None of my business...go to the experts!
QUESTION? / COMMENT!
You have been very helpful in the past. A family friend is in a bad marriage. They have been married for like 30 years. The husband seems to be very verbally abusive to his wife. The wife is very much a Traditional Latin Mass person so she struggles with him when he asks for sex. She says that she wants to say no since he is very abusive to her and even her son. He says he is required to do it since he is the head of the household. He does not spend any time with her otherwise and even says she is a terrible wife all the time. It feels like he is taking advantage of the situation and certainly should not be asking for sex if he is not doing it in a loving bonding way. He is clearly destroying the protection for his family and inviting in the demons, but the bigger question is can the wife deny him sex? She is worried she is committing mortal sin even if he is being a terrible husband and father. She would leave, but I think she wants to stay until their youngest can go off to seminary in a few years. All the rest of the kids have grown up and have moved out. They are either married or part of the religious life.
I guess the biggest question would be is it a mortal sin for her to deny her husband sex if he is being such a terrible husband. Also with this it would be great if you could point me to any reading, blogs, or talks on this. I can find a few references to it in some talks, but most are not that specific and would be each for the husband to turn it back around for her.
Any information you can get for me on this would be great.
ANSWER! / COMMENT!
Sorry, none of my business, I am certainly not going to say something based on limited information and have one of them said, "Well Jesse Romero said so." Here are some trusted resources that I would use if I had marital problems.
1) Greg & Julie Alexander House 1-877-613-9408 www.thealexanderhouse.org. They area Catholic couple that do Marriage Counseling and Marriage coaching over the phone.
2) “Retrouvaille” – a ministry for troubled Marriages run by Catholics. Go to: www.helpourmarriage.com or www.retrouvaille.org.
3) www.fathersforever.com - Statistics and Solutions for keeping Fathers in Marriage.
4) http://maritalhealing.com/ - 'Institute for Marital Healing' Strengthening Catholic Couples.
5) http://foryourmarriage.org/ (U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops)
6) https://healingandpeace.com/ - Thomas Schmierer, Catholic Therapist, LMFT called his business Vatican Values Counseling until about June of 2018, but has since changed his business name & services to Healing and Peace Catholic Therapy Services: “Where Catholicism & Mental Health converge.” Office:(760) 529-0830
Praying for your partner promotes fidelity. A study entitled “Faith and Unfaithfulness: Can Praying for Your Partner Reduce Infidelity?” discovered that praying for a partner actually reduced the likelihood of infidelity - Match Made in Heaven:Couples Who Pray Together Stay Together | Psychology Today *Dr David Stoop writes: The National Association of Marriage Enhancement, in Phoenix, Arizona (www.nameonline.net) did a study and reported that when couples prayed together on a daily basis, less than 1% of those couples would end up getting a divorce. The numbers were 1 out of 1,156. Pretty amazing when the divorce rate in the general population is reportedly around 50%.