Should spouses "bare their souls" to one another?

[space_ghost]

for everything from the wedding day forward…? i guess “idealy” maybe you should be able to bear all… to remove guilt or share guilt by unloading a sin your partner might have a big problem with? NO WAY… If you have broken a wedding vow, and the secret is safe, but your having conscience problems… tough… be sorry for your sins, go to confession, make a firm committment to not do it again and let you penance be keeping to yourself to the grave… do not, and i repeat do not unburden your sin on your spouse… he/she does not deserve the hurt… oh, have a nice day…

 

[The_Rigbys]

The Rigbys:

In a good Catholic marriage, would it be ideal for husband and wife to “bare their souls” to each other? I.e., to be completely open, sharing all their innermost thoughts, feelings, and spiritual experiences?

Or should some things deliberately be kept private, between oneself, God, and one’s confessor or spiritual director?

I’m not sure what’s unclear about the question. It comes down to this:

1. In a marriage between two good (but imperfect) Catholics, would it be ideal for them to know the whole truth about each other - including not only the good things, but each other’s weaknesses, temptations, and sins?

or

1. In a marriage between two good (but imperfect) Catholics, would it be ideal for each partner to hold some things back, in the interests of prudence, charity, or some other virtue? (I’m not talking about outright lies, just “deliberate omissions,” where one makes a conscious choice not to speak of a particular thing.)

On another note, here’s something I just remembered:

In “A Severe Mercy,” Sheldon Vanauken tells us that he and his beloved wife, in their “pagan days,” made a pact to share everything, and to keep no secrets from each other. When she converted to Christianity before he did, they could no longer share everything, so this special bond was breached. Even after his conversion, though, they never got back to that state of total “oneness of mind.” I seem to recall that he had something to say about this, but I can’t remember exactly what. I’ll try to find the relevant quotation(s).

Mrs. R

 

[JimG]

I saw this on a greetig card:

Wife: “Honey, do I look fat?”
Husband: Do I look stupid?

JimG

 

[Max]

Hmm…well, you can look at it this way. If your spouse ever cheated on you…would you even want to know? I would say no, I wouldn’t be able to bear living with that information. If I had a wife and learned that she cheated on me, I’m sure I’d be absolutely devasted and could never fully trust her…

Thank the Lord our human knowledge is so limited, because there are facts in this world that would be too excruciating a burden in our minds for us to bear.

 

[jc413]

Jim, LOL. My husband has been none to say, “Is this a trick question?”

 

[TCE]

I believe honesty is very detrimental in any relationship, but is extremely important in marriage. Trust is based on honesty. I would want to know if my spouse cheated on me. I prefer brutal honesty than living a lie.Certain things should be kept private, but being unfaithful is not one of them, that is called adultery. If being unfaithful will harm your love one why do it in the first place? Each one of us should be responsible for our actions. keeping it a secret, then going to confession does not cut it for me. You deserve to loose your spouse respect. You deserve loosing your family. Because if you have a affair in the first place where is your love for your spouse? Where is the respect? Where are your vows? By having affairs you are taking your family and spouse for granted. I see it as a cowards way, how can anyone say telling her will hurt her, duh… your actions already did!

 

[timbo1980]

I believe that some things should be held back but I believe that the example of an affair that everyone is referring to is not one of them.

After having the affair there is a very legitimate risk that you may have a disease that you may pass to your wife (or husband) even if you have tested negative for any.

You therefore have an obligation to tell your spouse.

However, I don’t believe it is healthy or beneficial for a husband or wife to tell their partner about every lustful thought they have during the day. Or perhaps any of them. (Unless it is about eachother, in which case is always a good idea )

 

[Prometheum_x]

Now, I am far from being any sort of expert on marriage, having neither read much nor even had so much as a girlfriend. However, I am greatly troubled by the suggestion that one should not confess the sin of adultery to their spouse, so as not to hurt them.

Why does that trouble me? Because, isn’t adultery a sin against your s**pouse, in addition to being a sin against God? It seems that the loving thing to do is to confess your sin to the one against whom you have sinned, not because it eases your conscience but because you long for reconciliation, to heal the damage that your sin has caused. For, regardless of whether your spouse knows of your sin, damage has been done, objectively speaking.

I must “confess” that I don’t really know how such a situation would relate to sacramental confession. Does sacramental confession remove the *temporal *consequences that adultery would have on a marriage?

 

[Annunciata]

The Rigbys:

Or should some things deliberately be kept private, between oneself, God, and one’s confessor or spiritual director?

Yes…I’ve been married twice, 26+ yrs. the 1st time and 12 yrs. to date. Just trust me on this one…

 

[nucatholic]

I agree with the last few posts. You people are nuts if you think its ok to not tell a spouse about an affair. My g/f of 2 years pulled that one on me and I found out (not sex since we were both chaste but in other ways). It was over but then again things might have been different were it a marriage. Maybe it might take the rest of your lives to rebuild that trust again but you know what? Thats what happens when you screw up that bad. Theres no beating around the bush with God and the Holy Sacrament of Marriage.