Non-Catholic husband wants a vasectomy

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Lillibut said:
I am a practising catholic married for 12 years to a non-catholic. I have always tried to keep our marriage “open to life” and I thought that my husband understood and fully supported my beliefs. However, since I discovered we were expecting our 3rd child (due this September) my husband has announced that he is going to have a vasectomy to ensure we do not have any more children. I understand that I am not morally responsible for his actions and I have told him that I am not happy with his taking this action but that I also accept that I cannot stop him. What I haven’t told him is how deeply I am going to be affected by his having a vasectomy. I am concerned that I will not be able to enjoy our love life anymore as I will be plagued by the knowledge that we are no longer open to life and I suspect I will feel used and degraded. I certainly will not feel the same way that I used to. I am not sure if he understands/realises this and don’t know how to tell him without it sounding like I’m trying to blackmail him.

I am praying every day for guidance and peace in this situation which I have yet to find. However, I am confident that eventually God will answer my prayers. In the meantime I wondered if anyone here has any advice or insight.
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Here is the dilemma:
  1. YOU cannot inflict your religious beliefs on your husband.
  2. Your husband IS inflicting his religious beliefs on YOU
  3. This seems like a stale-mate, no?
  4. HE has openly shared with you HIS reason for feeling his way
  5. YOU have NOT openly shared YOUR reason for feeling your way
  6. Who’s fault is it so far?
    WHO is NOT being completely open and honest with the other?
How about…?
7. Husbands like sex
8. He needs to know and understand that HIS action will cause YOU to NOT desire / enjoy/ engage in sex as previously
9. IF HE has the ability to single-handedly choose to do with his body as he wants [HE DOESN’T, HE IS A MARRIED MAN]
10.THEN, YOU also have this prerogative [DOES HE *REALLY WANT TO GO THERE?]

My take:
11. It is natural to have an “organic” sense of sexuality in marriage…it actually seems like God does too!
12. YOU have this “organic” sense and it is essential to your sexuality [let’s say you *need this life principle in order to really “get with it”]
13. HE [whether he realizes it or not] is ONLY thinking of self-gratification and pleasure, not of the GIFT of SELF that he now has but will lose!
14. HE is being selfish and has an immature sense of sexuality in marriage

My suggestion:

Create a condition, he must watch Christopher West’s series on marriage and sexuality, explaining at least the part of “self-giving”

Use “organic” images /references in relation to sex [especially during] I think he just has NO IDEA of how catastrophic this will be to his marriage! He is entitled to know.

HE is communicating. Frankly, HE could have done it without your knowledge, and you would never even find out! Right?

That’s not the case, however. He must want your (name removed by moderator)ut, but so far, YOU have NOT provided him with a “good” reason…because YOU are holding back the truth!

Please, re-read the above…and know that I mean well…🙂

God Bless!
 
Lillibut said:
**Well thanks for this little nugget of advice, GhostMan. My marriage is doomed. No point in trying to talk to him or anyone else for that matter then.
Thanks for your help. I hope your own mixed marriage fares better than mine did.
Lillibut
xx
**
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So, if you are driving down a road and someone tell you that it ends in a cliff and if you continue to drive that road you will fall off it, you blame them? You do not value warnings offered in a good spirit?

I start to see some of the frustration that your husband may have in talking with you. You’re not really looking for advice are you? You seem to be looking for a pat on the back and being told you’re a good Catholic.

Take a deep breath. Tell yourself you’ll read it without desiring to be offended and read it again. Then, think.

Contrary to what you seem to want to believe, just because someone tells you something you might not want to hear does not make them hate you.

I am offering you a differing opinion to your own and I also happen to be male. I had hoped that would be of value to you, but if not, peace and goodwill to you.
 
GhostMan
  1. I know I’m not a “good Catholic”, I am on a journey and struggling along the path.
  2. DH didn’t “talk” to me - he made an announcement. I told him what he already knew i.e. I could not condone such a decision but that it was his to make, that I understand his reasons and that I have no right to ask him to follow the teachings of my faith. He told me that it had nothing to do with me and he did not want to discuss it further. He was very defensive at the time and was talking AT me during a moment of crisis. Since then he has not raised the subject and the more time that passed the harder it seemed to be for me to raise it without causing conflict.
  3. I came here looking for advice on how to discuss my fears without using emotional blackmail. You proved how easily he could feel that way by immediately attributing that motive to me. I repeatedly said that I do not want to force him into making a decision with which he is not comfortable or to impose my beliefs onto him. If he wants to have a vasectomy I can’t stop him, I have no right to stop him, it is not my fault and I’ll have to come to terms with it. I am scared that I could have emotional difficulties coming to terms with it and I was aware that my “hangup” could ruin our marriage if he wasn’t willing to help me deal with it. I made reference to that fact long before your first post.
  4. I sought reassurance from those who might understand *why *I feel the way I do - hence coming to a catholic forum rather than a general discussion group - that I could have this conversation and avoid putting pressure on him or making him feel blackmailed. I received this from many of the responses (present company excepted) along with the message that it is necessary for me to talk to him and not “bottle it up”.
  5. Obviously my husband knows me which of course you don’t. According to you, I “really, really want him to be Catholic” (truthfully - I rarely think about it, I have enough on my hands looking after my own soul and those of the children entrusted to my care) and that I am so devout (sorry, wish I could agree but I’m as fallen as anyone) that I “project his sin onto” myself - which is “overly scrupulous”. I’d already said I understand I would not be held culpable by the Church. I’d have thought that before ASSUMING that the reason I feared that I would still feel guilty is because I am “devout” and “overly scrupulous” and am trying to forcibly convert my husband you might ask me why I felt this way. (FWIW you’ve got it completely wrong. **I **don’t want anymore children. I didn’t want this one. If D Hhas a vasectomy which is completely his decision then I get what I want too - avoid any future pregnancy. What I am feeling conflicted and guilty about is that this feels very much like I’m taking a copout.) You concluded that my marriage is heading for disaster. That was neither reassuring nor helpful. It very nearly prevented me from trying to talk to my husband tonight. I’m glad I took the chance anyway.
Look at your own posts again. Do they offer any constructive advice or just criticism and judgement. You keep saying that I am wrong. You do not offer any advice on how to deal with my feelings nor do you enquire why I feel this way - you **tell **me it is because I wanted to inflict my beliefs onto him. You **tell **me that my marriage is heading for disaster without giving me any advice on how to avoid it. To you it is inevitable. That is what I got out of your messages. I’m sorry if I missed anything more helpful or subtle.

BTW, I never thought you hated me - I don’t know where you got that from. I do believe you don’t know me - that is to be expected. However, I consider it good manners not to make assumptions about others. Instead I believe in asking questions to learn more about others. IMHO you have not managed to give a single helpful or insightful contribution. You have only succeeded in hurting my feelings and frightening me. You hurt me by making judgements about my character and motives which were based on your own assumptions not on anything you actually know about me. You didn’t **ask **me about my motives, you **told **me what they were. I tried to tell you that you had mis-read my motives and repeated my request for advice. You ignored this and instead posted a treatise explaining why my marriage was doomed. This was the male perspective you gave me:

<<I believe his actions are wrong and her attitude is wrong. I further believe that if he goes through with it, she will begin to push him away. He will attribute it to her Catholic-ness, not her scrupulous behavior. The religious gulf will widen. Her lack of desire for him will be palpable, he will harden himself and move away emotionally. In short: disaster>>

From this I got that it is impossible for my husband and I to work things out because my attitude will result in my pushing him away. (Notice there was no “could” or “might” about your judgement nor any suggestion of how to avoid this.) Meanwhile he (of whom you know even less than you know about me) will not be understanding or loving, he won’t know that I love him, that I am hurting and confused and that I don’t want to feel negatively about making love with him. He won’t try to work with me to strengthen our marriage. Instead, in your expert opinion, he **will ** (that definitive judgement again) harden himself and move away emotionally. This will spell the end of our marriage. There is no possible way that this could be construed as constructive or helpful advice. It was uncalled for and unjust. Had I taken your verdict to heart - which I very nearly did given the emotionally fragile place I am in and with pregnancy hormones doing weird things to me anyway - I could easily have given up on trying and just accepted that my marriage was already over because I’m screwed up.

Thankfully I overcame my fears and spoke to DH tonight WITHOUT “imposing” my beliefs on him I was able to tell him what I was worried about and ask for his help and support. He understands that I could very well have difficulties adjusting- and why. He knows that I love him no matter what and that I am 100% committed to him and our future together. He is willing to give me love, understanding and the promise that he will not abandon me to just “live with it”. He has also said that he will give it some more thought before making a final decision on whether or not to have a vasectomy. If there is another way then he will consider it. **He **even suggested abstinence - although I questioned whether he really thought that was a realistic option.

I’m done talking to you. I was, and am, sincere in wishing you well in your own marriage and sincerely hope that you never find yourself on the receiving end of your own brand of “warning”/advice.

Goodnight.
 
Thank GOD you had a talk. God is good. More prayers for you (while I make rosaries tonight, you will be in my prayers).
 
kage_ar said:
Thank GOD you had a talk. God is good. More prayers for you (while I make rosaries tonight, you will be in my prayers).
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Thank you. We’re not out of the woods yet and he has agreed that I need to speak with a priest but I feel more confident than I did that we can work through this now with God’s help
Thanks be to God.
God bless
Lillibut
xx
 
Thankfully I overcame my fears and spoke to DH tonight WITHOUT “imposing” my beliefs on him I was able to tell him what I was worried about and ask for his help and support. He understands that I could very well have difficulties adjusting- and why. He knows that I love him no matter what and that I am 100% committed to him and our future together. He is willing to give me love, understanding and the promise that he will not abandon me to just “live with it”. He has also said that he will give it some more thought before making a final decision on whether or not to have a vasectomy. If there is another way then he will consider it. **He **even suggested abstinence - although I questioned whether he really thought that was a realistic option.
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I’m really glad you were able to talk to him and that you came to a mutual understanding. I think the main issue here is that marriage is about a lot of compromise, especially for you since you are in a mixed faith marriage, and, from what I’ve seen, there are many Catholics to whom compromise, with regards to their faith-practice, is a four letter word. But thankfully you were able to communicate the way you felt to him and it sounds like he took it really well.

One of the major balancing acts in a marriage is keeping open communication and, again, compromising, but at the same time respecting eachother as individuals.If I had a husband, I wouldn’t want him to feel like he couldn’t do something or feel a certain way because of me, and I would expect the same in return. I definately think you handled it the best possible way 👍.

But hey, I’ve never been married and it’ll be a long time till if I ever do, so what do I know:shrug:.
 
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