What happens when your spouse stops attending church with you?

[Convert_in_99]

So we have a “new” problem. My husband, a protestant, used to attend mass with me every week. Now he says that he wants to go to his church instead (alone of course), and only go there “if he feels like it.”

We’ve been having a really rough time lately. Last week I almost physically separated from him for a few weeks to “cool things off a bit” in our very charged up fighting lately.

Long story short, I postponed my leaving to try to work things out once again. NOW, instead of heated arguments (I asked that he please stop yelling at me) and debates that were going on, he suddenly is very quiet and basically ignoring me and giving me the silent treatment. Then on top of it, he is having this crisis of faith.

I need help here! Please help me know how to deal with this. He will NOT go to counseling or a couples retreat with me. I already see a counselor for my other mental health problems and have been talking to her about these marital issues as well. She isn’t able to do much without him agreeing to counseling.

We are hardly doing anything together, not even marital relations. I don’t remember the last time we had sex. It wasn’t recently obviously.

Edit to add: I also have a question regarding children. We are medically infertile and they have been trying everything. There is a fertility medication they want me to try, but I am not sure if we should “try harder” to have children with my husband’s faith going off the deep end. Would this be a “just reason” to avoid having a child through NFP? Would this be advisable?

 

[The_Bucket]

There’s clearly a lot more than his simply not going to church with you. As you said, it’s a crisis of faith. Perhaps the infertility is weighing on him? I don’t know if you’ve posted about it before or if it is a source of great stress in his life.

If he won’t agree to marital counseling, there is precious little you can do on that front. What you can do is focus on you and improving your own mental health and your own spiritual life.

If I had to make a suggestion, it would be to encourage him to go to his church and be OK with going to Mass alone. Not just “if he feels like it,” tell him that it’s really important that he goes. That it’s normal to have spiritual dry spells. That you are there to support him in his faith just as he has supported you in yours in the past.

The fact that he is retreating and not engaging in discussion is not good. So stop trying to reach out with words to discuss your present situation. Reach out with words on other issues. Engage him in conversation on totally different subjects. Suggest going out or doing something together that has nothing to do with counseling or “working on our problems” or any of that jazz.

Maybe a vacation if you can afford it? Get away from your present situation. Suggest it to him. Maybe with a “I’m tired of fighting and all of this nonsense. I love you and I just want to get away for awhile.”

Does it fix everything? Heck no. But it might press a reset button. Plus, vacation provides a shared experience and those experiences are important. They also provide openings for intimacy and I assure you that men who start locking themselves in their own little worlds are yearning for intimacy and intimacy on a physical level.

Don’t force that, though opening yourself up a bit wouldn’t hurt.

Like I said earlier, there’s not much you can do to “fix him” or even “fix us.” You can only work on you. All I’m suggesting is ways you can open up the lines of communication. Changing the subject from one that’s potentially hurtful or at least a source of discord to one that’s simply more fun might help.

If you have a good time you might find a little rekindling of the relationship. That could give him new reason to re-engage and rethink the idea of counseling to restart the engines to the marriage. But you can’t press that restart button until there’s a bit of fuel in the tank. My suggestions are merely ways to get a little gas in the tank.

 

[Convert_in_99]

Maybe a vacation if you can afford it? Get away from your present situation. Suggest it to him. Maybe with a “I’m tired of fighting and all of this nonsense. I love you and I just want to get away for awhile.”
.

We are going to try to do this for a weekend. He doesn’t want to go, but was willing to try to go somewhere for me. Not as productive as a married couples retreat, but much better than nothing!
The Bucket:

They also provide openings for intimacy and I assure you that men who start locking themselves in their own little worlds are yearning for intimacy and intimacy on a physical level.

I wish! He just doesn’t seem interested in sex anymore. When we have sex, it’s usually because I have asked for it repeatedly, and only sometimes at that.

 

[The_Bucket]

If I may be so bold… has he withdrawn because he sees sex as a chore now? Or as a source of stress as opposed to a source of bonding, love and, frankly, stress relief? I have never experienced infertility so I don’t know if that’s the case, but I imagine that it could be.

I think getting away for awhile and, given your reply, not putting any pressure for physical intimacy would be good. Let things progress naturally. Sure it’s fine to hope and sure it’s fine to pop the idea in his idea but maybe go with a “soft sell” approach as opposed to a “hard sell.”

Perhaps time away from the sources of stress would actually be as good as counseling. At least as a starting point anyway. And maybe you all go do something he really likes to do.

 

[runningdude]

As a protestant, he has no obligation to go to Mass. You should of course pray for his acceptance of the true faith, but he too has an obligation to obey his conscience to the best of his ability. His conscience is telling him now that he should not attend.

It is possible that his attendance has been bothering him for a long time; perhaps he was raised to wrongly believe the Catholic faith is heretical. The church teaches that God has great mercy for those who do not understand the church through no fault of their own.

To marry a Catholic, the Protestant spouse must agree to allow the Catholic spouse to raise the children in the Catholic faith (and ideally help raise them in the faith if possible). If you continue to attempt to have kids, you must reiterate this. His not having sex with you could reflect concerns on this part. He has no obligation to help raise them Catholic, but he must also not actively interfere.

A crisis of faith and lack attendance at mass are not enough to separate with him over. However, the heated arguments and even the “silent treatment” may be sufficiently grave to justify separation. You deserve respect through whatever crisis he is going through.

I work in education, and part of this sounds like a discipline problem. Discipline means teaching correct behavior using meaningful and sincere consequences. Believing you should temporarily distance yourself, and then not following through erodes your self respect, and sends the message that you’re not serious. You can’t expect to change your husband, or fix what he is going through, but you do have a right to demand respect throughout his ordeal.

As a final note, we have only your side now in the story, so all my advice is based on the assumption that your portrayal of events is substantially accurate. You’ve described many of your husbands negative actions, but very little of your actions, positive or negative. I would encourage you to reflect, either on your own or with your counselor, to rule out any behavior on your part that potentially mitigates or even provokes your husband’s response.

If you feel unsafe, or feel the need to “cool off”, then stay with your parents or a trusted friend, or on your own in a hotel while you reflect on the situation. Trust your instincts on this matter.

 

[Convert_in_99]

Thank you for the replies. I am just dreading this upcoming Sunday and it’s only Tuesday.