My Refusal Of Marital Rights
For the past 6 years and much of our 17-year marriage, my wife has denied me sexual relations and even minimal affection. She has also let me know in other ways she is sorry she ever married even threatening divorce.
Recently she was diagnosed terminally ill though is expected to function reasonably well for some time. She began asking me to return to her bedroom I had left at her insistence. And she also began seeking physical affection and sex from me. I have refused all her requests.
If my wife denied me sex and affection because I was unfit and unworthy, as she made me feel, then I am still unfit because I have not changed. And if she was right, I feel I would now be taking unfair advantage of her in her time of weakness if I granted her requests. If however she denied me sex and affection without good cause, then I was terribly wronged. This is at least as likely as my unfitness. I have human feelings. Her years of blatant rejection have made me feel less than human. I would feel like a trained seal performing on cue for its handler if I now granted her requests. So to preserve what little dignity I have left, I have refused her requests.
There are other reasons for my refusal. It was very difficult to adjust to celibacy. Now it is best if I remain celibate so I do not have to readjust to celibacy after my wife’s death. After her death, I shall have no time for relationships and remarriage. My concerns will be raising our 3 young children and working hard to support them. And frankly I want no more of relationships or marriage. Finally, though heterosexual, healthy, and fit, I feel incapable of sexual love and have no sexual confidence left.
My refusal has distressed and angered my wife, but I treat her civilly and see to her medical needs. I think it is unfair and unreasonable for her to expect more from me.
My only question: Is my refusal JUSTIFIABLE or at least EXCUSABLE?
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QUESTION from Will on June 5, 2004
ANSWER by Bro. Ignatius Mary, OLSM on June 7, 2004
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Dear Will: I am saddened to hear about your marriage. Indeed this is a difficult situation. The treatment your received from your wife all these years was terrible and unloving. I understand why you feel the way you feel. Will, we all have been betrayed, abused, or made to feel worthless. These experiences are common to man. What we need to do with these experiences is to forgive the perpetrators. Forgiveness is not about letting the perpetrator off the hook; it is about letting yourself off the hook. It is letting go and letting God. God will deal with your wife's past behavior. It is a sin for you to get revenge by doing the same behavior to her. As long as you choose not to forgive your wife then you continue to suffer. You are a trained seal right now. Your wife trained you to be asexual. Your dignity was gone a long time ago. You need to REGAIN your dignity. The dignity of a person in the vocation of marriage is partly found in the marital embrace. That is why you felt so lost. Your wife took your dignity long ago. You must regain your dignity and that begins with forgiveness. The virtue of charity, love, and forgiveness tells us that you cannot refuse your wife because she refused you or because she made you to feel worthless. This quid pro quo is not the mature thing to do and certainly not the Christian way of handling things. Thus you need to work on this. If necessary seek counseling to help you but you MUST work on this. Remember what Jesus told us in the Our Father: ...forgive us our sins, AS WE FORGIVE OTHERS. In another passage we read that if we do not forgive, God will not forgive us. This issue of forgiveness is about your Soul, Will. Regardless of the marriage, the lack of forgiveness bring illness to your soul, a spiritual illness, that could lead to risking your soul. This is critically important. As for getting used to chastity, I am afraid that is a weak reason. God will give you the grace to do whatever it is you have to do. If you returned to the marital embrace and then later, because of your wife's death, had to return to perfect chastity, God will give you the grace to do it. You cannot use this as an excuse to not have sexual relations with your wife. Now, with all this said, you should not be forced and pressured into the marital embrace. This is wrong and it just as wrong as a husband who forces or pressures his wife to have sex when she does not want to. Nevertheless, the Bible tells us that husband and wife have a duty to each other and are NOT to withhold the marital embrace from each other except for short periods and then only with mutual consent. I think, Will, the issue is that your wife has severely hurt you and you are still hurting. This is the issue you need to deal with; to overcome the hurt, to forgive, and to begin to heal. By the way, one of the reasons that your wife has changed her mind is because she is facing her own death. It is not unusual for people to reassess their priorities, change personality, and become loving when they may not have been before. She looks at life differently now that her time is short. I would HIGHLY advise that you seek counseling to help in being healed of this deep hurt that you have. The hurt is justifiable, but the hurt needs to be healed. Once you begin that process to forgive your wife and to heal the hurt you may find that you can return to the marital embrace willingly and perhaps with more love than you thought possible. Let God make lemonade out of the lemon that your marriage became.
God Bless, |