it sounds like a poor one. The reason you haven’t been warned about it is because it’s not a thing that happens to other people. It is your personal struggle. We all get unusual personal struggles from time to time, I am sure you will get through this one just fine!

Marriage is a massive change though. I cried for weeks after my honeymoon, grieving the life I no longer had (though I didn’t realise at the time why I was upset). The same thing happened when I moved out of my parents house for the first time and got an apartment with my best friend. Both living situations became amazing to me once I adjusted. You could be having some kind of similar, if milder, reaction. You just need to adjust. I think this is a far more likely reason for your change in prayer life.
 
No, I do not think marriage has ruined your prayer life. Maybe as pensmama suggested, it is the unconsummated marriage. Or perhaps you are not praying for Gods will. Maybe you should pray praising God and for His will in your life to be done.

Congratulations on your marriage. Getting married is an adjustment. Lots of things change and are not what they used to be, but mostly, that is a good thing. Don’t be too hard on yourself. Be patient and stay close to your wife, and to God.
 
Irishmom2 said:
No, I do not think marriage has ruined your prayer life. Maybe as pensmama suggested, it is the unconsummated marriage. Or perhaps you are not praying for Gods will. Maybe you should pray praising God and for His will in your life to be done.

Congratulations on your marriage. Getting married is an adjustment. Lots of things change and are not what they used to be, but mostly, that is a good thing. Don’t be too hard on yourself. Be patient and stay close to your wife, and to God.
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Great post. 👍

And I must add that there are some of us whose prayer lives have deepened after marriage and parenthood…having children can be a serious wake-up call in terms of spiritual responsibility. 😉
 
The two become one flesh.

… That’s what that means …

… one flesh … can only happen one way.

Marriage is MUCH more than a ritual with holy words.

Intercourse in marriage IS the sacrament … IS the prayer.

You are experiencing a new prayer … previously off limits … but now FULLY available.

You are -]allowed/-] “required” to enjoy it.

All the way at the top of the page is a photograph as part of an advertisement for Catholic Singles. It is posed in such a way to transmit the idea that the husband and wife are getting ready to enjoy it.

That’s what marriage is for.
 
Well…here are my thoughts:

Matrimony is a sacrament, and sex is a way of doing prayer and an expression of love. You are not only loving your wife, but at the same time loving God by loving your wife (and that includes sex between you and your spouse, because it is ordered by God himself ).

True that I’m less verbally devoted to God since I got married. But raising children is a way to sainthood, and loving your spouse like God ordered to (including having sex), is a way to sainthood. Your wife is that helping hand on your way to God. How can you love God if you can’t do what he ordered us to do, right?

And please be careful of falling into being scrupulous nor become superstitious.

EDIT: There is probably some demon on the mission to make you oppose your wife and regret getting married. Watch out for that. We all know how badly demons like to destroy marriages.
 
Having sex in a sacramental marriage IS God’s will. St. Paul says in the Bible that husband and wife are not to abstain except for a short mutual time for prayer and fasting–note it is mutual, not one-sided. God Himself instituted marriage and sex.

Perhaps God is telling you that His will is not being followed in this area and is trying to get your attention. Perhaps he wants obedience from you, I don’t know, but this is not a good situation and you can rectify it. I know that when I am out of the Will of God my prayer life suffers.
 
It could simply be that you are advancing in experience. It is something of a wonder that you have never had this experience before. Most of the great saints who wrote on prayer talk about the suffering of spiritual dryness. There are profitable and unprofitable ways of coping with spiritual dryness, but the mere fact that you are going through it does not mean there is anything wrong with your prayer, let alone that you have chosen the wrong state in life.

You may want to read “Story of a Soul” and the works of St. Teresa of Avila and St. John of the Cross. Your confessor or pastor could also suggest ways to cope with spiritual dryness. Until then, suspend judgment and stop unjustly blaming your marriage for what reason would tell you was an inevitable stage in the spiritual life.

The main thing is to reject the temptation to despair. Do not use this absence of consolation as an excuse to avoid your duties or slacken in your fervor to follow the two great commandments. You might want to look for some other form of fasting, now that you do not have the de facto fasting of chastity as a regular form of self-discipline, but do not reject the other legitimate forms of consolation that come with your state in life. That is the main temptation of it. Confiding in a spiritual director or a spiritual friend might help.
 
STF said:
… and the best: our marriage is not fulfilled (consummated) yet. Yes I was hugging her and this alone is so devastating. What to expect after the real sex?..
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I do not understand what you are talking about here, by the way. Why, when you have no reason to believe you suffer from impotence, would you have chosen not to consummate your marriage yet? You say your wife is suffering…why is that not your primary concern, rather than your own lack of spiritual consolations? Why are you unhappy on one hand that God is withholding what you have no right to demand if you are withholding what it is your wife’s right to expect? She should not be suffering on account of your self-concerns, even spiritual self-concerns.

After all, you did not marry her merely to use her as a means to have children and “help me with the cooking & the rest,” did you? You and your wife were asked very clearly: *Have you come here freely **and without reservation *to give yourselves to each other in marriage? You married her because you loved her and wanted to give yourself to her and to your children, right? Well, what happened to that as your primary concern?

You have me very confused, because you don’t sound as if you are giving yourself to your wife without reservation. That concern with what you get out of marriage or what you have lost by marrying, put in place of your concern with whether or not you are pleasing your wife, may be the issue.

If you marry, however, you do not sin, nor does an unmarried woman sin if she marries; but such people will experience affliction in their earthly life, and I would like to spare you that. – 1 Cor. 7:28 The anxiety of pleasing your wife and taking care of your children are legitimate parts of the married state. It is a sacrifice you freely took on a work of love and service to God in this life. Perhaps marriage will free you from what was becoming an undue affection for your enjoyment of spiritual consolations?

At any rate, tend to your duties first. Let the consolations God chooses to give you in prayer come as God sees fit. You will have the least concern about inappropriate anxiety, that way.
 
EasterJoy said:
I do not understand what you are talking about here, by the way. Why, when you have no reason to believe you suffer from impotence, would you have chosen not to consummate your marriage yet? You say your wife is suffering…why is that not your primary concern, rather than your own lack of spiritual consolations? Why are you unhappy on one hand that God is withholding what you have no right to demand if you are withholding what it is your wife’s right to expect? She should not be suffering on account of your self-concerns, even spiritual self-concerns.

After all, you did not marry her merely to use her as a means to have children and “help me with the cooking & the rest,” did you? You and your wife were asked very clearly: *Have you come here freely **and without reservation ***to give yourselves to each other in marriage? You married her because you loved her and wanted to give yourself to her and to your children, right? Well, what happened to that as your primary concern?

You have me very confused, because you don’t sound as if you are giving yourself to your wife without reservation. That concern with what you get out of marriage or what you have lost by marrying, put in place of your concern with whether or not you are pleasing your wife, may be the issue.

If you marry, however, you do not sin, nor does an unmarried woman sin if she marries; but such people will experience affliction in their earthly life, and I would like to spare you that. – 1 Cor. 7:28 The anxiety of pleasing your wife and taking care of your children are legitimate parts of the married state. It is a sacrifice you freely took on a work of love and service to God in this life. Perhaps marriage will free you from what was becoming an undue affection for your enjoyment of spiritual consolations?

At any rate, tend to your duties first. Let the consolations God chooses to give you in prayer come as God sees fit. You will have the least concern about inappropriate anxiety, that way.
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Good advice.
 
CB_Catholic said:
Perhaps God is telling you that His will is not being followed in this area and is trying to get your attention. Perhaps he wants obedience from you, I don’t know, but this is not a good situation and you can rectify it. I know that when I am out of the Will of God my prayer life suffers.
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I don’t necessarily look at this as some kind of unusual divine intervention, but as a natural consequence. For instance, I don’t look at the burn on my hand as “God telling me” that it isn’t a good idea to pick up a hot cast iron skillet with my bare hands. It is a natural consequence. It is part of God’s design, but it didn’t take any divine intervention particularly tailored to me.

Maybe this is “God telling” him something, but as you imply in your last line sometimes self-concern has its own natural (and therefore predictable) consequences.
 
You’re a married man, not a monk or a religious. Perhaps you are expecting too much of yourself?

I am coming up to my own wedding and I recently was researching whether it would be appropriate to have benediction after the mass. I asked a very good and holy priest that I know and his answer was this:

No, benediction is not really appropriate unless an extended period of adoration is planned. And besides, it you’re not monks being professed, you’re a married couple…your job in the Church is not to retreat into silent prayer, but to rise up after receiving your first Eucharist as husband and wife and represent the Church in the world.

Your prayer life should change after being married, you may, as a single man, have more time to spend in adoration or other prayer, but as a married man your vocation is your wife and family. You should learn to pray through the things you do for them and the love you show to them.

Maybe it’s disconcerting and maybe you’re going through a spiritual dry patch. Maybe old leatherwings is taking advantage of this to tempt you and make you lose hope?

Out of curiosity, how long have you been married?
 
My poor wife is suffering because of me, because she can see I am deferring the fulfillment (consummation).
I am not aware of any physiological/psychological/whatever problems of my own nor her. I am having normal erection whenever she comes close.
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Wait a second…why are you deferring consummation if there’s no good reason?
 
Monte_RCMS said:
The two become one flesh.

… That’s what that means …

… one flesh … can only happen one way.

Marriage is MUCH more than a ritual with holy words.

Intercourse in marriage IS the sacrament … IS the prayer.

You are experiencing a new prayer … previously off limits … but now FULLY available.

You are -]allowed/-] “required” to enjoy it.

All the way at the top of the page is a photograph as part of an advertisement for Catholic Singles. It is posed in such a way to transmit the idea that the husband and wife are getting ready to enjoy it.

That’s what marriage is for.
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This is an excellent response.
 
Read some of “Theology of the Body”.
Sex is not dirty in the context of a loving, sacramental, respectful marriage.
 
Monte_RCMS said:
The two become one flesh.

… That’s what that means …

… one flesh … can only happen one way.

Marriage is MUCH more than a ritual with holy words.

Intercourse in marriage IS the sacrament … IS the prayer.

You are experiencing a new prayer … previously off limits … but now FULLY available.

You are -]allowed/-] “required” to enjoy it.

All the way at the top of the page is a photograph as part of an advertisement for Catholic Singles. It is posed in such a way to transmit the idea that the husband and wife are getting ready to enjoy it.

That’s what marriage is for.
Click to expand...
Yes, fulfillment of the duties of your state in life is most important; St Francis de Sales points out that neglecting them even for prayer is the wrong thing to do.

Go and love your wife all the time and in all ways. It’s not called the marital debt for nothing, and if your wife is “suffering” from this idea of yours, you may be sinning. If you have trouble putting all this together, you might need to speak with a good priest.
 
EasterJoy said:
Why, when you have no reason to believe you suffer from impotence, would you have chosen not to consummate your marriage yet?
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Simply because not-fulfilled (not-consummated) marriage can still get cancelled by the pope. Which is not my intention, but getting gradually into sex is a way to get a feel of it. Another reason is my wife who needs some time to get through this barrier, too. She is a virgin so that is a big event for her.
EasterJoy said:
You say your wife is suffering…why is that not your primary concern, rather than your own lack of spiritual consolations? Why are you unhappy on one hand that God is withholding what you have no right to demand if you are withholding what it is your wife’s right to expect? She should not be suffering on account of your self-concerns, even spiritual self-concerns.
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Yes you are right. She should not be suffering.

But the question is not just about “consolations”. Perhaps I have missed my true vocation and I am now lost, as the prayer was good when I was still in celibacy?..

I know things are not that simple, prayer being “good” or “bad” based on consolations. But I have been on fire with love of God (I think so) and now it is gone. I know I can still love Him but it feels distant, indirect, second-row.
EasterJoy said:
After all, you did not marry her merely to use her as a means to have children and “help me with the cooking & the rest,” did you? You and your wife were asked very clearly: *Have you come here freely **and without reservation ***to give yourselves to each other in marriage? You married her because you loved her and wanted to give yourself to her and to your children, right? Well, what happened to that as your primary concern?

You have me very confused, because you don’t sound as if you are giving yourself to your wife without reservation. That concern with what you get out of marriage or what you have lost by marrying, put in place of your concern with whether or not you are pleasing your wife, may be the issue.
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“without reservation”? That is not present in the Polish rite. Is this the same as “pleasing your wife”? Or do you just mean self-sacrifice whenever it is required, including sex?

I have a plan, and I need wife to make it alive. Yes I know this will require self-sacrificing love (there are some areas where it is required already). You do not sacrifice yourself to things so I am not treating her like a thing.

Other than that, I just love Christ (trying to). (Knowing) God is my true passion, He is the only purpose, joy and hope of my life; marriage+kids is a way to serve Him. My wife will never make me happy and I would be an idiot to think otherwise (Jer 17:7). She is just a co-worker. As a husband I am responsible for her (and the family) so that is yet another dimension. Yet another dimension is the sexual one, I have no problem with that (if that’s required for the plan) but I didn’t marry because of sex — there are more interesting things in life.
 
OP, did you marry the woman in your last thread that you were not sure whether you should marry or not? If so, this is the reason for the trouble in your marriage.
 
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