Thank you for answering my questions, Backpacker, as much as is possible.
My wife is a practicing traditional Catholic. She prays daily, and reads Catholic books. But I can't speak here to her character as a Catholic..... she spends a lot of time with a network of friends many who are not good Catholic people
Can you get her to read anything on marriage? There are some books recommended on this thread: http://www.cathinfo.com/catholic.php/Unhappy-Marriage
It sounds like she is no traditional Catholic at all, merely "fulfilling her duty" to go to Mass at a convenient place. That network of friends is a danger, and a distraction from her duty to you as your wife. She is taking comfort and filling her aloneness with false consolations.
she has said several times we shouldn't have children.
Was this revealed to you before marriage? You would need to find out if your marriage is invalidated by this unwillingness to bear children.
She needs a lot of prayer, as you do. I wil be praying for your intentions.
Thanks much for the link to the books, and for your prayers.
I think she would be unlikely to read a book on marriage right now. She does enjoy youtube talks by SSPX priests though. We need a good priest who will commit to talking to us on an ongoing basis. Since we are both trads who go to the SSPX, and due to the issues I mentioned trying to get help from our pastor, it feels like I am "between a rock and a hard place."
So here I am almost ridiculously sharing, as anonymous as I can, the inner troubles of my marriage. :shocked:
Her lifestyle of how she daily/weekly networks with her friends (in contrast to often acting neutral if not cold towards life with me) is one of the most subversive aspects. For as long as I can remember, she spends a lot of every evening on Facebook or texting/calling her friends.
Most of these friends (about 5 main ones) are in irregular marriages, and most without kids. They or their husband are on their second or third marriages. I have almost no memory of them talking about me and my wife building a life together or having children.
Before marriage, she did make a few comments saying she had mixed feelings having kids at her age, and having a large family unless we were well off. Shortly after getting married, it was 99% me initiating sex, talk of kids. The first years she did say, in anger, she doubted we should have kids. She's said this several times, including the other day. Its hard to estanblish in my mind though that she lacked proper consent to marriage on the day of our marriage in a way that would invalidate our marriage. This is something I briefly breached with our pastor, but he basically said our problems "are not serious, you are just experiencing normal problems."
Its very confusing. Half the time you'd think there's nothing seriously wrong observing us. But it seems like people from our chapel, including our priest, her friends, acquaintances are oblivious to the problems. That or they don't care enough to inquire.
I just don't see how I can continue to live like our marriage is normal and okay. And I can't see getting divorced (civilly ie) or completely separating. So I may have to follow my own counsel how to live somewhat separately from her, and find more counsel/support. That and a stiff drink when I get home from work. :)