A Positive Vision of Sex for Catholic Wives

Catholic married women, have you ever thought that you might have limiting beliefs about sex in your marriage? 

Have you ever envisioned that you could experience sex with your husband as

• nourishing
• comforting
• rejuvenating
• delightful
• playful
• tender
• sweet
• wild
• and so much more! 

What gets in the way of these positive types of experiences? Obstacles can include an obligation sex mindset, lack of emotional connection, ignorance, or spousal selfishness. When obstacles are removed and problems are solved, sex can be so beautiful in a wide variety of positive ways.

Sarah helps expand your thoughts about what can be possible in sex--all based in Catholic teaching.

Want to learn 10 Truths for Good Sex for Catholic Wives? 

Free "10 Truths" download.

https://canafeast.com/10truths

Sources mentioned in this episode:

• Catechism of the Catholic Church 2362 "'The acts in marriage by which the intimate and chaste union of the spouses takes place are noble and honorable; the truly human performance of these acts fosters the self-giving they signify and enriches the spouses in joy and gratitude.' Sexuality is a source of joy and pleasure: 'The Creator himself . . . established that in the [generative] function, spouses should experience pleasure and enjoyment of body and spirit. Therefore, the spouses do nothing evil in seeking this pleasure and enjoyment. They accept what the Creator has intended for them. At the same time, spouses should know how to keep themselves within the limits of just moderation.'"
• Ruth Buezis, Awaken Love: The Truth About Sex That Will Transform Your Marriage (Protestant author, so use your Catholic filter. Don't masturbate or use birth control, even if she talks about it in the book. Her mindset advice is great.)
• Dave Ramsey, Financial Peace University and Total Money Makeover (Evangelical Protestant)
• Excellent Catholic personal finance advice, check out our friends Jonathan and Amanda Teixeira's content at WalletWin.com (try their Budget Reset) and The Catholic Money Podcast 

🌸 free online Catholic marriage workshop: the Little Way of Marriage 

Learn how to do little marriage-building skills with great love, inspired by St. Thérèse, the Little Flower, and her holy parents, Sts. Louis and Zélie Martin!

Transcript

0:52

A positive vision of sex for Catholic wives I read a story in Ruth Bouzis' book Awaken Love: The Truth About Sex That Will Transform Your Marriage. And in it, the author shares her own journey of rediscovering a really positive mindset about sex and just transforming that in her marriage. She's a wonderful Christian educator, not Catholic. I do recommend her book, but keep in mind she's not Catholic. So if you are, then use your Catholic filter. But I think on mindset, she's really good. The story that I wanted to share with you was when she shared with one of her friends that she found sex to be really comforting, and her friend's jaw dropped. Her friend practically had to pick her jaw up off the floor. And that really struck me because I think that a lot of times we have this way we're thinking about sex, and, we're sort of stuck in our limiting beliefs about what we think it is or has to be. I want to hold out for you Catholic wives a really positive vision of sex, and this is in keeping with our church's teaching. In the Catechism of the Catholic Church, number 2362, the church says in her official teaching, "The acts in marriage by which the intimate and chaste union of the spouses takes place are noble and honorable. The truly human performance of these acts fosters the self-giving they signify and enriches the spouses in joy and gratitude. Sexuality is a source of joy and pleasure. The Creator himself established that in the generative function, spouses should experience pleasure and enjoyment of body and spirit. Therefore, the spouses do nothing evil in seeking this pleasure and enjoyment. They accept what the Creator has intended for them. At the same time, spouses should know how to keep themselves within the limits of just moderation." This sounds really positive like, this is noble, this is honorable, joy, gratitude, pleasure, enjoyment, enriching, body and spirit are both part of this. Nothing wrong. With that in mind, I just wanted to share with you all these adjectives that came to my mind in adoration today as I was praying about,, what to share with you about how sex can be positive in your marriage. Because I think a lot of Catholic wives have this, this idea that it is a burden or, that there's nothing good for them there. So I want to offer to you the thought that sex can be nourishing. Yes, it can be comforting, like Ruth Bouzas wrote. It can be tender. It can be exciting. It can be wild. Sex in your marriage can be very sweet. It can be connecting. It can be beautiful. It can be funny. It can be healing. It can be affirming, refreshing, restorative. It can be surprising. It can be adventurous, soulful. It can be experienced as a gift. Sex in your marriage can be prayerful. It can be playful. It can be delightful. It can be reassuring. It can replenish your gratitude. It can be pure. It can be slow or fast. It can be a ritual, and I mean that in a good way. It can be planned or spontaneous, and it can be holy sometimes just hearing that can help you believe it's possible and true. It is for me. I will say as a firsthand witness, sex in my marriage has been all these things for me, and I'm so grateful for this beautiful gift that the Creator has given to marriage and invited me into as part of my vocation. So I just-- I say that to share, like, this really is possible. This really is possible. And what gets in the way of experiencing sex in all these positive ways? Well, if you see sex as an obligation, if you push through pain to have sex, if you are stuck in a rut, if you don't communicate, if you don't feel seen or cherished or heard or cared for if you're formed by porn culture or purity culture If you experience sex from a spouse who is selfish or entitled, or if it's coerced, or if there's a lack of emotional connection, if there's disrespect, if you feel used,, if there is ignorance, those can all get in the way of experiencing lovemaking and marriage in these positive ways. And those problems, for the most part, can be solved. There can be solutions for all of those. It is possible to just have a beautiful, nourishing, comforting, exciting, energizing love life in your marriage. I just wanted to offer that to you, so that you can hope for that, you can work for that, you can believe it's true. I know with my husband and I on our financial journey, it wasn't until we started learning, like, going through,, a personal finance program and hearing stories on the author's own podcast and in his own content of couples who paid off their mortgage entirely, that we even considered that that could be possible, and then a goal for us, and then a reality for us. And I'm talking about Dave Ramsey, by the way, in case you're curious who it was that inspired us to do that. And, and it took a few years, but we got there. And if you're interested in personal finance and really getting fired up about it, he is great. He is Protestant, evangelical Protestant, so there is that lens there. And I highly recommend our friends Jonathan and Amanda Texeira, who have the Catholic Money Podcast and the WalletWin Ministry, because they will take you on that journey and share really great content, but with a Catholic lens. It's just to illustrate for you that you might not even know what's possible until you hear someone say it and hear someone else witness that this is true for them. It's-, it can happen, that you begin to think, "Wow, it can happen for me, too." And I really want that for you. I know that is God's purpose and plan and goodwill his design for sex and marriage, and that is what he wants for all of you beautiful daughters of God the Father, all of you wonderful Catholic wives out there. That is his desire and his plan for you. So it's just a matter of identifying the obstacles and finding solutions for them and believing that, yes, all this that I just listed here, all these lovely adjectives, that that is attainable in your love life. God bless you.