Good News About Sex & Marriage (Revised Edition) by Christopher West

Author:Christopher West
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780867166194
Publisher: Franciscan Media
Published: 2018-03-21T00:00:00+00:00

12. My mother said that when she was first married, a priest told her that she was obligated to “submit” to her husband’s sexual needs upon request. What’s up with that?

I don’t doubt that your mother was told such a thing. The Church has long been fighting to correct errors that stem from misinterpreting St. Paul’s admonition for wives to “submit to their husbands” (see chapter three, question 16). This is one such misinterpretation, and a very serious one at that. It all but blesses men’s disordered desires to use their wives for their own sexual gratification.

It has never been the teaching of the Church that husbands are free to use their wives. On the contrary, it has been the constant teaching of the Church that husbands must love their wives as Christ loved the Church (see Eph 5:25). This includes what they do in the bedroom.

While they may not clearly recognize it, many wives experience a deep resentment toward their husbands that stems from being treated as a means to an orgasm. (Let’s not think the proverbial “headache” is without cause.) Such hedonism on the part of the husband often produces a dreadful cycle that’s devastating to a marriage: the husband desires sex for selfish purposes; his wife resists being used; the husband complains all the more that his wife doesn’t “put out”; his wife withdraws all the more in the face of his complaints and demands.

This problem is further compounded by the fact that most men will point the finger of blame at their wives, when in reality, the lion’s share of the problem is their own. Oh, the havoc sin has wrought on the original harmony of the sexual relationship.

It’s a two-way street, of course. The balance of genuine love in intercourse must be maintained by both husband and wife. Still, as John Paul II put it, “a special responsibility, as if it depended more on him whether the balance is kept or violated or even—if it has already been violated—reestablished.”13

Husbands, if your wife consistently resists your desire for intercourse, my advice to you would be to look deeply into your own heart. Is your desire for sex a desire to make a gift of yourself to your bride and renew your marriage commitment? Or is it simply a desire to “relieve” yourself at her expense?

Allow your sexual desires to be crucified with Christ, so that they may be resurrected as the desire to love your bride as Christ loves his. If your wife knows in her soul that this is what you desire, she’ll desire just as intensely to make a gift of herself to you, and there will be no more “headaches.”

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