Married and going without intercourse

  • Thread starter Thread starter mac2
  • Start date Start date
Status
Not open for further replies.
“as much as possible.”

I think that is the key word he meant.
 
The phrase “open to life” is imprecise language, that is why in official documents the Church does not use it. It has become so popular some folks think it is a doctrinal phrase.
 
AdamP88 said:
I’m objecting to her general attitude that implicitly promotes contraception to a catholic couple and a secular view of marriage than many on these forums would not share.
Click to expand...
I am a realist. And I hate to see disappointment in people when it can be mitigated. My suggestions are based on what I know to be a very realistic scenario, based on what OP has told us has transpired so far. In a perfect Catholic world and marriage, @AdamP88, you are correct that my suggestions wouldn’t have any place. However, those aren’t the circumstances and, not even close, based on what OP posted. I am coming from a place where I assume (and hope) that OP wants to keep his marriage together and his family intact. This is serious issue. Wife is probably feeling pretty disrespected at this point, if husband isn’t understanding her resolve to not have any more children, especially since she has already had four. This can breed resentment the likes of which the marriage may not be able to survive, if they don’t figure the problem out in short order.

Please don’t assume that my suggestions are based on ill-intent. I have been married for 30 years and I understand very well how these things work, especially in marriages where the spouses aren’t on the same page with regards to religion or even basic values.

I think my advice is sound and I stand by it. Certainly, however the OP wishes to encourage his wife to accept Catholic teaching on this matter is something he should persue if it is important to him. To be truthful, his original post sounded to me like he needed a reality check, given the way he conveyed his wife’s thoughts on all of this.
 
Last edited:
AdamP88 said:
When Marital Sex Is a Sin
Click to expand...
Wasn’t expecting to get so many replies so I’l skim over everything and reply as best I can.
  1. I know what I’m asking my wife to do is completely wrong but the temptation of lust is so strong i end up giving in. As a result i know I can’t receive Holy Communion and I’m just being a selfish person and not the loving husband I’m being called to be. I guess I can resist the temptation to contract but at times can’t resist the temptation to oral sex and my wife is happy to do that as she thinks it’s a better alternative to intercourse and potential to become pregnant.
  2. Will just have to do as Capta(name removed by moderator)rudeman says - tell my wife not to do oral sex. Thanks for this. I just need a kick up the backside and hear this from someone else.
  3. I won’t use contraception. Can’t believe how many people on here are recommending this.
  4. My wife will point blank not talk to anyone about NFP. This is my fault for not having stuck to the rules so I need to eat humble pie.
  5. Yes, I’m scandalising my wife- Point taken on board. I have spoken with a Franciscan Friar in depth on this and he hasn’t mentioned about it being licit for my wife to take contraception. I don’t buy that. I’m taking an easy option out there I would feel. My conscience alarm goes off big time on that one.
  6. Not emotionally venting. Just thought this would be a good place to get advice. I’ve being going to confession for this for sometime and I keep falling. Feels like an addiction at this stage.
  7. My wife has issues I believe from her youth (but most of us have something or other from our past). I won’t be going into those here. I don’t think she realised what being a practicing Catholic fully meant at the time but to be honest there’s things I’m learning that I didn’t know when she converted so we’re all works in progress really. My wife knows that contraception is a no-no. I’ve explained that to her.
  8. My wife won’t do counselling. She is a very closed sort of person and doesn’t like talking with people she doesn’t know (not people she does know either on topics like this).
  9. Perhaps abstinence is what I’m being called to. It’s hard though I may have to get used to the fact. The Lord works in mysterious ways.
  10. I’m not trying to convince my wife to have more kids. I think we’re both at our limits with four also. I would just like to have that bond between the both of us.
  11. Different priests give different instructions. Local PP says contraception would be ok. I just don’t buy that. Of course I am contracdicing myself then by oral sex.
  12. Date nights haven’t been done in a while alright. Must make more of an effort here.
  13. Just to clarify - there will be no contracepting taking place s please - no more talk of contraception. My conscience tells me this is worse than what I’m already doing. Contraception leads us down a dark road which Pope Pius VI predicted in Humae Vitae. Just take a look at the number of abortions and the push to bring it into my own country at the moment.
 
Last edited:
Have read this before. Some differences exist for us. my wife isn’t the one making a decision to contracept. She’s abstaining. It’s me really who needs to get a grip on myself and accept her decision.

Thanks for the link.
 
mac2 said:
Not emotionally venting. Just thought this would be a good place to get advice
Click to expand...
Come on Mac2. This is not a reasonable statement from an otherwise intelligent person. The best moral advice is from your Priest, you know that. Only anonymous amateurs here.

Further, your priests give you contrary advice.
Therefore you must conclude its a very complicated or grey topic beyond your theological ken.

Yet you insist use of contraceptives is not on the table.
That is an intellectual dissonance of a high order.

You also needed us strangers to point out to you that oral sex is more clearly disordered and within your power to remedy than use of contraceptives! How is it your Confessors never told you that? Have you been totally honest with them?

So there are lots of contradictions in your narrative here.
I believer the root issue is your inability to trust Confessors and your over reliance on your own views/conscience which is fairly clearly uncertain and malfunctioning both in what you reject (any use of contraceptives whatsoever which borders on irrational compulsion) and what you accept (oral sex).

Litigating your issues here is not the answer.
Trusting a new Confessor for another 2 years possibly is.
How can God condemn you for putting your life in the hands of his elect when your own judgement is so distorted and confused?
 
Last edited:
QwertyGirl said:
In a perfect Catholic world and marriage, @AdamP88, you are correct that my suggestions wouldn’t have any place. However, those aren’t the circumstances and, not even close, based on what OP posted. I am coming from a place where I assume (and hope) that OP wants to keep his marriage together and his family intact.
Click to expand...
QwertyGirl said:
Please don’t assume that my suggestions are based on ill-intent.
Click to expand...
I don’t think your suggestions are based on ill-intent. It’s just the standard, non-catholic view of marriage. I get it. But the idea that contraception is the way will not bring them any closer as a couple and will certainly not bring them closer to Christ and the Church, which is, I’m assuming, their desire as a Catholic family. It’s not a solution.

Also the suggestion that realistically contraception is the best way is basically saying that this couple are not strong enough or holy enough to follow Church teaching.

What needs to happen here is that this couple needs to sit down with a Catholic marriage counsellor and discuss the marriage, the woman’s desire to not have more kids, and the possibility of trying to do NFP. At the same time, the husband needs to stop using his wife for his own gratifaction when he should be gradually trying to bring her on board Team-Catholic. He also needs to express to her in non-sexual ways, his love for her.

The desire to not have any more kids may be reasonable, and really the wife should have a discussion with the husband about that. However the couple should be trying to live out the ideal of Catholic marriage and taking steps toward that, even if the steps are little ones.
 
AdamP88 said:
I don’t think your suggestions are based on ill-intent. It’s just the standard, non-catholic view of marriage. I get it.
Click to expand...
I don’t think you do. I have never found it helpful to try and box people into set views requiring set-move responses. That is a great way to overlook new insights. QwertyGirl often has insights that I as a born, bred and well theologically trained Catholic find worthy of serious reflection and at times assimilation. So I would disagree that hers is the “standard non catholic view”. There certainly needs to be a more virile “Catholic view” on this particular scenario as current one’s seem inadequate and unhelpful.
the suggestion that realistically contraception is the best way is basically saying that this couple are not strong enough or holy enough to follow Church teaching.
One would have to be blind deaf and dumb not to realise that obsessive avoidance of any use of contraceptives whatsoever, even for a limited time, by either the non Catholic or Catholic party is not working for the last two years.
Click to expand...
I would think the free choice to engage in oral sex rather than unfreely cooperate in the sincere contraceptive choices of a non Catholic spouse is the more irrational and morally questionable path.

Yet that is the very path that our OP has chosen to go down so as to be an obsessively contraceptively faithful Catholic. Its madness. I do not believe this is what the Church wants faithful Catholics to end up doing or to be in a psychosexual place where such a compromise looks in any way better than what is being suggested.
this couple are not strong enough or holy enough to follow Church teaching.
Click to expand...
I find this a madness. Unless I have misunderstood the scenario we are not dealing with a Catholic couple. This is inherently a denial of the complex mixed marriage scenario. It will not be solved by culturally “Catholic” solutions.

Further it is quite obvious our poster is not currently psychosexually strong enough to abstain. One does not get married to permanently abstain as St Paul well observed.
That does not mean one is not “holy”.

Growth in holiness surely first requires homage to the fundamental “secular” Delphic truth “temet nosce”. Grace builds on nature, it does not replace it, and certainly not overnight.
What needs to happen here is that this couple needs to sit down with a Catholic marriage counsellor.
Click to expand...
That may not be helpful at all if the partner is not a Catholic and rightly fears the near compulsive attitude that most “good” lay Catholics have re contraceptive teaching.
the possibility of trying to do NFP
Click to expand...
It is objectively established that even disciplined couples only achieve around 97% success. It would not be unreasonable for the wife to reject this solution. It is not a silver bullet in this matter therefore.

CONTINUED…
 
Last edited:
…
he should be gradually trying to bring her on board Team-Catholic.
Click to expand...
Please, I see no “team Catholic” here and little possibility of such. In fact the more our poster pushes this line the more my pastoral experience tells me his wife will psychologically retreat. He has tried that kite, it clearly won’t fly. Trying to drag it further along the ground is going to rip fabric. God understands that is what our poaster wants going forward even if it will never happen and shouldn’t be attempted again whether subtly or not so subtly. Given the somewhat black and white views expressed thus far I do not believe our poster has the interpersonal skills needed not to come across as being anything other than controlling when trying to get his partner “on board” with “team catholic”…however well intentioned.
The desire to not have any more kids may be reasonable, and really the wife should have a discussion with the husband about that.
Click to expand...
True. That it didn’t happen indicated there are many more things going on here than the sexual issues. That would indicate the need for counselling therapy in general and not simply over the sexual aspects. Our poster does not seem to realise this quite yet and is perhaps over concentrating on the sexual aspects instead of the quality of the relationship itself. That itself may be the bigger issue here.
the couple should be trying to live out the ideal of Catholic marriage
Click to expand...
I couldn’t disagree more. It clearly is not a “Catholic marriage” whatever that means.
When only one partner in fact accepts core Church teachings then a different dynamic is at work.
Compromise on Church teachings must be part of the ideal if they become a point of conflict.
The Church issued the Vademecum precisely for these situations.

There is so much more the Church could be doing and should be doing theologically for mixed marriages. Unfortunately the Church has for too long been burying its head in the sand at the theological level concentrating on good Catholic-Catholic regulars.

At last we have a Pope who realises we cannot go on pretending this is the way forward.
AL is but the beginning. I predict his next heavy duty artillery round will be a well overdue wheel alignment re application of Catholic contraceptive teaching. You heard it here first 🤔🤔🤔.

Myself, I have usually found the involved non-Catholic partners in mixed marriages to be amongst the wisest, the most charitable and the most balanced members of parishes I have had the pleasure to serve.
 
Last edited:
mac2 said:
My wife and I are practicing Catholics. We have 4 children and are in our mid 30s. She was baptised in 2008 so is still relatively new to the faith.
Click to expand...
@BlackFriar

Above is the first line of the OP’s post. Both are Catholic. The wife is a convert. So ultimately they should be working toward a “Catholic” solution.

The Church isn’t concerned with making good mixed marriages, it still doesn’t tend to encourage them and I can understand why.
 
AdamP88 said:
Above is the first line of the OP’s post. Both are Catholic. The wife is a convert. So ultimately they should be working toward a “Catholic” solution.
Click to expand...
Thanks for finding that, I searched back and back but found nothing clear.

Well. I would have to say I still disagree. The graft clearly isn’t taking within the marriage - therefore it will unlikely bear the weight of even more “foreign” “Catholic” “solutions”.

I am also beginning to wonder where the influence to “convert” actually came from. Its all very well to say someone isn’t being ouvertly forced into anything. But when there are power imbalances in a relationship often that is exactly what is happening all the same. My ancient but well maintained “pastoral radar” is pinging badly on this one.

Catholic conversions that come from a deep interior call do not predict sudden, unilateral decisions not to have more children and ready agreement to use oral sex as a substitute if the Catholic husband cannot abstain. She is happy to use contraception. The sincere adherence to Catholic teaching doesn’t seem to be there. I have no reason to believe she is somehow defiant or ignorant. It simply suggests her “conversion” was more “accommodating” than interiorly driven in the first place. “Catholicism” will therefore carry little weight in effecting meaningful change.
 
Last edited:
In layman’s terms, it seems the wife just isn’t feeling it anymore. Need to fix that, especially since 4 kids are involved. Pushing Catholic teaching on her, dollars to doughnuts, isn’t going to get the desired results.

They need to learn how to love eachother while respecting their differences, if it is going to work out well.
 
My wife and I also have four children. We have used NFP to avoid another pregnancy since our fourth child was born (using ecological breastfeeding for the first year or so, and the Billings ovulation method after that). We have chosen to use NFP to avoid pregnancy because my wife has multiple health issues that could make another pregnancy very problematic. NFP has worked perfectly reliably for us for many years now, and sadly we are now quite a few years removed from the baby stage. We would love to have another baby, but we realize that the potential health issues are quite serious, and so we continue to use NFP, and to abstain during my wife’s fertile times. For these reasons, I would say that NFP has been a huge blessing to our marriage.

I don’t know when or if your wife would accept that NFP is reliable, and you can’t force her to accept that it is. Even if she accepts that it is reliable on an intellectual level, it is quite another thing to accept it on an emotional level. In other words, it is one thing to accept the reliability of NFP in theory, and quite another thing to trust it in your own marriage when you already have four children.

But NFP is very reliable for many married couples, provided that they are properly instructed and that they follow the rules. I think that your best bet is to slowly and gently try to lead your wife to understand that NFP can work in your marriage too. But that is much easier for me to say than it is for you to do. I wish I had a better answer for you.
 
Last edited:
I also should have asked in my first post above, how does your wife feel about total abstinence? Is she fine with it? Or would she prefer to resume relations (though she would want to use contraception)? I would hope that she is not fine with total abstinence. If she is not, then perhaps you can start with your shared desire to resume relations, and try to find some solution that would be acceptable to both of you – maybe a very conservative version of NFP?

Also, if she asks you to resume relations, and if she (not you) uses a contraceptive, you may not be committing a sin by saying yes to her. If you have not read it already, you might want to read a document called the Vademecum for Confessors, particularly points 13 and 14 under “Pastoral Guidelines for Confessors.” These points may apply to your situation.
 
Last edited:
BlackFriar said:
Catholic conversions that come from a deep interior call do not predict sudden, unilateral decisions not to have more children and ready agreement to use oral sex as a substitute if the Catholic husband cannot abstain. She is happy to use contraception.
Click to expand...
To be fair, she also seems happy to abstain. It is the husband who asks for oral.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top