Letting go of guilt and scrupulosity

Many faithful Catholics find that, even after marriage, intimacy is shadowed by guilt. Some feel uneasy about pleasure. Some replay past sins long after confession. Some worry constantly about whether each act was permitted. If that describes you or your spouse, this lesson is an invitation to peace. God does not want your marriage bed to be a place of fear.

Where the guilt comes from

Guilt about sex can have many roots. It may come from teaching that focused only on prohibitions, from family attitudes, from past sexual sin, from trauma or from a personality that tends toward anxiety. Some of these are spiritual issues, some emotional and some medical. Naming the source is the first step toward healing.

It helps to recall the positive teaching from the beginning of this course. The acts by which spouses are united are “noble and honorable,” and spouses do nothing evil in enjoying the pleasure God built into them (CCC 2362). What was forbidden before marriage is, within marriage, a good to be received with thanks.