My mentally ill spouse and contraception

[sailor28]

Take this matter to your pastor. He is the one who can best advise you.

Just to give you something to consider.
The teachings of the Church are wonderful and fit in the vast majority of cases.
But there must always be room for exceptions. Otherwise we fall prey to the very thing that Jesus remonstrated the Pharisees for…legalism and a failure to apply mercy to the law.

Remember that the two commandments that underpin all of the Law is to Love God and to Love neighbor (Mt 22:36-40). Remember too that Jesus left us with a single command - that we love one another as He loved us (John 13:34-35). So the foundation of all things in our lives must be Love - Agape.

So when we apply the teachings of the Church, they must be done from this position - of love for God and for each other. This is how we apply mercy to “the law”, in this case the teachings of the church.
The Holy Spirit expressed this idea wonderfully through St Paul here:
8Owe no one anything, except to love one another; for he who loves his neighbor has fulfilled the law. 9The commandments, “You shall not commit adultery, You shall not kill, You shall not steal, You shall not covet,” **and any other commandment, are summed up in this sentence, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” 10*Love does no wrong to a neighbor; therefore love is the fulfilling of the law. **(Romans 13:8-10)
So - you and your wife need to prayerfully consider this matter in the light of Agape Love, both your Love of God and your Love for each other and your children.
Than make an appointment to talk this over with your pastor / confessor.

May God Bless you both abundantly.

Peace
James

 

[sailor28]

I have a great deal of compassion for your wife (and your self). You mentioned she has bipolar disorder and OCD and has also had severe post partum depression as well as severe illness during pregnancy. You have a duty to preserve your marital bond. Morally you should not be open to conception. (Given what you describe)

I would suggest getting advice outside of CAF and affiliates (ie EWTN, center for bioethics…). Get to know your local priests.
There is following the law. There is following the law until it completely crushes you and then there is a place where mercy and wisdom come in.

Your marriage has obviously been through a lot. Praying for you and your wife for healing and direction.

 

[whm]

I have a great deal of compassion for your wife (and your self). You mentioned she has bipolar disorder and OCD and has also had severe post partum depression as well as severe illness during pregnancy. You have a duty to preserve your marital bond. Morally you should not be open to conception. (Given what you describe)

I would suggest getting advice outside of CAF and affiliates (ie EWTN, center for bioethics…). Get to know your local priests.
There is following the law. There is following the law until it completely crushes you and then there is a place where mercy and wisdom come in.

Your marriage has obviously been through a lot. Praying for you and your wife for healing and direction.

There is a duty not to put ones spouse in danger. To be a man is to sacrifice for your wife. If sex or pregnancy is so dangerous, don’t do it. There is no exception to use contraception as contraception. If pregnancy is that dangerous I wouldn’t use NFP or ABC as both have a measurable chance of pregnancy (5% is a big risk to take with ones spouse’s life).

Also under these particular conditions it is not only the pregnancy that is dangerous, every time you have relations, the wife can have massive anxiety worrying that they might become pregnant. Taking some time off (from relations) and getting some professional help is what is needed.

 

[underacloud]

I have heard that if a spouse in a valid marriage insists on contraception and the other partner is opposed (and should be obviously), then they may still have intercourse and the spouse opposed to contraception is not sinning.

That is perhaps one possibility. But it doesn’t make contraception right, it just more clearly defines material cooperation of sorts.

But I can’t sit here and tell someone that’s okay; it’s an assessment of conscience that I think requires spiritual direction

You have heard correctly. This is discussed in the Vademecum for Confessors:

vatican.va/roman_curia/pontifical_councils/family/documents/rc_pc_family_doc_12021997_vademecum_en.html

1. Special difficulties are presented by cases of cooperation in the sin of a spouse who voluntarily renders the unitive act infecund. In the first place, it is necessary to distinguish cooperation in the proper sense, from violence or unjust imposition on the part of one of the spouses, which the other spouse in fact cannot resist.46, 561).] This cooperation can be licit when the three following conditions are jointly met:

1. when the action of the cooperating spouse is not already illicit in itself;47
2. when proportionally grave reasons exist for cooperating in the sin of the other spouse;
3. when one is seeking to help the other spouse to desist from such conduct (patiently, with prayer, charity and dialogue; although not necessarily in that moment, nor on every single occasion).

The OP already said this issue has pushed the marriage to the brink of divorce, so there would certainly seem to be grave reasons for cooperating in this case. But consultation with a priest is of course advisable, rather than taking my word for it.

 

[whm]

The OP already said this issue has pushed the marriage to the brink of divorce, so there would certainly seem to be grave reasons for cooperating in this case. But consultation with a priest is of course advisable, rather than taking my word for it.

The situation is not entirely clear to me. Is the wife using ABC because she wants relations without pregnancy? Or does the husband want relations and wife does not want to accommodate without using ABC. If the situation is a dangerous as it sounds Bi-polar, PPD, OCD and medical complications during pregnancy, I find it hard to imagine the man requesting relations and putting his wife and family at a very real risk. Again these details were not really clear to me in reading his posts.

Why is the marriage at risk? Objection to the wife using ABC? Dealing with her illnesses? Lack of relations?

There is a lot of talk of love in this thread. Love is not sex (it obviously can be part of love, but it can be the opposite of love too). Love is sacrificing for others. Is being able to have sex to solution to this couple’s problems? Or is it something deeper?

Op, seek out professional help and meet with your priest. We don’t have either the expertise or the information to know how to advise you and your spouse. Best wishes for the both of you. I know how difficult a situation that you are in.

 

[JRKH]

The situation is not entirely clear to me. Is the wife using ABC because she wants relations without pregnancy? Or does the husband want relations and wife does not want to accommodate without using ABC. If the situation is a dangerous as it sounds Bi-polar, PPD, OCD and medical complications during pregnancy, I find it hard to imagine the man requesting relations and putting his wife and family at a very real risk. Again these details were not really clear to me in reading his posts.

Why is the marriage at risk? Objection to the wife using ABC? Dealing with her illnesses? Lack of relations?

There is a lot of talk of love in this thread. Love is not sex (it obviously can be part of love, but it can be the opposite of love too). Love is sacrificing for others. Is being able to have sex to solution to this couple’s problems? Or is it something deeper?

Op, seek out professional help and meet with your priest. We don’t have either the expertise or the information to know how to advise you and your spouse. Best wishes for the both of you. I know how difficult a situation that you are in.

Excellent reply…

Yes - there are a lot of details that are missing - and I suspect would be hard to fully explain.
That is why several of us have, along with you, advised the OP to talk with their priest.

Touching on the matter of “Love”. You are quite right that love and sex are not the same thing. I certainly hope that we have not come across as indicating it is.

Peace
James

 

[underacloud]

The situation is not entirely clear to me. Is the wife using ABC because she wants relations without pregnancy? Or does the husband want relations and wife does not want to accommodate without using ABC. If the situation is a dangerous as it sounds Bi-polar, PPD, OCD and medical complications during pregnancy, I find it hard to imagine the man requesting relations and putting his wife and family at a very real risk. Again these details were not really clear to me in reading his posts.

I took it from the OP’s post that the wife is using contraception, but you are right, it is not entirely clear on re-reading.

 

[Rau]

Sorry if my wording was confusing. She sees why and agrees with the sinful nature of contraception. She knows that she is sinning. She is sorrowful for that fact. That being the case, however, she is not willing to chance the physical or emotional toll that accompanies pregnancy complicated by mental illness. The fact that she is knowingly sinning only serves to depress her even more.

And what is her position then on complete abstinence?

 

[Rau]

Take this matter to your pastor. He is the one who can best advise you.

Just to give you something to consider.
The teachings of the Church are wonderful and fit in the vast majority of cases.
But there must always be room for exceptions. Otherwise we fall prey to the very thing that Jesus remonstrated the Pharisees for…legalism and a failure to apply mercy to the law.

Remember that the two commandments that underpin all of the Law is to Love God and to Love neighbor (Mt 22:36-40). Remember too that Jesus left us with a single command - that we love one another as He loved us (John 13:34-35). So the foundation of all things in our lives must be Love - Agape.

So when we apply the teachings of the Church, they must be done from this position - of love for God and for each other. This is how we apply mercy to “the law”, in this case the teachings of the church.
The Holy Spirit expressed this idea wonderfully through St Paul here:
8Owe no one anything, except to love one another; for he who loves his neighbor has fulfilled the law. 9The commandments, “You shall not commit adultery, You shall not kill, You shall not steal, You shall not covet,” **and any other commandment, are summed up in this sentence, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” 10*Love does no wrong to a neighbor; therefore love is the fulfilling of the law. **(Romans 13:8-10)
So - you and your wife need to prayerfully consider this matter in the light of Agape Love, both your Love of God and your Love for each other and your children.
Than make an appointment to talk this over with your pastor / confessor.

May God Bless you both abundantly.

Peace
James

I am wondering what you imagine a Priest would be able to offer by way of “mercy”. I am not aware of any authority given to a priest to approve an exception to the (catholic) “law”. How would that work?

 

[Rau]

Yes:

You need to discuss this with a priest to determine culpability.

Culpability is an “after the fact” issue. You can’t assess culpability ahead of time, and then if you conclude it constitutes a get out jail card, go ahead and sin. That’s nuts!

 

[Rau]

…You have a duty to preserve your marital bond. Morally you should not be open to conception. (Given what you describe)

Expressed that like, you appear to argue that contraception is OK - possibly even a duty.

I am assuming here that you:

• assume total abstinence would be in opposition to preserving the marriage;
• reject NFP (partial abstinence) either for the same reason, or because it is not sufficiently “safe”.

We should note that we don’t know either of these things.

 

[JRKH]

I am wondering what you imagine a Priest would be able to offer by way of “mercy”. I am not aware of any authority given to a priest to approve an exception to the (catholic) “law”. How would that work?

I do not know how it would work except to say that a priest, any priest, would have to deal with a given situation within the particular context of that situation. It is a very private matter and should remain so.

That said, mercy - with Agape as it’s guiding principle - will look toward promoting the greatest good for those involved and try to work out from there.

Peace
James

 

[sailor28]

Expressed that like, you appear to argue that contraception is OK - possibly even a duty.

I am assuming here that you:

• assume total abstinence would be in opposition to preserving the marriage;
• reject NFP (partial abstinence) either for the same reason, or because it is not sufficiently “safe”.

We should note that we don’t know either of these things.

Rau, you and I have been in a discussion about this in the past. Although, I don’t remember you always replying to questions I posted. I’ll answer this post but will not continue in a drawn out discussion over church teaching on this matter.

Yes, I believe in some situations the law is unjust and use of contraception is acceptable. The vast majority of priests agree with me. If they could take a confidential survey and be presented with this situation they would be in agreement. I am not just some isolated Catholic who understands this situation in this light.

This teaching has been a pastoral failure for good reason. The majority of bishops and cardinals who were part of the birth control commission disagreed withe popes conclusions that ABC should not be allowed. I challenge the church’s assertion that ABC is instrinsically evil.

This law unjustly burdens the poor, mentally and physically ill and those for whom NFP is not a reliable method of spacing pregnancies. If you are poor, mentally and physically ill and NFP is not reliable then you are placed in an awful position by the church. I can understand how this wife is feeling the way she is. She is not going to have another baby. Total abstinence does place an unjust burden on some couples.

The Pharisees held people to the letter of unjust laws, Jesus didn’t

 

[Butterflylily]

Why is she opposed to nfp? If done correctly, nfp is more effective than any other form of birth control.

It is true that abstinence and NFP is an effective method of planning. My husband and I are married for almost 20 years now we have 2 kids 13 years old and 9 years old. We are in our 40’s now and from the beginning Of our marriage I would not agree to birth control due to side effects of blood clots etc. ( unfortunately when I was younger never thought of it as abortifacients ) but I am glad that I did not use it. At the beginning might seem very confusing however as husband and wife we learn to adjust and adopt and fortunately we have not had a fight or a discussion about this matter.

It seems to me that both of you will sit and talk and really listen to one another’s concern. Perhaps you might need a really good NFP teacher that would clarify doubts and so as to erase the fear from your wife’s mind. Most of the people that I’ve met in my career does not do it or do it incorrectly due to fear and doubts as well as being less informed of the matter. Good communication and a professional help might be very beneficial in you case.

Good luck

 

[NeedsMercy]

I agree that in these type cases we must look at both the letter and spirit of the law, as I believe JRKH was saying. I would just like to point out two things. One, as a person with bipolar disorder, I would say that following all the requirements of NFP while one is ill would be very difficult. Two, a woman with BPD who has even the slightest chance of getting pregnant is usually scared–no, terrified–that any baby of hers will inherit the disorder also.

 

[JRKH]

I agree that in these type cases we must look at both the letter and spirit of the law, as I believe JRKH was saying. I would just like to point out two things. One, as a person with bipolar disorder, I would say that following all the requirements of NFP while one is ill would be very difficult. Two, a woman with BPD who has even the slightest chance of getting pregnant is usually scared–no, terrified–that any baby of hers will inherit the disorder also.

Thank you for posting here. It is good to have the (name removed by moderator)ut of one who is familiar with the struggles associated with this type of disorder.

You are quite right in saying that there are huge issues for such a person in trying to follow the regimens necessary for NFP. If I recall correctly, it can be very difficult for people with BPD even to stay on their proper meds regimen. One’s thinking can become quite muddled. I’ve seen this before in someone in my family.

Those dealing with such mental disorders already have a great cross to bear and this will naturally have an effect capability and hence - on culpability.

This is why it is so important for such cases to be handled carefully, discretely, privately, and with the help of a good spiritual adviser who is well acquainted personally with the people and the particulars.

Peace
James

 

[nodito]

I agree that in these type cases we must look at both the letter and spirit of the law.

NeedsMercy,

I’ve always been curious about this and maybe you can explain. What is the real “spirit” of a law that reads:
Humanae Vitae:

Every action which, whether in anticipation of the conjugal act, or in its accomplishment, or in the development of its natural consequences, proposes, whether as an end or as a means, to render procreation impossible is intrinsically evil.

How can its spirit be anything other than what it says? They didn’t write, “It’s better to have lots of kids” or “We prefer that you use natural methods, so try to avoid contraception when you can.” The pope wrote “contraception is intrinsically evil.” Full stop.

 

[JRKH]

NeedsMercy,

I’ve always been curious about this and maybe you can explain. What is the real “spirit” of a law that reads:

How can its spirit be anything other than what it says? They didn’t write, “It’s better to have lots of kids” or “We prefer that you use natural methods, so try to avoid contraception when you can.” The pope wrote “contraception is intrinsically evil.” Full stop.

The Spirit of ALL of “the law” is expressed in Mt 22:36-40. The Spirit of the law is Love…

We are suggesting that contraception is not “intrinsically evil” yet these things cannot be treated in complete isolation.
I am surprised that so many here seem to be overlooking a very salient point in the OP - - It’s even in the title…“Mentally ill spouse”. While the act itself may remain “intrinsically evil”, the culpability for that act can certainly change based on the specific circumstances…

Killing is intrinsically evil - yet we have no problem affording exceptions where it is allowed and even forgiven before hand.
Lying is intrinsically evil - Yet here again - there are exceptions and where culpability is reduced or eliminated.

In each of these cases - the mitigating factor that allows for the exception is the application of the “Spirit of the Law” which is Love.

Peace
James

 

[nodito]

The Spirit of ALL of “the law” is expressed in Mt 22:36-40. The Spirit of the law is Love…

We are suggesting that contraception is not “intrinsically evil” yet these things cannot be treated in complete isolation.
I am surprised that so many here seem to be overlooking a very salient point in the OP - - It’s even in the title…“Mentally ill spouse”. While the act itself may remain “intrinsically evil”, the culpability for that act can certainly change based on the specific circumstances…

Killing is intrinsically evil - yet we have no problem affording exceptions where it is allowed and even forgiven before hand.
Lying is intrinsically evil - Yet here again - there are exceptions and where culpability is reduced or eliminated.

In each of these cases - the mitigating factor that allows for the exception is the application of the “Spirit of the Law” which is Love.

Peace
James

James,

If the spirit of the law is love, then how can it be within the spirit of the law, i.e., loving, to recommend something intrinsically evil? It would seem to be that this would be the exact opposite of the spirit of the law.

I did not overlook the fact that the are circumstances in the OP’s description which may reduce culpability. But we’re talking about how to best love a person. And I take exception to your claim that it is loving to tell/allow/encourage/permit a mentally ill person to contracept. It seems to me, rather, if we truly want to love this person, we do all we can to protect him or her from that which a rational, healthy person should avoid because they realize it’s harmful.

 

[Rau]

As a young, ignorant, vulnerable woman I took artificial contraception, it was part of the culture.

I was told it was to prevent pregnancy only. I was NEVER told that it was an abortifacient and that if I were to conceive a child that the pill was going to make my womb hostile to my baby and my child would die. I have confessed this, but to this day I wonder how many children I lost in my ignorance. I believe the Catholic church is wise to teach that birth control pills are an intrinsic evil because it causes abortions, this is a fact.

Even though I was single at the time, and the woman in the original post is a married woman I can say that without a doubt based on my life experience artificial contraception is NOT the answer. Artificial contraception is a lie. I know many, many women who have taken it over the years. It has been sold to us as the answer to our prayers! However with it brings risk of blood clots, depression and a host of other health problems too long to mention here. Many of my friends have suffered from taking contraception. This is not widely advertised of course, most commercials for birth control pills show smiling women going shopping, not women at the doctors office fighting migraine headaches. The original poster could consider condoms I suppose, but then again they against church teaching, uncomfortable, unreliable and NFP is much more accurate!

I can understand why some people believe that the church should allow chemical contraception, I don’t agree but I understand the need for healthy debate. What needs to be mentioned though are the negative consequences. “The Pill” has many, many negative side effects which are medical, emotional and spiritual so kindly remember that before you recommend that someone take it as the answer to a problem because it could create more problems than it solves. Thank you for letting me share my thoughts, God bless.

The Church does not proclaim contraception using a pill to be an intrinsic evil because of its adverse medical impacts on women, or because of the potential for unintended abortions. The Church’s teaching concerning contraception does not depend on or flow from these issues at all. The moral nature of the act is what is unacceptable, and this is the same whether the method is a pill, a condom, an IUD or any other means.