However, I find it incredible to expect or ask a wife or husband to abstain from one of the greatest gifts God has given us in order to *return* to a church, regardless of denomination. Might I suggest you contemplate the following from St. Paul:
1Cor.7 [5] Defraud ye not one the other, except it be with consent for a time, that ye may give yourselves to fasting and prayer; and come together again, that Satan tempt you not for your incontinency.
Scripturally she is well justified to ask her husband to help her in her return to the faith. If he is willing to help, together with prayer and fasting, the abstainance can be a tool to help them both grow spritually. This is especially true if it gives them time to regularize their marrage within the church so she can recieve the sacrements again.
Making love together as a legally married couple is hardly an instance of *defrauding* one another. As one side of couple who comes together happily to become *one flesh* for over 7 years now, I respectfully suggest *abstaining* will in no way improve our marriage spiritually or emotionally and will in no way bring us closer to God as I understand Him.
Ya gotta remember. I am not a Catholic. I am a devoted husband who relishes all the Blessings God has bestowed upon our marriage. Our marriage *ain't broke* and *abstaining* from making love as a happily married couple fixes nothing, IMO.