CSI is very sympathetic to wives of husbands who have sexual integrity issues. The emotional pain and distance cuts deeply and personally.
Based on countless discussions with men and women, a few counselors who see this dynamic in their profession and a number of clergy who hear the lamentations of husbands and wives in their ministry, CSI believes it can offer some sound strategies for beleaguered and emotionally exhausted wives.
As noted in other CSI Viewpoints, the issue of sexual integrity in a marriage is not an individual problem; it is a couples problem. The causes either originates or are exacerbated by the marriage itself.
I have heard often, and read accounts from Sex Addiction blogs created by hurt wives that force husbands into marital contracts, sex addiction recovery programs, and emasculating behaviors under the duress and direct threat of divorce, the break-up of their family, drastic reduction of income and the removal of their children from the husbands lives for even the tiniest infractions.
CSI believes this approach for pornography use infractions is a mistake and can lead to further marital strife.
*Please note: This does not necessarily apply for outside-of-marriage-sex with third parties. The rules for that type of violations can differ.
You - the wife - have a right and a responsibility if you have children to have a porn free home. That is not an unfair demand and if he is serious, you can have a discussion about how to achieve that. This may include internet filters that automatically forward to you all his browser activity; no using the interest in isolation or limited use of the internet.
Don't fall for the line from unrepentant porn viewers and our pop culture society, to incorporate porn into your intimate life. Read "The Porn Effect" in CSI Viewpoints of how pornography destroys the intimate life between husband and wife. It is considered an intrinsic evil by the Church for that, and many other, reasons. Porn has no place in a healthy marriage....Catholic or otherwise.
CSI is often asked by wives if they should cut their husbands off of sex. This is a delicate issue but CSI believes the deliberate cessation of conjugal love most likely will lead to further isolation and increased extra-marital activity on the husbands part. Husbands in general receive many of their core emotional/relational needs through their intimate life with their wives.
Our Catechism defines marital conjugal love as an act of '...mutual self-giving.' CSI then recommends wives to fulfill their obligations as best they can in this regard.
That said, CSI believes wives have an important role in bringing their husband back into sexual sanity and integrity. Wives should not ignore these incursions into their marital intimacy. With understanding and compassion, speak to him about how such activity upsets you and makes you feel diminished, not important and attacks your self-worth and esteem. Try to look past the anger that you may feel and get to the root source of that emotion in you - which is often hurt and rejection. It is important that you let him see just how much his activity has made you feel. Let him see the flood of tears and your concern for your marriage. Don't focus your words so much on your displeasure with his activity; focus more on how it makes you feel. That is how you prevent him from getting defensive and angry. You being vulnerable in this regard will innately draw him towards your grieving heart.
Many husbands - upon reflection - relate that their porn viewing is related to their feelings of hurt and/or rejection whose origins originate in their marriage or are linked to their childhood feelings of those same emotions. They often come to this realization after much later on.
Understanding these causes may not diminish the negative effects his behavior has on you personally, but it should give you some perspective that his porn behavior is not a direct result of personal things such as how pretty you are or what you do or don't do in the bedroom.
Speaking of which, CSI recommends strongly that wives - in the course of their intimately giving nature - should not seek to replicate the sexual proclivities in the porn he frequently watches. That is not to say that a good, Catholic married couple cannot have a wide repertoire of sexual practices. The Church gives a wide berth on that issue saying only that the practices cannot injure the dignity of the married individuals and that the act has to end - as in male orgasm - inside the woman...which meets the demand that the act be open to life. There may be 'over-lap' which your sexual repertoire and that of some porn he views, but what we feel should be avoided is the direct mimicking of that porn sex practice as that feeds further porn use and has a diminishing effect of you, the wife.
What CSI has found is that for the patient, forgiving wife who extends mercy to her husband, the verbally and emotional expression of her pain, combined with her prudent and giving sexual nature and a genuine interest in asking feeling questions of her husband, will often bring about positive change over time.
