Vasectomy

  • Thread starter Thread starter Jillian27w3
  • Start date Start date
Status
Not open for further replies.
J

Jillian27w3

Guest
ok, be nice im about to pour my heart out here. my husband and i married at 22 and had 3 kids by 27 (actually between 24 and 27… yes 3 in 3 years). we were trusting in god not to give us more than we could handle but … between financial issues, post partum depression and a serious weakening of our marriage bond, we chose to have a vasectomy. our marriage still nearly fell apart but after 4 years of unhappiness we are finally on the road to recovery. on one hand i regret that i took back control of my reproduction from god and failed to trust him and on the other, i am still not willing to give it back to him if i could. our marriage might not survive more kids even now. but i now have the energy to care about the answer to the following 2 questions.
  1. If i wouldn’t actually be willing to give this control back to God, does that mean i am not truely repentant/unforgiven?
  2. Is the act of sex with my husband now a sin since we seperated the love and live giving aspects? Does God still want us to enoy eachother?
 
Jillian27w3 said:
  1. If i wouldn’t actually be willing to give this control back to God, does that mean i am not truely repentant/unforgiven?
  2. Is the act of sex with my husband now a sin since we seperated the love and live giving aspects? Does God still want us to enoy eachother?
Click to expand...
You need spiritual direction. You and your husband should seek out a priest for spiritual counsel and the Sacrament of Confession.

The Church does not require you to abstain from relations, nor does it require a reversal of the sterilization.
 
My love and prayers to you both.Go to confession and you will feel so much better.Dont be so hard on yourself though God loves you and He understands our innermost thoughts,only He knows our true intentions.
Pray for guidance.If you have an approachable priest have a chat if not find another priest for a chat.
Continue normal Relations with your husband.A priest will be able to put your mind at rest.May God Bless you and be with you always.
 
  1. As long as you’re truly repentant. You’re not required to do it but think of it this way, if you could just undo the procedure, would you? If you say no, then you’re still bent on doing YOUR will, not his.
Indeed you’re not required to do this, but you SHOULD go to confession about this.
  1. So long as there’s proper repentance it’s not a sin anymore as you’re not forced to undo it, so you can still both enjoy the unitive aspect of the act (as opposed to it being to selfishly seek pleasure.)
I’d also recommend marriage counseling and spiritual direction for both of you. You need God’s graces to keep the marriage going! It takes 3 to make a marriage (husband, wife, and God) and you left the most important one out! Since you pushed Him out, your marriage struggled but you’ll be surprised how it all comes together once you really accept Him back in the marriage.

I’ll be praying for you both.
 
If your husband has confessed this then it’s forgiven and forgotten.

Focus on taking care of the children you have a raising them as God would want you do, quit worrying about the past and work on following God from now on.

Blessings,

Joe
 
Given the same circumstances, would you now do the same? Or would you turn to the Lord for help, as have so many others who bore their crosses and were abundantly blessed for it.

Repentance involves a complete turn around of mind and heart, and a real desire to right the situation. Mitigating circumstances may have been in place, but, you could have just abstained.

It sounds as though you refused the cross the Lord, through his permissive Will, had given you, which we are obligated to take up if we are to share in HIs glory.

Not to worry, though, if you are truly repentant, I am quite sure He can come up with a susbstitute cross which will be just as heavy, if not more so. :o I think you should get some spiritual direction, as was suggested. You need to understand the implications of your choice.
 
*Joe said: If your husband has confessed this then it’s forgiven and forgotten.

Focus on taking care of the children you have a raising them as God would want you do, quit worrying about the past and work on following God from now on.*

Actually, if you were in agreement with your husband getting the vasectomy, you are equally culpable for the sin and you, also, need to confess this if you haven’t already done so.

We can all have ambivalent feelings about our sins, including feeling that we might still not actually regret the result of the sin (in your case, being sure you would not get pregnant again). At the same time, we need to recognize that our actions have been seriously offending to God and we do not want to offend him. If we reject the knowledge that God has been offended by our actions we are not repentant. If we would willingly repeat the sin, we are not repentant.

Make an appointment with your priest, have a frank discussion with him and listen to his advice.
 
Ceil-1 said:
Given the same circumstances, would you now do the same? Or would you turn to the Lord for help, as have so many others who bore their crosses and were abundantly blessed for it.

Repentance involves a complete turn around of mind and heart, and a real desire to right the situation. Mitigating circumstances may have been in place, but, you could have just abstained.

It sounds as though you refused the cross the Lord, through his permissive Will, had given you, which we are obligated to take up if we are to share in HIs glory.

Not to worry, though, if you are truly repentant, I am quite sure He can come up with a susbstitute cross which will be just as heavy, if not more so. :o I think you should get some spiritual direction, as was suggested. You need to understand the implications of your choice.
Click to expand...
This is completely incorrect!

First of all if one has been to confession then the sin is forgiven… that is WHY we have confession because often we are not about to make a perfect act of contrition ourselves. So if they… actually he has confessed this then she needs not to worry unless it was a group decision. If so then you need to confess as well. But since it was so long ago I would guess both of you have already been. You can bring it up to your Priest and talk about how it’s bothering you but if you have been to confession and didn’t know you needed to confess (in all honesty) then it was forgiven a long time ago… I guess I made that assumption in my first post.

MORE IMPORTANTLY though, life gives us crosses, GOD gives us the grace to deal with them.

God dose NOT give us crosses… If you think I’m wrong on this, ask an apologist. To my understanding though that is basic Catholic theology.

Joe
 
thank you everyone. we are in marriage counseling, our counselor says that he expects us to do really well really fast (we have pretty awesome communication when we are aware of the fact that we need it). he has been to confession about the surgery, it was a group decision and i have not been to confession. i will be going as soon as possible.

i have been reading other posts in this section about all the ways sex within a marriage can still be sin and am frankly completely overwhelmed.
 
Jillian27w3 said:
i have been reading other posts in this section about all the ways sex within a marriage can still be sin and am frankly completely overwhelmed.
Click to expand...
Is there anything specific we could help clear up for you?

When sex (or just about anything for that matter) becomes sin is when God is left out of the picture and all that’s left is “me” (to do only what I want.)
 
The only time when it would be absolute requirement for a couple to abstain is if the method of birth control they are using is abortifacient or causes abortion. Vasectomy does not have this effect. A couple who have had a vasectomy can still have a unitive sex life in certain respects and show physical affection and this is preferable to a completely no-sex relationship as you promise to love and to cherish when you get married. This includes showing one another sexual and physical love.
 
Abstinence would have been in lieu of the vasectomy, in case that wasn’t clear. To be forgiven, the sin must be repented of, but that is all that is required. The individual may need to continue penance, however. That is between him/her and God.

God assigns crosses. If he does not, we labor in vain. The difficulties of having children is the cross, but, it comes with the greater joy of a family.
 
Jillian, I have a friend -(married couple)- in your situation. 3 children, then vasectomy. After a few years, and a lot of talking to God, he reversed the procedure, and then they had 3 more wonderful children, -I know them personally. He gave a talk at a conference that Mother Angelica was attending, and she was so impressed that she had him as a guest on her Wednesday night program.

I hope that you and your husband give this some thought. Oh, and where I come from, 3 children in 3 years is pretty well normal. Not ideal for everyone, but sure is common with my friends. I’ll pray for you.
 
Ceil-1 said:
Abstinence would have been in lieu of the vasectomy, in case that wasn’t clear. To be forgiven, the sin must be repented of, but that is all that is required. The individual may need to continue penance, however. That is between him/her and God.

God assigns crosses. If he does not, we labor in vain. The difficulties of having children is the cross, but, it comes with the greater joy of a family.
Click to expand...
The biggest sin is not wanting any more children. Sure, abstinence is a more Church “OK” way of not having any more children. My dad had a vasectomy and he just felt sorry that he didn’t have any more. I don’t look up to abstinence in marriage but I look up to a couple that have chosen a larger family.
 
Please be re-assured you may continue normal marital relations with your husband.There is a canon that refers to this but I dont know which number.If you search on the back fence forum/on search itself for this hopefully you will find it.If someone knows please let us know!!BUT really you would find it so helpful to talk to your/another priest.He could put your mind at rest far more than any of us.As for the counselling im pleased its going well keep praying Our Lord is with you.Remember God knows our inner thoughts and intentions he will understand your sincerity.Glad your husband was brave enough to go to confession so stop worrying.Your husband has been absolved.Please speak to a priest be brave.Im sure he will be really understanding.
God Bless
 
budgie2 said:
The biggest sin is not wanting any more children. Sure, abstinence is a more Church “OK” way of not having any more children. My dad had a vasectomy and he just felt sorry that he didn’t have any more. I don’t look up to abstinence in marriage but I look up to a couple that have chosen a larger family.
Click to expand...
I sincerely hope you are not making judgements about couples who have smaller families. You do not know what the reasons are. If a woman’s life would be at risk from a pregnancy and the couple abstains until such time that fertility is over then that is a very loving thing to do.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top