When the marriage bed becomes a burden, When preventing cancer raises moral questions, When miscarriage shakes your faith in God’s power | ACW362
Dec 8, 2025
Marital intimacy can be challenging, especially when one partner desires more frequent connection than the other. A listener grapples with feelings of rejection and fears of being used due to past traumas. Additionally, difficult decisions around preventive surgeries for cancer raise ethical questions linked to faith. The emotional toll of recent miscarriages highlights struggles with grief, anger toward God, and searching for meaning in suffering, emphasizing the need for honest communication and deepened marital bonds.
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question_answer ANECDOTE
Joachim And Anne's Holy Embrace
Christopher recounts a Byzantine icon of Joachim and Anne embracing as the Eastern image of Immaculate Conception.
He suggests their marital embrace uniquely participated in redemption in conceiving Mary.
volunteer_activism ADVICE
Use Prayer Journaling To Hear God
Keep a prayer journal and write letters to Jesus to name fears and listen for God's response.
Quiet your heart after prayer to notice memories or inspirations God may use to heal wounds.
insights INSIGHT
Mutual Education Creates Marital Harmony
John Paul II says marital harmony requires spouses to 'educate each other' about emotional and physiological differences.
Marital tenderness helps the husband project himself into the woman's world and promotes mutual active participation.
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I love marriage and my wife, but we’re facing our biggest challenge: understanding sex and its rightful place. We stayed chaste before marriage; I was a virgin and she’d been abstinent for years. I desire union daily, and while she enjoys our intimacy, she doesn’t need it as often, though she still wants affection. We’re trying to discern how often sex should happen within God’s plan. She fears being used because of past wounds, and I fear rejection when she’s not ready. I worry her “no” means I’ve failed her. Since marrying, sex dominates my thoughts, and it’s becoming a burden.
About ten years ago, at 45, I learned I carry a genetic marker for several cancers. Two of my sisters with the same marker developed endometrial and ovarian cancer. I later became a breast cancer survivor, another cancer on the list. My doctor told me there’s no good screening for ovarian cancer and strongly urged a hysterectomy, since pregnancy was unlikely and ovarian cancer is often detected too late. I chose the hysterectomy to prevent cancer, not pregnancy. But after studying Theology of the Body, I’m questioning that decision. What does the Church teach in a case like mine?
My wife and I had two miscarriages this year, and the pain has been deep. She is angry with God, and I realized I repressed my own grief until recently. Now I often fight back tears and long for our two children. We keep asking God why. I can’t imagine how this suffering could be glorified here. Are some sufferings only understood in heaven? I also wonder whether physical imperfections like illness or miscarriage are God’s doing or simply consequences of human freedom. I doubt whether prayer can change anything, yet I still love God even as I struggle with doubts about His omnipotence.
Ask Christopher West is a weekly podcast in which Theology of the Body Institute President Christopher West and his beloved wife Wendy share their humor and wisdom, answering questions about marriage, relationships, life, and the Catholic faith, all in light of John Paul II’s beautiful teachings on the Theology of the Body.
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