Restoring sex to a marriage

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Good post although, if the OP is not baptized then they would not have a Sacramental marriage, but instead a natural marriage. The same rules about the marriage debt would still apply and everything you mention in the Gospel about adultery as well.

Note: if the OP isn’t baptized and then gets baptized after the natural valid marriage, then the marriage becomes Sacramental.
 
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lswote said:
If I contact a church, who do I want to be directed to?
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Most churches have websites so look up the name(s) of the pastor, associate pastor, or the deacon(s) who are at the parish. Call and make an appointment with any of them, if you know one that you feel more comfortable with then go with that one. Otherwise, just make an appointment with any of them that are available for “personal counseling”.

(I suggest you avoid getting into details with whoever answers the phone. Sometimes they can act as gatekeepers, but in general they should be able to either transfer you to talk to the priest, give you a phone number for the deacon, or make an appointment on their calendar for you-- and if they get pushy, just be insistent that you want an appointment with a priest or deacon for personal/spiritual guidance). doesn’t matter that you are atheist and whether or not you are a parishioner. And, not the person answering the phone’s business.
 
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Personally I think finding a Christian counsellor and go along on your own first. They can give you guidance. I can tell you they’ll strongly disuade you from using any line of action based on making your wife believe it is her ‘duty’. Many Christian counsellor recommend viewing a movie called “Fireproof” starring Kurt Cameron in regards to re-igniting love and affection. Women in our God given way are incredibly responsive to being loved without condition for the woman we are.
 
This might be a longshot, but I know of one case where it worked. If you have a good relationship with say her mother or sister, who are also Catholic, and she has a history of listening to them, you might enlist one of them to talk to her. Or perhaps a really good Catholic lady friend of hers who meets the criteria.

But as others have said, an asexual marraige ( without medical cause), except in very limited and few situations, is not a “Catholic” thing at all.

I will post a couple of really good resources for you to read later that will inform you of how the Church regards sexuality and marraiage.
 
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tafan2 said:
If you have a good relationship with say her mother or sister, who are also Catholic, and she has a history of listening to them, you might enlist one of them to talk to her. Or perhaps a really good Catholic lady friend of hers who meets the criteria.
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That could backfire big time. Talking about your sex life with others undermines trust.

I’d be pissed ten ways to Sunday if my husband talked to my sibling or my mom or my friends about our sex life or tried to enlist them in an intervention.
 
No doubt, it requires a rather unique set of relationships, it would be up to the OP to decide if it could work. Hence I said it’s a long shot and tried to give a brief summary of how it might work.

I will add, a spouse who refuses sex might have to go through a “pissed to ten ways to Sunday” phase to figure out how wrong they are. Kind of like an intervention in other forms of destructive behavior. And do not underestimate how destructive this behavior can be.
 
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I hesitated to replay at first, since I sometimes come across as gruff.
It sounds like there have been some incidents or issues that have going on for some time and you two have drifted further and further apart. To address these I feel you will need the help of a third party. The pastor or a priest is a good place to start. He can also hopefully recommend another professional if needed.

Others here already highlighted the Catholic thought on this subject.
 
Bruce, How are other aspects of your life with your wife? I’m going to guess that you two don’t do a lot together. Is that right? Do you take your meals together? Do you go places together regularly, like romantic dinners? Do you engage in outdoor recreation, weekends, vacations, hobbies, social clubs or other outings together? If the answer is no, you need to start doing these things. I think it especially helps to go out and do fun things with other couples.

You’ve had a long dry spell. You can’t just jump into sex without foreplay. Women need foreplay. Establish a “dating” routine like you did when you were courting. You will have to start “dating” her to get her to warm up to you again. That means doing things together. Not grocery shopping, but fun things. Don’t pressure her for sex. You can drop hints about missing a sex life, but pressure will turn her off even more.

I don’t know what else will have any chance of working. You have to get her to consider changing her attitude. Start with courtship and drop hints. Then begin to have frank discussions without finger-pointing or blaming. It sounds like your lives have been filled with nothing but endless work and worry, and that will kill a relationship and put it on autopilot. You have to put FUN into your lives. When people stop having fun, they actually forget how to have fun. Seriously. A good sex life depends on having a fun, laughter-filled relationship, at least for women. Men can do the deed with anything, but women are not like that.

I hope this helps. Good luck.
 
Yes, Everytime one of these thrrads pops up, everyone chimes up with everything the spouse being denied is doing wrong. It’s been 4 years, we can likely assume he has tried many types of romantic approaches.
 
I don’t think we can take all this advice and counsel and say either this or that. The best approach in my opinion is a both/and approach.
 
Women often do not respond very well to this. I’d say it’s likely to be about as popular in this situation as the “do me or I’ll cheat on you” approach. Especially since this woman has spent a number of years coping with what sounds to be a stressful situation of her husband being seriously ill.
 
LumineDiei said:
Men and women have a very distinct difference in the approach to sex (and the enjoyment of it) and informing her that she needs to pay the marital debt would rarely get it going for most females.
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You forget that some of the rad trad crowd are not interested in the wife “getting it going”, and may in fact discourage it as it could lead to the “inordinate” enjoyment of the marital act…for this crowd, the husband is to say “time to pay the debt!” and the wife is to lay back, close her eyes, and think of England as the husband performs his duty.
Disclaimer: I exaggerate somewhat to make a point.
 
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twf said:
the husband is to say “time to pay the debt!”
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What you say is true but nobody is saying to do this or say this. People are too political correct in this board. We are using theological terms to help people understand Church teaching.
 
Unless the OP’s wife is a traditional Catholic, which seems unlikely given that she married an atheist, she is unlikely to respond to radical traditional Catholic ideas such as the concept of her owing a “marriage debt” to her husband.

The husband posting here is an atheist and is not aware of the nuances between different groups of Catholics. He just wants to fix this situation with his wife, not explore Catholic theology.
 
Tis_Bearself said:
He just wants to fix this situation with his wife, not explore Catholic theology.
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Everyone is different, everyone explains things differently. Who knows, the Catholic theological appraoch may help him come to the Church. We need to tolerate people’s personalities.
 
An atheist pointing out a Catholic’s grave sin seems a bit ironic.

“Hey, honey, I talked to some Catholic men on the Internet and they said you are committing a grave sin by not having sex with me” seems unpersuasive.

But that’s just me.
 
LittleFlower378 said:
Who knows, the Catholic theological appraoch may help him come to the Church.
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Seems to me that directly focusing on helping him solve his problem would be much more effective evangelization than openly using his problem to throw a bunch of Catholic sexual theology at him to try to convert him.
 
You had me at this statement: “We never really discussed it, it just seemed to be a mutual decision.”

Those are two colossal red flags. I’ll reiterate what others folks have already stated: you need to DISCUSS the situation with your wife, and you need to be completely frank about the matter. And second, you have allowed your perception (‘seemed’) to become the dominant reality in your mind.

However, I suppose I wouldn’t mention the fact that you are seriously contemplating adultery. That admission would potentially poison any hopes for sexual rehabilitation.
 
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