Sexual Morality During Spousal Separation

Spousal separation can make a trial out of nearly every facet of life, including our sexuality. In this article we address how separated spouses are supposed to understand their sexuality and the obligations attached to it during such a confusing state of life.

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The number of trials Catholic spouses who separate from one another must face are nearly endless, and their sexuality and unmet needs for intimacy are no exception. How are separated couples who are still married in the eyes of God to understand the state of their sexuality during such a confusing time? This is what this article aims to address. Now due to the Catholic Church’s teaching on the indissolubility of marriage, couples who enter into a state of separation must still contend with the fact that they do, in fact, remain married to one another. What is more, both spouses remain sexual beings during this period of separation. Since the Church deems it metaphysically impossible for a spouse to contract a new marriage while their sacramental spouse is still living, how are couples to contend with their sexuality during this time of separation? Could they ever decide to mutually come together for the sake of quieting concupiscence? Can one spouse think sexual thoughts about the other? Must they live as if they have taken a vow of celibacy until they reconcile? 

As we’ve done in other related articles, we must always return to what it is which legitimizes sexual relations in the first place. The most obvious answer to this from a Catholic perspective would be the Sacrament of Matrimony, but while this is undoubtedly a true answer, it is not the most precise answer. For there are certain cases where even married couples would be prohibited from engaging in sexual relations with each other, such as in albeit rare cases where there exists a mutual vow of continence between husband and wife, otherwise referred to as Josephite marriages. Therefore, while it is a true statement that the state of marriage justifies sexual relations between spouses, it is perhaps more accurate to say that not only the conjugal act but also all inward and outward expressions of sexual love are justified in marriage in the measure that spouses are in a permanent relational dynamic which would in principle allow for the mutual decision to come together for the conjugal act. In this sense, even the incomplete expressions of sexual love which takes place between spouses outside an intention to perform the conjugal act itself would nevertheless still be preserving and fostering the selfsame sexual love which properly contextualizes the conjugal act whenever it takes place.

Therefore, if spouses are in a permanent state which indefinitely prevents them from coming together for the conjugal act, then all incomplete expressions of sexuality, whether in thought or in deed, lose their meaning and purpose even given the continued indissolubility of their marriage bond.  St. Alphonsus Liguori attests to this when he discusses the liceity of incomplete sexual acts between married couples outside the conjugal act. While he affirms that married couples can enjoy incomplete expressions of sexual love outside an intention to perform the marriage acts, he makes an exception for spouses who are indefinitely unable to come together for the marriage act, “because to whom the marriage act is forbidden, touches which are dispositions to the marriage act are also forbidden” [1]. 

Consequently, so long as the state of separation remains indefinite, I do not think it can be morally legitimate for the spouses to consent to the pleasure of any sexual thought about each other that may arise within the mind of either spouse. During this state of indefinite separation, spouses would need to treat any sexual thoughts about each other that may arise fundamentally no differently than how sexual thoughts are morally dealt with by unmarried persons. 

Moreover, I would also argue that, so long as the state of separation remains truly indefinite, spouses would not even be able to claim their marital rights with respect to each other for the performance of the marriage act itself. For while the marriage act and all of its accompanying pleasures are ordained by God to quiet concupiscence, all expressions of sexual love, either complete or incomplete, are meant to manifest the indissoluble bond of active communion existing between them as husband and wife. If the spouses have chosen (either legitimately or illegitimately) to indefinitely separate themselves from actively living out this bond of communion, then all expressions of sexuality violate the very meaning those expressions were created to signify. Thus, spouses must dispose themselves toward mutual reconciliation before they can reclaim their sexual rights with respect to one another. Intimacy exists for the sake of drawing the spouses into deeper communion with one another. It is a sign of a deeper underlying spiritual intimacy that must be active and present between them. If such a reconciliation is not possible, then spouses must recognize that during such a state of separation, the Lord is calling them to live out the sacrificial love of Christ much more radically in imitation of those who gave up access to the pleasures of the flesh in order to seek out discipleship in deeper waters.

Footnote:

Alphonsus Liguori, Theologiae Moralis, Lib. vi. Tract vi, de Matrimonio, 933, q. 4