Psychological Healing
in the Roman Catholic Mystic Tradition


                                                                                    

Search       

Questions and Answers

I have had a nightmare marriage. My husband has been condescending in non-stop ways. I have been henpecked and could do nothing right. He has disciplined me in front of the children. . . . I feel he is oversexed and does not understand the word “No” in bed. I woke up the other night feeling like I was being raped. He thinks it is my Catholic duty, under pain of mortal sin. He is always telling me I need to do my duty. . . . He is never guilty of wrongdoing. I am always to blame. . . . I just don’t know what to do.

 
Actually, when a man demands sexual contact like this from his wife, he is the one committing mortal sin.

Now, that statement might shock a lot of people, but that’s only because they don’t understand the entire concept of marital obligations as described in the Bible.

Saint Paul describes the relationship of a wife and a husband as a reflection of the relationship of the Church to Christ—and this relationship demands mutual respect and honor. “Be subordinate to one another,” he says, “out of reverence to Christ” (Ephesians 5:21). So, when Saint Paul says that wives should be subordinate to their husbands, he means that wives have a duty to their husbands in the same way as the Church has a duty to serve Christ.

But Saint Paul also says that husbands must love their wives even as Christ loved the Church (Ephesians 5:25). Thus a husband has an obligation to treat his wife without bitterness (Colossians 3:19), to sanctify his wife, to cleanse her, and to present her to Christ without blemish (Ephesians 5:26-27).

Therefore, when a husband fails in his Christian duty to live with his wife “in understanding, showing honor” to her (1 Peter 3:7), his vows of Holy Matrimony become a spiritual failure, and he has no claim on his wife’s duty to him.

That is, if the husband blames and humiliates his wife, or if he reduces physical intimacy into lust, or if he is emotionally absent from the family, or if he shirks his responsibility as a father, then he clearly is not “nourishing and cherishing” (Ephesians 5:29) his family according to his Christian duty.

To demand sexual contact with his wife under these conditions is equivalent to making her into a prostitute. Prostitution is a mortal sin because it “does injury to the dignity of the person who engages in it” (Catechism of the Catholic Church, 2355).

Christ does not treat the Church like a prostitute. Satan, however, does treat his followers as prostitutes. In fact, the world—and the Church—is filled with the devil’s prostitutes. Therefore, a husband who violates his wife’s dignity by treating her like a prostitute in effect excommunicates himself from the Church and severs himself from God by such a grave, unloving act.

If, after you explain these things to your husband, he continues to place his desire for bodily pleasure above the welfare of his soul, the welfare of your children’s souls, and the welfare of your soul, then he has openly declared his renunciation of his baptismal vows. His state of spiritual blindness and mortal sin give you full justification to distance yourself from him physically, to protect your own soul.

 


 Back to the list of questions

 


   No advertising—no sponsor—just the simple truth . . .
 

 

If this website has helped you, then 
please help support this website 


 


No, you cannot place your ad here, because I do not accept advertising on this website.

Chastity

In San Francisco?

www.ChastitySF.com

CATHOLIC PSYCHOLOGY

in association with
A Guide to Psychology and its Practice
 
Copyright © 1997-2011 Raymond Lloyd Richmond, Ph.D. All rights reserved.
San Francisco
 

All material on this website is copyrighted. You may copy or print selections for your private, personal use only. Any other reproduction or distribution without my permission is prohibited.