Responsible for spouse's sexual sin?

[AnneTeresa]

I was read this from another thread that I didn’t want to steal…

"Jone: Rendering the requested marriage debt is a grave obligation, especially when the petitioner is in danger of incontinence or would have to make a great sacrifice to overcome temptation…

It is only a venial sin to refuse the debt (provided the other party is not placed in danger of sinning gravely), if the petitioner will readily renounce his right, or if rendering it is only briefly postponed, or when the use of the marriage right is frequent and its refusal is only rare, e.g., once a month. Elderly women and mothers of many children should generally be left in good faith if they think they sin gravely only when they almost always refuse to render the marriage debt or only when, by such repulse, the husband is put in danger of grave sin."

This doesn’t seem right to me. It seems to be saying that the reason sex is a reasonable “debt” in marriage (an awful way to put it, really which was also adressed in a different thread) is because refusal may lead the spouse to sin otherwise. So you HAVE to give them sex or they will sin and that will be YOUR fault. Everyone has headaches, gets sick, has small children, overwhelmed with stress, etc. at certain times. So I think it MUST mean that you sin only if you constantly refuse to have sex with your spouse, not just any particular instance or even period of time.

How could we be responsible for someone else sinning sexually? A lot of people can’t have sex in marriage for whatever reason but that doesn’t make them responsible for if their spouse sins.

This is why spouses of sex addicts feel like they are responsible for what their spouses do in acting out sexually. But they aren’t responsible; the individual who does it is. That’s one of the first things that wives of sex addicts have to be taught. (I know from personal experience).

I think this is one moral theologians take on it but it can’t really be the church’s official stand. Can anyone explain?

This can really lead to big problems if a certain kind of person thinks they ALWAYS have to give in to spouses’ demands for sex. Just ask any spouse of an addict.

 

[Castello]

Yet, we are our brother’s keeper. Yes, we can be responsible for causing someone to sin.

 

[LilyM]

Yet, we are our brother’s keeper. Yes, we can be responsible for causing someone to sin.

To a limited extent, but true. That’s part of why dressing immodestly, for example, is a sin - because often it is done with the deliberate intent of provoking others to son by lusting after us.

Of course if there is good reason for refusing sex, such as health issues or the like, then a spouse has every right to refuse, and the fact that the other spouse may be tempted into sin takes a back seat.

 

[AnneTeresa]

Not really what I was saying…

If your spouse chooses to have an affair or view porn, they are responsible, not you. Even if you haven’t had sex in a long time.

It’s like saying a woman is responsible for being raped if she had on a short skirt.

 

[Castello]

Not really what I was saying…

If your spouse chooses to have an affair or view porn, they are responsible, not you. Even if you haven’t had sex in a long time.

It’s like saying a woman is responsible for being raped if she had on a short skirt.

If you do not have a valid reason to refuse sex with your husband (or with your wife), it may be your sin if he/she fornicates or masturbates. This is a Church teaching that I guess people do not hear anymore.

 

[LilyM]

Not really what I was saying…

If your spouse chooses to have an affair or view porn, they are responsible, not you. Even if you haven’t had sex in a long time.

It’s like saying a woman is responsible for being raped if she had on a short skirt.

Not really. A husband and wife become one flesh in the sacrament of matrimony. So they have a much higher duty of care and responsibility for each other’s spiritual wellbeing than persons who aren’t married to each other.

Kinda like a parent has a much higher duty of spiritual care towards their children, especially when they are minors, than towards children who are unrelated to them and unrelated adults.

 

[AnneTeresa]

I hear what you all are saying and it would apply in a healthy marriage. I just read it with different eyes having come from an abusive situation. Clearly no one else gets what I’m saying. No worries.

 

[AnneTeresa]

If you do not have a valid reason to refuse sex with your husband (or with your wife), it may be your sin if he/she fornicates or masturbates. This is a Church teaching that I guess people do not hear anymore.

Show me in writing where this is a church teaching, the actual document that says if my spouse masturbates it’s my sin. I thought the church teaching was we are responsible for our own adultery and lust and exercising chastity regardless of our situation.

Guess I’ll just go masturbate since my spouse is not in the mood tonight… and then he can confess it (tongue in cheek, but you get the idea I hope).

 

[EasterJoy]

How could we be responsible for someone else sinning sexually? A lot of people can’t have sex in marriage for whatever reason but that doesn’t make them responsible for if their spouse sins.

You can be culpable for putting someone in a near occasion of sin without releasing them from culpability with regards to their choice to sin. For instance, if my employer fails to pay me and leaves me without money I planned to have, that doesn’t give me the right to steal. As the saying goes, two wrongs don’t make a right.

Why would it be a problem to recognize that the failure of a couple to have sex on regular basis can pose a near occasion of sin with regards to sexual infidelity? Does it ruin the pleasure of eating to be told that you’ll die if you don’t eat, that you’ll be prone to fainting if you eat too little or chronic disease if you eat too much? How does that change when you recognize that sometimes for some people, there is no food and for others obesity is not due to any fault of theirs?

It is also kind of like your responsibility to look after your body. You may miss your exercise or skip breakfast for a legitimate reason, but a) it is easy to take what is a legitimate reason under different circumstances and make it into an excuse under difference circumstances and b) your body still suffers even when you fail to take care of it for totally legitimate reasons. It is in the nature of marriage that there be regular expression of the sexual relationship between the spouses. Even when absence of sex cannot be helped, the loss can still be felt and may still pose a negative pressure on behavior.

I don’t think it is too good to get tied up about whether or not sex between married people ought to be called a debt or not. Rather, refrain from rebelling at the idea that sex between married people is a legitimate need, one which may only be dispensed with for good reason, whether you like it or not.

Yes: Like the need for exercise or food, our bodies are made so as to enjoy fulfilling this need. Yes: Your chances of fulfilling this duty as you ought increase exponentially if you take the trouble to find the pleasure in fulfilling the duty that are part of God’s plan. Yes: your need for something does not mean you have an excuse to be uncharitable or unjust towards those who fail their duty to meet your need. But also yes: Like exercise or eating, if you don’t enjoy it, you ought to address that, but not liking it does not negate the real need and liking it inordinately does not negate the appropriate boundaries that surround it.

 

[EasterJoy]

If you do not have a valid reason to refuse sex with your husband (or with your wife), it may be your sin if he/she fornicates or masturbates. This is a Church teaching that I guess people do not hear anymore.

Not quite. If you refuse sex without a valid reason, you are culpable for putting your spouse in a near occasion of sin, even if your spouse resists the tempation to sin. The culpability for actually choosing to sin still belongs to your spouse. This is why there is no sin if you refuse for a legitimate reason, even if the tempation your spouse experiences might be just the same as if the occasion of sin were avoidable.

 

[fgh_123]

This is what I hate about Catholicism. It’s so prescriptive when you look at things in such a manner.

Sex is a personal matter between two people, surely there are different answers for each couple?

Just my opinion by the way.

 

[fgh_123]

Not quite. If you refuse sex without a valid reason, you are culpable for putting your spouse in a near occasion of sin, even if your spouse resists the tempation to sin. The culpability for actually choosing to sin still belongs to your spouse. This is why there is no sin if you refuse for a legitimate reason, even if the tempation your spouse experiences might be just the same as if the occasion of sin were avoidable.

Could you please quote the relevant Gospel segments to support this.

If I was married and there was a lack of sex, it’s a serious issue, but to even insinuate that if I was to “wander” it’d even be slightly mitigated is just ****ing bizzare!

 

[Luvtosew]

Read 1 Cor 6 all the way through, this is Apostle’s Pauls opinion. Mainly a spouse shouldn’t deprive the other of relations, doesn’t mean you can’t turn the other spouse down now and then.

Paul thought everyone should remain single like him.

Marital relations is a matter between husband and wife

No a spouse is not responsable for a mates adultry.

 

[Trishie]

I think we have to be careful here. The spouse could take carte blanch here. Sin all they want but blame the spouse for everything.
A marriage partner can potentially be quite unreasonable in demands and put the blame on his or her partner almost entirely. Many women don’t find sex a pleasant experience and there is zero chance she will if under constant pressure or imposed constant guilt. If forced a woman can feel utterly persecuted and dread the least suggestion of sexual relations. Think of it objectively, it is not a very charming experience for many especially if married for some time, and especially if caught in a marriage where the spouse is selfish and unloving. It is then at best a chore she dreads. I know this is many women’s experience…so it’s very heavy also to lay the guilt on her. Many marriages are not happy, many are lived faithfully only because they must be, such marriages don’t reflect Scripture anyway, even though valid

• “Husbands, love your wives and treat them with gentleness.”* [Colossians 3:19]* “Give way to one another in obedience to Christ. Wives should regard their husband as they do the Lord…Husbands should love their wives just as Christ loved the Church…each one of you must love his wife as he loves himself; and let every wife respect her husband.” *[Ephesians 5:21, 25, 33]

How many marriages are actually reflective of Scripture? Yet even though for many there is no real possibility of happy relationship, they are still stuck in the same place as those who are in mutually affectionate marriages. The fact is many husbands or wives are self-centered people, who are unlikely to change, unlikely to ever love their spouse or anyone outside themselves. This is deadening for their spouse. They can give endlessly, but never change the other person in the least towards kindness and consideration.

A large number of marriages are lived thus, with the good Catholic person living the best they can being the best spouse, yet receiving nothing of consideration or love from the other, and their life has the utter boredom emotionally that can result in a one-sided marriage they must stay in because the marriage is valid and because, likely, there are are children. In these marriages, for one of the partners for whom the marriage is endurance because the other doesn’t love or consider them, sex can be a burden. For the other person to blame them for any sin they commit, however unreasonably often their demands are made, not in the name of love, but just personal gratification, surely deserves some consideration.

I suspect this is what the OP is concerned about. She is simply asking for some kind of balance for the many people in marriages that are anything but the biblical (or compliant with the media myths), and not having to live constantly in distaste and guilt, forced to do so because if she doesn’t respond to his every demand she is responsible for his sins.

For these spouses, marriage is gray martyrdom. And perhaps this is what God requires of them, gray martyrdom. Marriage, in any case is full of sacrifices, and therefore, as a vocation, should never be considered lightly.

 

[Castello]

Read 1 Cor 6 all the way through, this is Apostle’s Pauls opinion. Mainly a spouse shouldn’t deprive the other of relations, doesn’t mean you can’t turn the other spouse down now and then.

Paul thought everyone should remain single like him.

Marital relations is a matter between husband and wife

No a spouse is not responsable for a mates adultry.

Once again, 1 Corinthians is Sacred Scripture. It is not a bunch of opinions slapped together with duct tape and string.

The relevant documents with the official teaching of the Church have been posted in multiple threads. Give them a read.

 

[fgh_123]

Making me doubt staying chaste until married. Could you imagine if you married a woman who just wasn’t interesting in sex.

What a let down of a wait that would be haha.

 

[LightBound]

If you do not have a valid reason to refuse sex with your husband (or with your wife), it may be your sin if he/she fornicates or masturbates. This is a Church teaching that I guess people do not hear anymore.

What happened to people being responsible for themselves and their own actions? Apparently that’s something that no one gets anymore, either!

 

[Trishie]

Making me doubt staying chaste until married. Could you imagine if you married a woman who just wasn’t interesting in sex.

What a let down of a wait that would be haha.

Actually it often appears to happen that when a couple has lived in sin, later they fall apart in that regard anyway. No the solution is ensuring when you marry that the other person is also unselfish and mature and genuinely loving, and prepared to continue to be so, and that you are that kind of person and intend to remain thoughtful and considerate.

Some may see sex as an end in itself. That sort of relationship easily fizzles. What matters is genuine love, not the love that just is attracted and wants the other person for superficial reasons, but a love that is prepared to keep on giving and loving genuinely no matter what. It needs to be mutual, for a marriage to be a successful Christian Catholic relationship. Very othen though, a marriage can become one-sided. Usually the signs are there that a person is selfish but people overlook them and marry anyway, to their later regret.

A relationship lived in fornication (outside of marriage) is selfish, as it involves the other person in sin. That isn’t loving someone. That is risking their soul. And your own.

 

[Trishie]

Actually it often appears to happen that when a couple has lived in sin, later they fall apart in that regard anyway. No the solution is ensuring when you marry that the other person is also unselfish and mature and genuinely loving, and prepared to continue to be so, and that you are that kind of person and intend to remain thoughtful and considerate.

Some may see sex as an end in itself. That sort of relationship easily fizzles. What matters is genuine love, not the love that just is attracted and wants the other person for superficial reasons, but a love that is prepared to keep on giving and loving genuinely no matter what. It needs to be mutual, for a marriage to be a successful Christian Catholic relationship. Very othen though, a marriage can become one-sided. Usually the signs are there that a person is selfish but people overlook them and marry anyway, to their later regret.

A relationship lived in fornication (outside of marriage) is selfish, as it involves the other person in sin. That isn’t loving someone. That is risking their soul. And your own.

 

[LilyM]

Could you please quote the relevant Gospel segments to support this.

If I was married and there was a lack of sex, it’s a serious issue, but to even insinuate that if I was to “wander” it’d even be slightly mitigated is just ****ing bizzare!

It’s not that you’d be mitigated.

Look at it this way - If you robbed a bank because your boss didn’t pay you on time, you probably wouldn’t get any lesser sentence than you would if you’d decided to do for another reason. In no way is it a good enough reason.

However - IF your boss knew that you were very likely to steal if unpaid, AND, knowing this, didn’t pay you even though they had no reason not to, they would bear guilt of their own. And they might be appropriately punished as an accessory to your crime in certain circumstances.