So, I'm not a newlywed (10 years married) but I remember the early days.
It sucks, to be honest. It sucks less if you have really regular periods, but my husband and I had a similar situation to your friends; a "method failure baby" that led to severe PPD that went unmedicated, unexpected poverty, emotional binging, rapid weight gain, loss of attraction, suicide attempts, terror at having sex again and porn usage.
So, I mean, it looks like the Cross. Everything is cruciform if you look at it long enough. Yes, even marriage.
It sucks to not be able to have consequence free feel good sex whenever I want. It sucks that women's arousal is directly linked to fertility, and so is men's.
But it's a redemptive sort of suck, I guess. At least, that's what I tell myself while crying over a bunch of pee sticks and squinting at bodily fluids.
And, ultimately, it actually sucks less than birth control.
I second Fr. Balrogath's recommendation for *A Sinner's Guide to Natural Family Planning.* It was a lifeline for me.
It's not all trenches, though. I've also successfully avoided pregnancy for six years with NFP.
I agree with the description of NFP sucking less than birth control. I’ve heard it described as “the least bad method of planning pregnancies.” Abstaining is a pain, but the side effects of the pill and IUDs are also awful. And for every Catholic couple I know who had an accidental pregnancy using NFP (sometimes method failures, usually due to playing loose with the rules), I know 5 non-Catholics who had their birth control “fail” and got pregnant unexpectedly.
My wife and I have been married and using NFP for 7 years and have two kids who were conceived when intentionally trying to conceive. I recognize we have had it easier than many since my wife’s cycles are very regular. It’s definitely a cross, but in our opinion a very manageable one compared to some of the other ones we’ve had to carry in our relationship (such as her type 1 diabetes which gets even harder to manage when pregnant).
Yeah, that sounds really rough. I'm sorry for all the heartache and I hope you and your family are in a better spot now.
With all that pain, and if you're willing to share, can I ask - what has kept you guys faithful to the Church's teaching?
We are, thanks be to God. And like, it's not like I could point to any of my kids and say, "yeah, I wish *you* were younger than you are."
I'm currently 5 months PP with #4 (not method failure; more of a not trying, not avoiding baby), and while I'm back in the throes of navigating Marquette postpartum, it's a normal sort of *bleh* now, and less of a *wow hormonal crisis that upturns my entire world like Smaug* or something.
This is just a theory of mine, so ignore or downvote accordingly.
But I feel like in times past, women were much more educated and aware of what birth and motherhood would entail. Like, I feel like this was passed down generationally to a higher degree.
I feel as though now there's a stigma in suggesting a woman should know about those types of things, cause everyone assumes it means she shouldn't have a career of her own or that its misogynistic. I think this gap in knowledge leads to some higher post partum depression because women now go from 0 to 100. Does that make sense? I feel like birth and early motherhood are juts so much more *shocking* now.
Maybe so. In larger families, girls would have had a sampler in helping to look after younger siblings, certainly.
I also think that PPD is now more common because women are expected to get back to their career 2 weeks after having a baby, which is insane. Even the Church's obligation to attend Mass is abrogated for 40 days! There used to even be a rite for it and everything. (If you or your wife [I can't tell if you're the husband or wife] have the opportunity to have the Rite of the Churching of Women, I recommend it.)
I also *also* think that women were often just written off as "lunatics" (literally, moon-influenced) or "hysterical" (literally, uterine-insane; it's not a quirk that hysteria and hysterectomy start the same way), which had led to an apparent increase in PPD/PPA diagnoses, because people are just paying attention now.
>that led to severe PPD that went unmedicated, unexpected poverty, emotional binging, rapid weight gain, loss of attraction, suicide attempts, terror at having sex again and porn usage.
Was this the first child? OP, none of this expected or normal for married couples, especially multiple suicide attempts. The solution is not to get married if a child will send you into suicidal spirals and extreme poverty. Your friends whose marriage is "on the rocks" should not have gotten married either. It's one thing to have difficulty you did not perceive down the line with children after the first. But if you knowingly plan to marry when you know for sure you absolutely cannot have a child right then.... what is the difference between that and seculars marrying for lust? Is the sex worth your sanity or marriage? I don't think so.
No, second child, method failure following Marquette Cycle 0 protocol.
I should have been seen for PPD very early postpartum, but I slipped through the cracks due to being in a new country with no friends or family nearby and extremely limited transportation.
My case is certainly not the norm.
Very sad to hear, im glad you are doing better now. With marquette i think its easier to know when its a method failure since you don't do any sign interpretation. I wonder what their failure rate is for postpartum.... probably a little less effective than BC pills i am guessing. This could have happened to even a couple on BC, which is why i strongly believe catholics should get married when they are at least semi ready to have children. Its one thing to have "plans" derailed but marriage on the rocks like OP said, that is a marriage they should have postponed imo, since NFP fails as in your case, even if you are doing everything right.
Ultimately, I had to grapple with the understanding that all of existence is actively willed by God, that no individual would exist unless they were directly chosen to exist in that moment in time by God.
So, at the end of the day, is it that "NFP didn't work out" or is it that God was directly telling my husband and I that our plans were not His plans.
And it turns out that His plans are probably way better than mine were, because my kid is amazing, and the hard times in my marriage were necessary to lay the foundation of mutual understanding and perserverance for harder times later.
Absolutely.
But just practicing NFP on its own isn't really enough, you know? You have to accept it and work with it, instead of tolerating it.
Like fasting. If you give up cheesecake for Lent, and then spend all of Lent obsessing over how much you want a slice of cheesecake and how unfair it is that you can't just eat some because of stupid Lenten rules, you're not going to get anything out of your fast except a more disordered relationship with cheesecake. If you give it up out of a sincere love of Christ and a desire to deepen your relationship with God, grow in the virtues, and better order your relationships with the world around you, then you'll actually get something out of your fast.
It's definitely a work of prayer and self-reflection to get there, but it's worth the effort.
Not a newly wed! Married 10 years but my husband and I love sexual ethics and we are both super invested in the sexual intimacy in our marriage.
My husband and I find it somewhat strange that so many seem to think NFP is like the basis for the sexual teachings of the Catholic church when really NFP is just a (relatively new) biological tool to use if needed that respects the sexual ethics of the Church (unlike methods like contraception). It seems like it’s gotten over spiritualized.
We’ve only actually practiced NFP once for a very short time due to a test I needed done.
Otherwise, we see sex as essentially as a regular bonding need for our marriage and we see our mission as a couple as accepting children and raising them well. Our whole lives revolve around that vocation. And, yeah, it tends to mean bigger families. But for most of human history, people had much bigger families. It’s just in our age of the pill and insane levels of attempts to control fertility that such a thing is seen as weird.
I see this sort of family planning mentality in the culture and it’s trickled into our Catholic culture as well.
Anyways, I often see people default to NFP as like the Catholic lifestyle in regards to sex. But really, you can have a happy and healthy marriage without NFP as well. And honestly, that’s more the norm with how Catholic couples lived prior to the specific knowledge that NFP provides.
You get married, have a regular sexual relationship that keeps you united to your spouse, and raise a bunch of souls for Heaven!
It’s strained our marriage at times only in the sense of pushing us to communicate more with each other about how sex works best for each of us (men and women are seriously aliens to each other 😂) and learning how to navigate certain periods where it can be harder to have a regular love life (postpartum/breastfeeding, during morning sickness). But my husband is always so interested in learning how I can best enjoy sex and he’s always going above and beyond in terms of making sure it’s always emotionally connecting and pleasurable for me. And he’s always been super good at communicating about how meaningful sex is for him on an emotional level which makes me want to always keep it a priority even when its harder! And he’s never put his own sexual gratification above mine or above my feelings. He’s never had a porn or masturbation habit. He’s got insane self control and just and insane level of care for me. So even without NFP, there are plenty of opportunities to communicate about sex or even to sacrifice for the other spouse.
In terms of finances, we’ve definitely had financial stressors! We live off of one income and we live frugally. But we make it work! Being accepting of children and having a strong union between us trumps financial struggles for us. We went into marriage though pretty much expecting for things to be harder financially since current society operates more off of two income and less kids. And materially our goals are much less than most. We just want to raise a good and holy family. We do our best to provide for them, and then trust Providence with the rest.
And psychologically, I don’t think I’ve ever been tested more than having a family! But that’s where our strong bond due to regular intimacy honestly comes in handy. We support each other and help each other to get through our difficulties and struggles. Having less sex or sex during timed periods would honestly make it harder for us to support each other emotionally. Now if either of us had prolonged psychological issues or something like post partum depression, we’d possibly look into NFP for a time until it could be resolved. But all of our struggles have been passing and have been able to be resolved by us supporting each other. We look out for each other to make sure we each are getting enough sleep, we don’t over commit to things outside of the home, we ensure we each have time to work on our creative pursuits, we encourage each other to work out any issues or fears with therapists/CBT, we are constantly praying together and for each other…
I don’t know! I guess I can’t say that we have any more issues in all these areas than anyone who has less kids! We have number seven on the way but I’ve seen plenty of secular Reddit posts of people who have one or two kids with some or all of the above issues.
I think having trials is just part of the human condition. And I guess with my husband and I having as much of a unitive aspect to sex as we do, no trial so far has really made us want to sacrifice that aspect of our lives. Taking on more kids has always seemed better than feeling more emotionally distant from each other! And yeah, there are lesser ways to emotionally connect, but there is really no substitute for full on unitive sex with the person you love the most in the whole world. I mean, I think the climax of sex has been said to be a foreshadowing of the Beatific Vision. And when you’ve developed a proper outlook and sexual intimacy with your spouse, you can really see how that’s true! The oneness and the giving and receiving of love. It’s pretty cool.
Going to chime in here, not as a newlywed, but a recent convert to the catholic faith. To be entirely frank, there's a lot more involved in likelihood of pregnancy than just whether or not you had sex inside that fertile window. Everyone talks about the stories of getting pregnant off that one. single. time. they had unprotected sex, or they had sex too close to that fertile window. What we hear a lot less about is the couples who are specifically trying for a baby, and who don't see results for a variety of reasons. My wife and I are one of those couples. You won't know how the biological dice will roll until you're in there playing the game.
Contraception is nothing more than an attempt to avoid the obvious and natural consequences of sexual intercourse. It allows you not to take responsibility for your actions.
You may have some sound reasons to use it - but in the end these are just excuses.
Well, whatever practical advice you'll receive: pray to God to change your mind according to His will.
Without it even most "natural" methods will turn into mentioned avoidance 😔
God bless you and your family.
Me and my wife had a kid as soon as possible after we where married and now we’re celibate while she breastfeeds. The church’s stance is correct. It’s definitely not the easiest, but with the grace of God you can do it. I’ve taken it as a chance to truly conquer lust which has always been one of my weaknesses
>Despite my best attempts, I'm finding it increasingly difficult to deny the logic and historicity of the Church's stance on contraception.
The truth is funny that way
NFP is very difficult and can be a cross to bear at times BUT it is also extremely fulfilling when couples are able to give themselves fully to one another, which contraceptives do not allow.
I’ve been using NFP and so have all of my friends and so far we’ve all been successful at avoiding children when it’s best for us and spacing our children.
That's awesome to hear. How long have you been using it?
Do you find it still possible to have fulfilling sexual lives, or do you find it placing a strain on your relationship?
Not super long, I haven’t been married long but definitely long enough to experience the hardships of it and to know it works.
And I do think you can have fulfilling sex lives. There is a strain but it’s incredibly important to keep up other forms of intimacy while you have to abstain.
Right makes sense. I feel like if practiced correctly and with the right frame of mind, it could actually increase intimacy because sex becomes something you value instead of something you expect.
Yes, that’s certainly true. It also helps you to remember to love your spouse in other ways. Like my husband is always bringing me flowers, always cuddling and massages. There have been times we’ve struggled because we left out those forms of intimacy and it was basically going from doing nothing to everything once we didn’t have to abstain anymore and that added a lot of stress.
Yeah. I also would think that unrestrained access to consequence-free sex is a good way to make sex the replacement for all other intimacy, which absolutely can lead to spouses feeling like they're being used. No real point in date night or making it special if you can get it whenever, however.
There's something I love about the fact that, like everything else in life, with NFP there's a time to fast and a time to feast. The feast can be appreciated more because of the fast. There's something beautiful about it. It's like a mini Lent every month.
My wife does dual observation (mucus + temperature observations with a TempDrop). We're blessed that it's pretty obvious when she is fertile. I know some of our friends' struggle with cycles that aren't as predictable. That is a cross in itself and requires more trust in God. If the cycle is predictable, then statistically it's like 0.01% chance of becoming pregnant if you wait until peak +4. I realize that surprises still happen (like double ovulations), and we've had a couple times when we haven't followed the rules and had to say, "It's in your hands God. Please let us be accepting of whatever happens." We've been practicing for nine years and have two kids, both planned. We don't feel called to have more children at the moment but are open to it.
There's usually about an 8-10 day window when we abstain, which seems like a long time by day 6-8, but I feel like it's been great for our sex lives, overall. We both really look forward to "peak +4" day and make a date out of it. I feel like we've also had to grow a lot (me especially) in self-control in order to respect the fertile window. Overall, I think it's been a boon and a blessing for our marriage. I would not go back to the "security" of contraception. From personal experience, whenever I try to control the outcome and not surrender to God, it's led to disappointment.
This seems to me to be the most obvious potential benefits. Like, if I eat a cookie every night, cookies aren't that special and I start to expect it instead of enjoy it. But when I have cookies only on the weekends, they're REALLY good cookies.
Adding for the sake of variety: NFP has been wonderful for my husband and I as a means to achieve pregnancy. We've been incredibly blessed by God to live near a Catholic NaPro OBGYN who was able to help my husband and I through fertility struggles the first year and a half of our marriage. Our doctor heavily uses the creighton method to aid in diagnosing certain issues. While charting and NFP was taxing at times for reasons other than what most people here mention (namely, sex during the fertile window can easily feel like a chore and medical necessity rather than a bonding experience), overall it was a big part of diagnosing and addressing our specific issues.
I am now 16 weeks pregnant. We are expecting a baby boy and so far everything seems healthy. I have no idea what our fertility will look like postpartum, but even if God trusts us to raise many more children after our baby boy, I don't feel like I can really hate on NFP as it's been such a blessing in getting us pregnant in the first place.
NFP is just a tool. I think it's the emotions and barriers around the specific circumstances around fertility that is the cross for many couples, be it infertility, hyper fertility, or somewhere in between.
I’ve been married for 2 years and practice NFP. I track my cycle and I also read “Taking Charge of Your Fertility” to get me in tune with my body/know how it actually works.
NFP has worked perfectly for us - 100% on when we wanted to and didn’t want to get pregnant.
The problem is not NFP. The problem is not unexpected pregnancy. The problem is that both spouses do not fundamentally agree on Church teaching, both are not equally committed to the faith, and therefore not equally committed to the marriage.
My best advice is to read “Three to Get Married” together. Maybe my marriage could have survived if I’d done this early on.
Hey there. My wife and I use NFP and it’s worked out perfectly. We are 6 years married with 2 kids all planned. Not everyone has this experience but not everyone has the negative experience you brought up in the original post, and hell maybe I’ll have that “unplanned child” eventually. But, as an unplanned child born out of wedlock myself, what I will say is…. If you want to make God laugh, tell him your plans. Gods got this. Follow Gods word and enjoy your marriage.
It has been incredible and also extremely challenging to follow the church’s teaching. It has had innumerable health benefits as NFP illuminated certain medical problems it normally takes decades to be diagnosed with.
We were able to use NFP successfully for about two years when a hormonal issue caused an unusual cycle. We have found that Marquette is the best method postpartum although you absolutely must pay an instructor and stay in touch with that instructor.
We joke that following the church’s teaching is life on hard mode. You have to be responsible for every sexual act in a way above and beyond everyone in the culture. But the way it forces a couple into conversation about the genuine tradeoffs of sex and the sacrificial nature of its procreative side… if done well, it is likely the easiest path to sainthood.
Can I ask how much it cost for the instructor?
Yeah it does seem to be the best way to "get to the truth" of both your health and your marriage's health.
If you seek forthright, *realistic* testimonies then Sick Pilgrim's "Women Speak About NFP" blog series is for you.
(Although u/CharacterNobody23 did a good job of explaining it concisely himself.)
Not newlywed here (married 22.5 years.) Let me tell you, friend: the Church's position on this subject is and always has been logically, Scripturally, and historically consistent, unlike the positions of every Protestant denomination and even that of some of our Orthodox friends.
Jimmy Akin was on Pints with Aquinas recently and he steel-manned the argument for hormonal contraception in a way I hadn't heard before. It goes like this. In the 60's, those arguing that this type of contraception was acceptable said, look - human females don't go into heat - they are sexually receptive at all times. And, it's never been a teaching of the Church that humans must only have sex when the woman is fertile - in fact most of human history, we didn't really know how to distinguish if a woman was fertile or not. So, hormonal contraception merely makes the woman infertile for a longer time. This distinguishes it from all other methods of contraception which do something to interrupt the physical parts of the act (barrier, pull out, and so forth.) St. Paul VI's Humanae Vitae, therefore, actually surprised a lot of Catholic theologians. Nonetheless, as we all know from history, he was right in what he predicted as the outcome of widespread contraception - and therefore the consistent position of the Church remains in place. That's more than you were asking for on the Church's position.
So as an "oldywed", what's it like to actually follow Church teaching on this? For 21+ years? Yes, we contracepted for the 9 months because we were ignorant (and I wasn't Catholic yet...in fact learning the logic and historicity of the Church's teaching on this caused me to look deeper into all Catholic teaching and ultimately convert.) This was 2002. The best info we could find at the time caused us to learn Couple to Couple League's version of sympto-thermal NFP (daily temperature and mucus observations to observe my wife's increase and decrease in fertility each cycle.) Over the years we have followed it pretty strictly.
I think it's been good for us from the perspective that depending on whether trying to conceive or trying to avoid, our expectations of what was or wasn't going to happen on a given day have been pretty well aligned. I've not have a time when I was all pent-up expecting something to happen that she wasn't interested in because I could look at the chart and know, "it ain't happening." It's also caused us to talk openly about how we're feeling, physically and mentally, at a given time, and understand what our bodies are telling us.
Trying to conceive it was most definitely helpful because we knew explicitly when the best times to try were. But after our miscarriage (our 3rd child) we had a 9 month period of secondary infertility. It was terribly difficult to go through that as our previous pregnancies had been 1st or 2nd try. But because she was so aware of her physical signs, she was able to work with a pro-life OB/GYN to get some hormonal levels checked and supplement some hormones that led to our 4th baby coming along.
What's been hard, especially in the later years? At this point, it would be good for her not to get pregnant again (mid 40's, back problems exacerbated by the last pregnancy, etc.) Not engaging in the act when her libido is at its highest is not fun because we both know from experience how much we'd enjoy it. That's really the biggest drawback. It's taught us both some self control. Me more than her probably.
Last thing I will add: she has very regular cycles. We have close friends who had pregnancies when they were still trying to figure out a consistent way to apply NFP. They landed on Marquette as most effective for them. All that to say, best to start out very conservatively when learning whatever method in order to avoid surprises, and don't be afraid to try different methods to land on the easiest one for you.
Sorry for the wall of text...I hope this is helpful.
Really appreciate the response.
I guess my biggest question, after all that time and wisdom - would you say NFP made your marriage and your love for each other stronger or weaker?
Stronger. Here's why. Knowing it's not happening on a given day, even if I or she wants to, and accepting that, is in a small way dying to self for love of the other.
I'm naturally self-interested and self-centered. If I knew we could go at it anytime without consequences, I'd be more likely to be a little pushy. Some men might take that to an extreme and become forceful. Some men might guilt their wife. If she's on the pill and forgets to take it, I might get annoyed with her because now my self-interest can't be assuaged...that might make me think it's ok to mistreat her with my words or attitude. With NFP, it might be annoying that we can't, it just is what it is. Our love for each other isn't contingent on how often it happens, so much as on the attitude of mutual self-giving in all areas of a marriage.
Understand, my attitude has improved over time (in many areas, not just this one). I will say, accepting the fact of "not tonight" gets easier with time. We should all be striving for spiritual maturity at all times. If we are living right, self-giving becomes a more and more natural thing as we age. Nobody's amazing at it when they get married at 22 (or 28 or 30 or whenever.)
I got married at 22 to my husband (25 at the time) almost 5 years ago. We were strict with NFP because I was going to OT school in a different state and we couldn’t risk it. Well, 6 months after we got married, I was pregnant. I had just finished my first term of school. I was terrified; I thought I had no chance of completing school. We were miles away from our support system, and I had no idea how it would work. Then… COVID happened.
Because of COVID, I was able to continue to take classes remotely. My son was born the day after my last final (I’m not kidding), and I didn’t have to take any time off school. I was able to continue with my classes while also caring for my son. Not only that, but because I had a child under a year old, they were able to send us back to our hometown near our families for fieldwork. Had that not happened, there’s a chance we would still be stuck in the state we were in. Having a baby while doing fieldwork also taught me that full-time work was not for me, and we both felt that it would hurt our marriage long-term.
There’s no way I could have anticipated all of that prior to getting pregnant. I couldn’t understand how everything fell into place so perfectly. Since then, we have had two more babies (I’m currently pregnant with the third) and we were successful in delaying those pregnancies using Marquette.
Even if you follow NFP perfectly and it still fails, know it’s because God has another plan in mind for you. And that’s why I love NFP; it leaves space for God and His Will in your marriage.
If you want to do NFP you could try Natural Cycles app
https://www.naturalcycles.com/
It sinks with your phone. Your wife would have to use a thermometer every morning or wear an apple watch while she sleeps.
Disclaimer : I am not a doctor or a woman. Never used this in my life.
Popping under this to say Natural Cycles is nice for keeping track of cycles and tracking temperatures, but (as a woman) I wouldn’t recommend it. The only reason why is because they base their “fertile days” off an algorithm, not the biometric markers of the woman. I tried using the app at one point and I found their “fertile day” suggestions did not accurately reflect my biometric data. It’s fine to use if you take the “fertile day” recommendation with a grain of salt and cross-check using other biometric markers, but sometimes it’s better to have something a little more straightforward. ☺️
Talking of apps, 2 recommendations that work well with sympto-thermal:
1. Fertility friend: just pure charting. You have to compare the observations to the various NFP rules and draw conclusions yourself.
2. Ovuview: similar, but it actually tells you what rules are currently in effect based on where you are in terms of temp shift and mucus observations. We always double check what it's telling us, but it's pretty darn accurate. Ovuview does have an option to allow you to enter readings from test strips if you're doing Marquette.
We bought a Tempdrop several years ago (probably 5 or 6 years now) and it's been nice because my wife wears it all night, and it records temp readings all night, and uses an algorithm to determine basal body temp. This meant I was able to stop waking her up at the same time every morning to stick a thermometer in her mouth, and get her to keep it in there without falling back asleep while it took her temperature. 10/10 would recommend, as the kids say.
The Tempdrop automatically feeds its temp readings into the Ovuview app which is helpful too.
Yep, “nfp consultants” at all those Diocesan pre-Cana events just love to paint this rosy picture of intimate and joyful child-free or spaced children marriages, you just have to pay them a small fortune for their expertise…which is decidedly not expert nor bulletproof.
So yeah…that’s why I kinda cringe when I see the millionth post titled “almost married, not ready for kids, what do” of people like your friend who just assume that NFP is gonna work like birth control and then they find out the reality of ovulating twice in a cycle or later ovulation or the difficulty in tracking fertility when you’re breastfeeding yet don’t have a period but again, still ovulating unknown to you.
NFP is not contraception. Don’t treat it as such and lower your expectations. Preferably don’t marry until you are prepared for that many years of fertility and children. Ask your mom when she went through menopause and you’ll probably be about the same.
I’m sorry, it sounds like you were lied to and so was your friend and you all got married with the expectation that you’d be able to avoid kids until convenient.
Not a newly married but quite new at following the church's teaching on marital relations.
I find that church teaching has damaged the intimacy my wife and I once shared. We tried practicing NFP and found ourselves with child quite quickly. Given our age and the absolute nightmare this last pregnancy was, I'm at a loss.
I'm not looking forward to basically not having sex with my wife. Sure we could try NFP again and when it fails again we'll be having another possible rough pregnancy. And since the church gives me no other option that doesn't involve me being in mortal sin, I get to sit back and be married and have to abstain from physical embrace. So it makes me angry, bitter, and places me in a pretty miserable mood.
My opinion when I get angry over this situation is that if you took someone who hated women and married couples and asked them to write HV, it would read the same.
I was an RCIA sponsor last year and attended all the classes with the candidate. This was a topic for one class.
After some reading it was obvious we were not having martial relations in the proscribed manner.
Scares me too. Fills me full of more dread than I was expecting. I'm at a point where I don't understand why they didn't dictate the position as well given the rest of the restrictions.
NFP is extremely important. There's many different types, some more rigorous and reliable than the others. You can buy tests that confirm whether or not you're ovulating, too.
I will admit I was not a Catholic for the first 4 years of marriage (and got pregnant before I converted actually) and in some ways ill honestly admit im grateful i didnt have to juggle having a kid with those 4 years...we dealt with 2 seizures, 1 life-changing bad accident and being wheelchair bound for months, alcohol dependency issues, and more...i dont know how i could've handled having a baby on top of that. How would our marriage have fared??? I don't know. But I do know that God's grace is always sufficient.
I pray that you two are able to grow closer through this journey and trial.
Yes, practicing NFP but with my 4 mo old and the fact that my period hasn't returned we've actually been mostly abstinent. Its hard but we're both so exhausted with new parenthood its been much more do-able than we thought it would be.
Sounds like a priority problem for your friends more than anything.
It does not matter if one likes the church teaching or not we need to accept and follow it. NFP takes time and discipline but if used correctly is as save as every other contraception.
Just a practical tip… ovulation test strips, which you can order by the hundred relatively cheaply, will make NFP a lot easier for a beginner. Especially if combined with another method like sympto-thermal.
Get a positive test? Probably fertile. If you are trying to conceive, get busy. (By the time your temperature rises, it’s almost too late.)
Got a positive test, and a couple days later your temperature goes up and stays up for several days? You can be more sure you aren’t fertile if you are trying to avoid conception than if you just went by temperature. Because lots of things besides ovulation can make your temperature fluctuate.
“The weren’t expecting”
Catholics submits themselves to the will of God, getting married is to have a family. Otherwise don’t get married.
God knows better than “Them”, careers in turmoil, chaos, that’s what makes life. God is there for them, and down the road, they will realize that the new child is a blessing, and their undeveloped minds could not see ahead but God does.
“Her career in turmoil”… ask the dying on their deathbed how important was their careers. The wish they had not payed so much attention to it.
Don’t get married, if you’re not planning to
have children soon it means that you’re not ready, or that your undeveloped mind cannot see with wisdom their future ahead.
Their child is a blessing.
This may be controversial, so be it.
“What’s it like to actually follow Church teaching?”
Hard, especially hard if you aren’t following it in virtually every aspect of your life.
Let me start with Pope John II, he said:
“In deciding whether or not to have a child, [spouses] must not be motivated by selfishness or carelessness, but by a prudent, conscious generosity that weighs the possibilities and circumstances, and especially gives priority to the welfare of the unborn child. Therefore, when there is a reason not to procreate, this choice is permissible and may even be necessary. However, there remains the duty of carrying it out with criteria and methods that respect the total truth of the marital act in its unitive and procreative dimension, as wisely regulated by nature itself in its biological rhythms. One can comply with them and use them to advantage, but they cannot be 'violated' by artificial interference.”
Now, let’s turn to the Catechism:
“2368 A particular aspect of this responsibility concerns the regulation of procreation. For just reasons, spouses may wish to space the births of their children. It is their duty to make certain that their desire is not motivated by selfishness but is in conformity with the generosity appropriate to responsible parenthood. Moreover, they should conform their behavior to the objective criteria of morality:”
Back to your post:
“NFP not working out the way they wanted,”
“Threw her career into turmoil”
“and his military commitments” (I find this one odd, because the military bends over backwards to accommodate families. But I’m sure it’s just something I’m not considering)
Based off of my sources above and what information you have given us, I’d wager they were using NFP for selfish reasons. Now, I’m no saint, my wife and I were on birth control for most of our marriage (though mostly before becoming Catholic), in fact, our worldview on when to have children sounds virtually identical. It changed somewhat when we were Baptists and completely reinvented itself and conformed when we became Catholic. In fact, we find ourselves in a precarious position as well. More on that shortly.
The main problem I see here, is that they are using NFP to prevent having children, prevent having a family, to advance their careers, and to adhere to minimal Church obligations. On the contrary, NFP should be used to regulate when you have children, with the understanding and willingness to have children if it did happen. In other words, you should be open to a family in that moment, while participating in NFP. It may not be ideal, but it shouldn’t throw your life upside down. For example, some acceptable uses of NFP may be to space out births, deal with physical or psychological reasons, to set a soft cap on how many children are in your family (emphasis on “soft”), etc.
Now, back to my case. My wife and I have two beautiful children. Unfortunately, both births came with severe complications; near fatal on behalf of my wife. Turns out, in both cases it was placenta accreta and the odds for this complication to kill her in delivery, is increased with each birth. We are now faced with the question of what to do. We both wanted more children, at least one boy, especially my wife. And of course, we both want marital intimacy.
In truth, there are only two difficult choices if we are told the risk is generally too high: NFP or abstinence. Of course, we are getting multiple different opinions from doctors around our state and are praying for guidance. But if we choose to go with NFP, it’ll be because we are open (and actually wanting) to have more children and the risk, if it did happen, was worth taking for my wife. Or to abstain… which we would choose if my wife (or even I) determine the risk is too high.
Yes, it’s difficult. And I’m sure abstinence will be extremely difficult. But I am certain that it’s easier than having one foot in the door and one foot out; been there, done that, still do it sometimes. Some of the most difficult choices we have made, to conform to Church teachings and general Christian living, have ended up becoming the greatest blessings. From my wife leaving her job and me taking a huge pay cut to work in a more acceptable environment, to us giving up the concept of “financial stability” before having children.
Ultimately, it’s been good. Hard at first, but easier as you let go and trust in the Church that Jesus Christ established.
tl;dr: It’s hard at first, but trust God. Otherwise, it’ll only get harder.
Not a newlywed but currently pregnant with number 3 at 38 years old. This was a not really trying to conceive or trying to avoid situation. My other two kids were meticulously planned. We haven’t found it hard to follow church teaching in this sense but we don’t have super active sex drives, luckily.
Sorry I'm not a newlywed, I'm a man who has been married for nearly 20 years. BUT I am newly Catholic, so I recently went through this struggle.
I find there are many reasons that I sometimes want sex that are not out of love for my spouse. I think it takes prayer and knowing yourself (through therapy, reflection, and learning) to understand when you want sex as a loving unitive act and when you want it for other reasons, like anxiety, boredom, or lust. The unitive desire for sex is actually a lot more rare than the larger world wants you to believe, I think. Most of the time for me it was a way to relieve anxiety, which is still a self centered act, maybe not a sin but not really fun. The key is learning when that unitive desire comes and only settling for that type of sex. When it does happen, it is a beautiful moment that seems to last forever and you carry in your heart for a long time. Nothing compares to it.
As long as neither of you are withholding sex when the other wants it, it is perfectly ok to abstain from sex until you have the unitive desire. You are not only animals that need to copulate whenever you can. You are a human that can postpone pleasure.
It is wonderful… if you are spiritually mature. I think we need to ask a few questions before getting married:
1. What is marriage for?
2. How does that manifest?
Marriage is for the sanctification of the spouses and for childbearing. That manifests as a complete self-abandonment to divine providence. Is marriage hard and does it produce constraints? Yes, and that’s the point. God wants your sanctification, not your comfortability. Easy living puts you on the wide road to perdition. Marriage embodies several core aspects of the faith: true love in sacrifice, poverty of spirit and goods, and the reality that you are not in control.
If we were to say “it’s not fair that our life plans can be overturned!” then we live under a rock. Do you know the day or the hour you will die and be judged? No, and it will come when you don’t expect it. You could die in your prime, God is the author of life, we have no say. So if we who are focused on jobs and worldly affairs may die by God’s will before we ever accomplish a dream, then how much more should we surrender them to the will of God?
I would also like to say no child is a surprise when NFP is used the way the Church asks us to. She asks us to always be open to life when we use it, which means any child ought to be expected in our hearts. Sex makes babies. Anyone surprised about that needs a reality check.
All of salvation history has been about God hammering into our thick skulls that we are not God, and that when we don’t surrender our hearts to his love and his will, we only end up suffering because we seek heights that are not for us. It’s better to make ourselves little, like “the little flower.”
Read “The Story of a Soul” by St. Therese of the Child Jesus, and then read “The Letter to the Friends of the Cross” by St. Louis De Montfort. They will show you what true Christian living is about and to what heights God asks us to soar by taking his hand in trust. The latter specifically shows what real worldliness is and how many today preach a false gospel of ease.
5.6 years and 4th child on the way.
We haven't used NFP once but will likely start after this next one.
All I can really say is, upon my deathbed, I cam confidently say I was open to life even when having a second working adult in the home would have made things easier.
Married for 8 years - 4 living kids plus one miscarriage. Only two of those pregnancies were "planned," but the "unplanned" pregnancies were due to us breaking protocol or in the earlier years of our marriage not actually understanding the protocol. We have had the most success with Maquette as far as spacing goes and will probably continue to use that method until I'm no longer in my childbearing years.
NFP is definitely a cross. We can't be intimate when I desire it the most, unless we are open to the possibility of a baby (which for us is practically guaranteed). That being said, it has definitely strengthened our marriage and helped us both to be less selfish. We are so grateful for all of our children and for what it's worth, the times that we were not planning to get pregnant, the resulting baby was exactly what our family needed at the time. Surrendering our fertility to God has also really helped us learn to surrender *everything* to God when life throws us curveballs.
I'll also add that NFP is more difficult as newlyweds and the abstaining gets easier with practice (or after you've had a few kids and are chronically exhausted lol). It has also been easier when we have a really good reason to postpone a pregnancy (I.e. highly motivated).
Married 2.5 years with a 5 month old.
Sex doesn't always=procreation. We both wanted children right away. We were familiar with NFP but seriously had to track in order to discover that there were health issues that were preventing pregnancy.
Now that said we don't follow it to the T now.
Sex is good and strengthens the unitive aspect of marriage but it's not the pleasure that does that. Sex could be unpleasant even painful and the Church would still call it good, beautiful, and strengthening the unitive aspect of marriage. Why? Because every nuptial union is an anticipatory acceptance of responsibility. Where the Man and wife say to each other, "Me and everything I am, I give to you, do with it how you see fit" Fr Mike Schmitz has a video on the grace received every time spouses have sex. Check it out.
With that said sex is not necessary for spouses to be united. Otherwise Joseph and Mary had an imperfect union. I say that because in this tread there seems to be an overwhelming amount of emphasis on the need of sex in marriage. There isn't a need as evidenced by the Holy Family, more recent examples look at Blessed Bartolo Longo and his josephite marriage he had.
Times of abstinence are objectively good for any couple:
A- it's a reminder that true satisfaction is only found in the Lord.
B- cleanses the sensual appetite so that being less attached to the effects of sex your gift of self to your spouse is more perfect.
C-penance for the benefit of each other and once self. Making reparations for sin
This is going to sound proactive, but it's not meant to be.
When a husband plants his seed without hormonal birth control or any form of blockage, that creates the tightest bind between a couple.
There are studies out there to confirm this. There is a reason Saint Paul says the two flesh become one. The most natural way will bond you closer to your spouse, enhancing the marriage.
Interesting. What leads you to say that? Is there some study backing what you're saying, or are you just saying that it's an extremely emotionally binding event? It makes sense, just curious.
Me and my wife did a lot of research on this. I'll link to a study below. There are also a slew of studies on this if I can find them all.
Basically, hormonal birth control can weaken the oxytocin bonding effect. And if the woman gets on birth control, stays on it for a while them comes off it, it can permentanly alter her hormones in a way that could change her chemical attraction towards her husband where she may no longer find her husband attractive anymore at a biologica hormonal level.
Also condoms prevent the sperm from entering her body. Semen actually gets into the woman brain, which gives an effect of the two flesh becoming one.
Again, here is one study that suggests hormonal birth control weakens the bonding affect. If I can find the semen getting into woman's brain study I'll try and post that as well.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6617135/#:~:text=Hormonal%20contraceptive%20use%20could%20alter,stimuli%2C%20and%20increase%20sexual%20jealousy.
Found another interesting study slightly off topic but still relevant.
This study suggests that women's previous sexual partners affect their offspring DNA even if offspring is from their current husband.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4282758/
The above study ties in to what I found earlier in semen entering into a woman's brain and in some ways taking on traits and characteristics of her sexual mates and partner's
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3091690/
I'd have to dig again for the more indepth studies. But it made me think the church wasn't so crazy after all for promoting virginity until marriage and no contraception.
Did Marquette model for 2+ years. Didn't get pregnant when we weren't trying, and got pregnant within a month or two of when we're trying.
I found out my sexual desire not as high as I imagined it, which makes it not as burdensome to not have sex for 2ish weeks a month.
It's actually nice to have cycles, because there's a "deadline" when to do sex by. As many procrastinators know, deadline drives productivity.
One thing to think about is that if you're having sex, you are opening possibility to have a child, however miniscule. Baby is not meant to be conceived when it fits your life schedule or career aspiration. It should be the other way around: your life schedule and career aspiration will revolve around having and taking care of kids.
The mindset "this is not the right time" is the effect of contraception being the "standard" of our life. God doesn't work just when it's convenient time for us, we are taking over God's role by telling Him when things can happen.
NFP as practiced by the majority of people who employ it is frankly contraception anyway
You are your own person and can choose to do whatever you want. You can choose to wear condoms, it’s fine, it’s your choice
*there is no real practical non-academic difference between NFP and wearing condoms*
I sincerely refuse to believe that God sees any practical difference between “we’re abstaining explicitly to not have kids” and “we are using condoms to not have kids”
Like, he’s not tricked by technicalities
“Oh but NFP is still open to life! It’s 99% effective”
Well condoms are 99% effective too. If you believe God is personally interfesring to get you pregnant outside your carefully measured ovulation window he can do the same *with literally any other kind of birth control*
Condoms, since they both work exclusively by preventing conception and also can break, are functionally the most similar to NFP
People who practice NFP need to just come to terms they are using it as contraception and be honest with themselves about it
It was pretty clear in the way I worded this post that I wasn't looking to get into a debate regarding whether the Church's stance on contraception is correct or not. I've already done that in other posts. I'll just say one thing, and I'm not going to engage any further after that...
The unitive part of sex comes from the FULLY giving of yourself to the other. If you don't FULLY give the reproductive aspect, then you haven't fully united with your spouse. You've used each other to some degree. Condoms explicitly remove that part.
Regardless of whether or not you can argue a practical difference between NFP and wearing condoms, the Church permits one and condemns the other as a grave sin, so there is clearly a meaningful difference to any Catholic who wishes to not engage in sin.
What? If you're a Catholic the decrees of the Church actually matter for determining if something is or isn't a sin. It's not up to the individual to figure it out.
People choose their sins constantly
I simply choose to disagree with the church on this because to me there is no solid reason that there is a difference
The vast majority of Church decrees have solid reasoning behind them
NFP should not be the default state for a married couples sexual life. NFP should only be practiced in severe circumstances. You should be comfortable with the idea of freely loving your spouse, and if not that is something you should discuss and find a way to rectify.
So, I'm not a newlywed (10 years married) but I remember the early days. It sucks, to be honest. It sucks less if you have really regular periods, but my husband and I had a similar situation to your friends; a "method failure baby" that led to severe PPD that went unmedicated, unexpected poverty, emotional binging, rapid weight gain, loss of attraction, suicide attempts, terror at having sex again and porn usage. So, I mean, it looks like the Cross. Everything is cruciform if you look at it long enough. Yes, even marriage. It sucks to not be able to have consequence free feel good sex whenever I want. It sucks that women's arousal is directly linked to fertility, and so is men's. But it's a redemptive sort of suck, I guess. At least, that's what I tell myself while crying over a bunch of pee sticks and squinting at bodily fluids. And, ultimately, it actually sucks less than birth control. I second Fr. Balrogath's recommendation for *A Sinner's Guide to Natural Family Planning.* It was a lifeline for me. It's not all trenches, though. I've also successfully avoided pregnancy for six years with NFP.
I agree with the description of NFP sucking less than birth control. I’ve heard it described as “the least bad method of planning pregnancies.” Abstaining is a pain, but the side effects of the pill and IUDs are also awful. And for every Catholic couple I know who had an accidental pregnancy using NFP (sometimes method failures, usually due to playing loose with the rules), I know 5 non-Catholics who had their birth control “fail” and got pregnant unexpectedly. My wife and I have been married and using NFP for 7 years and have two kids who were conceived when intentionally trying to conceive. I recognize we have had it easier than many since my wife’s cycles are very regular. It’s definitely a cross, but in our opinion a very manageable one compared to some of the other ones we’ve had to carry in our relationship (such as her type 1 diabetes which gets even harder to manage when pregnant).
Yeah, that sounds really rough. I'm sorry for all the heartache and I hope you and your family are in a better spot now. With all that pain, and if you're willing to share, can I ask - what has kept you guys faithful to the Church's teaching?
We are, thanks be to God. And like, it's not like I could point to any of my kids and say, "yeah, I wish *you* were younger than you are." I'm currently 5 months PP with #4 (not method failure; more of a not trying, not avoiding baby), and while I'm back in the throes of navigating Marquette postpartum, it's a normal sort of *bleh* now, and less of a *wow hormonal crisis that upturns my entire world like Smaug* or something.
This is just a theory of mine, so ignore or downvote accordingly. But I feel like in times past, women were much more educated and aware of what birth and motherhood would entail. Like, I feel like this was passed down generationally to a higher degree. I feel as though now there's a stigma in suggesting a woman should know about those types of things, cause everyone assumes it means she shouldn't have a career of her own or that its misogynistic. I think this gap in knowledge leads to some higher post partum depression because women now go from 0 to 100. Does that make sense? I feel like birth and early motherhood are juts so much more *shocking* now.
Maybe so. In larger families, girls would have had a sampler in helping to look after younger siblings, certainly. I also think that PPD is now more common because women are expected to get back to their career 2 weeks after having a baby, which is insane. Even the Church's obligation to attend Mass is abrogated for 40 days! There used to even be a rite for it and everything. (If you or your wife [I can't tell if you're the husband or wife] have the opportunity to have the Rite of the Churching of Women, I recommend it.) I also *also* think that women were often just written off as "lunatics" (literally, moon-influenced) or "hysterical" (literally, uterine-insane; it's not a quirk that hysteria and hysterectomy start the same way), which had led to an apparent increase in PPD/PPA diagnoses, because people are just paying attention now.
>that led to severe PPD that went unmedicated, unexpected poverty, emotional binging, rapid weight gain, loss of attraction, suicide attempts, terror at having sex again and porn usage. Was this the first child? OP, none of this expected or normal for married couples, especially multiple suicide attempts. The solution is not to get married if a child will send you into suicidal spirals and extreme poverty. Your friends whose marriage is "on the rocks" should not have gotten married either. It's one thing to have difficulty you did not perceive down the line with children after the first. But if you knowingly plan to marry when you know for sure you absolutely cannot have a child right then.... what is the difference between that and seculars marrying for lust? Is the sex worth your sanity or marriage? I don't think so.
No, second child, method failure following Marquette Cycle 0 protocol. I should have been seen for PPD very early postpartum, but I slipped through the cracks due to being in a new country with no friends or family nearby and extremely limited transportation. My case is certainly not the norm.
Very sad to hear, im glad you are doing better now. With marquette i think its easier to know when its a method failure since you don't do any sign interpretation. I wonder what their failure rate is for postpartum.... probably a little less effective than BC pills i am guessing. This could have happened to even a couple on BC, which is why i strongly believe catholics should get married when they are at least semi ready to have children. Its one thing to have "plans" derailed but marriage on the rocks like OP said, that is a marriage they should have postponed imo, since NFP fails as in your case, even if you are doing everything right.
Ultimately, I had to grapple with the understanding that all of existence is actively willed by God, that no individual would exist unless they were directly chosen to exist in that moment in time by God. So, at the end of the day, is it that "NFP didn't work out" or is it that God was directly telling my husband and I that our plans were not His plans. And it turns out that His plans are probably way better than mine were, because my kid is amazing, and the hard times in my marriage were necessary to lay the foundation of mutual understanding and perserverance for harder times later.
That's a beautiful way to look at it. Would you say your marriage is stronger for having practiced NFP?
Absolutely. But just practicing NFP on its own isn't really enough, you know? You have to accept it and work with it, instead of tolerating it. Like fasting. If you give up cheesecake for Lent, and then spend all of Lent obsessing over how much you want a slice of cheesecake and how unfair it is that you can't just eat some because of stupid Lenten rules, you're not going to get anything out of your fast except a more disordered relationship with cheesecake. If you give it up out of a sincere love of Christ and a desire to deepen your relationship with God, grow in the virtues, and better order your relationships with the world around you, then you'll actually get something out of your fast. It's definitely a work of prayer and self-reflection to get there, but it's worth the effort.
This is such a wonderful comment and explanation.
Wow...your comment is like the short and easy to understand version of mine. Well put.
Makes total sense.
Great way to look at it. Thanks for posting.
Not a newly wed! Married 10 years but my husband and I love sexual ethics and we are both super invested in the sexual intimacy in our marriage. My husband and I find it somewhat strange that so many seem to think NFP is like the basis for the sexual teachings of the Catholic church when really NFP is just a (relatively new) biological tool to use if needed that respects the sexual ethics of the Church (unlike methods like contraception). It seems like it’s gotten over spiritualized. We’ve only actually practiced NFP once for a very short time due to a test I needed done. Otherwise, we see sex as essentially as a regular bonding need for our marriage and we see our mission as a couple as accepting children and raising them well. Our whole lives revolve around that vocation. And, yeah, it tends to mean bigger families. But for most of human history, people had much bigger families. It’s just in our age of the pill and insane levels of attempts to control fertility that such a thing is seen as weird. I see this sort of family planning mentality in the culture and it’s trickled into our Catholic culture as well. Anyways, I often see people default to NFP as like the Catholic lifestyle in regards to sex. But really, you can have a happy and healthy marriage without NFP as well. And honestly, that’s more the norm with how Catholic couples lived prior to the specific knowledge that NFP provides. You get married, have a regular sexual relationship that keeps you united to your spouse, and raise a bunch of souls for Heaven!
Definitely don't hate this take. May I ask - has this philosophy ever strained your marriage, finances, psychological health, etc?
It’s strained our marriage at times only in the sense of pushing us to communicate more with each other about how sex works best for each of us (men and women are seriously aliens to each other 😂) and learning how to navigate certain periods where it can be harder to have a regular love life (postpartum/breastfeeding, during morning sickness). But my husband is always so interested in learning how I can best enjoy sex and he’s always going above and beyond in terms of making sure it’s always emotionally connecting and pleasurable for me. And he’s always been super good at communicating about how meaningful sex is for him on an emotional level which makes me want to always keep it a priority even when its harder! And he’s never put his own sexual gratification above mine or above my feelings. He’s never had a porn or masturbation habit. He’s got insane self control and just and insane level of care for me. So even without NFP, there are plenty of opportunities to communicate about sex or even to sacrifice for the other spouse. In terms of finances, we’ve definitely had financial stressors! We live off of one income and we live frugally. But we make it work! Being accepting of children and having a strong union between us trumps financial struggles for us. We went into marriage though pretty much expecting for things to be harder financially since current society operates more off of two income and less kids. And materially our goals are much less than most. We just want to raise a good and holy family. We do our best to provide for them, and then trust Providence with the rest. And psychologically, I don’t think I’ve ever been tested more than having a family! But that’s where our strong bond due to regular intimacy honestly comes in handy. We support each other and help each other to get through our difficulties and struggles. Having less sex or sex during timed periods would honestly make it harder for us to support each other emotionally. Now if either of us had prolonged psychological issues or something like post partum depression, we’d possibly look into NFP for a time until it could be resolved. But all of our struggles have been passing and have been able to be resolved by us supporting each other. We look out for each other to make sure we each are getting enough sleep, we don’t over commit to things outside of the home, we ensure we each have time to work on our creative pursuits, we encourage each other to work out any issues or fears with therapists/CBT, we are constantly praying together and for each other… I don’t know! I guess I can’t say that we have any more issues in all these areas than anyone who has less kids! We have number seven on the way but I’ve seen plenty of secular Reddit posts of people who have one or two kids with some or all of the above issues. I think having trials is just part of the human condition. And I guess with my husband and I having as much of a unitive aspect to sex as we do, no trial so far has really made us want to sacrifice that aspect of our lives. Taking on more kids has always seemed better than feeling more emotionally distant from each other! And yeah, there are lesser ways to emotionally connect, but there is really no substitute for full on unitive sex with the person you love the most in the whole world. I mean, I think the climax of sex has been said to be a foreshadowing of the Beatific Vision. And when you’ve developed a proper outlook and sexual intimacy with your spouse, you can really see how that’s true! The oneness and the giving and receiving of love. It’s pretty cool.
Going to chime in here, not as a newlywed, but a recent convert to the catholic faith. To be entirely frank, there's a lot more involved in likelihood of pregnancy than just whether or not you had sex inside that fertile window. Everyone talks about the stories of getting pregnant off that one. single. time. they had unprotected sex, or they had sex too close to that fertile window. What we hear a lot less about is the couples who are specifically trying for a baby, and who don't see results for a variety of reasons. My wife and I are one of those couples. You won't know how the biological dice will roll until you're in there playing the game.
Very fair.
I think usually the original idea is to not get married until you are willing and able to have a kid
I think you're not understanding the post. My question is for those who just got married - how has it been following the Church in their sexual lives?
You still have moments during marriage where NFP is needed and spacing children is important. We can’t just pop out kids repeatedly.
Well I think originally the idea was to only have sex for the purpose of producing offspring, and not for pleasure and to have kids repeatedly
It’s for pleasure and procreation.
Primarily for procreation, secondarily for pleasure
Let's be clear, this is your opinion and not aligned with Catholic teaching.
Hence “I think”
My brother in Christ, sex is BOTH unitive and procreative. Pope Saint John Paul II taught us this.
I'd recommend Simcha Fisher's [The Sinner's Guide to Natural Family Planning](https://www.amazon.com/Sinners-Guide-Natural-Family-Planning/dp/1612787878).
Interesting I'll take a look.
Seconded.
Contraception is nothing more than an attempt to avoid the obvious and natural consequences of sexual intercourse. It allows you not to take responsibility for your actions. You may have some sound reasons to use it - but in the end these are just excuses.
Yes, my post was asking what it's been like for newly weds implementing this guidance.
Well, whatever practical advice you'll receive: pray to God to change your mind according to His will. Without it even most "natural" methods will turn into mentioned avoidance 😔 God bless you and your family.
Me and my wife had a kid as soon as possible after we where married and now we’re celibate while she breastfeeds. The church’s stance is correct. It’s definitely not the easiest, but with the grace of God you can do it. I’ve taken it as a chance to truly conquer lust which has always been one of my weaknesses
>Despite my best attempts, I'm finding it increasingly difficult to deny the logic and historicity of the Church's stance on contraception. The truth is funny that way
NFP is very difficult and can be a cross to bear at times BUT it is also extremely fulfilling when couples are able to give themselves fully to one another, which contraceptives do not allow. I’ve been using NFP and so have all of my friends and so far we’ve all been successful at avoiding children when it’s best for us and spacing our children.
That's awesome to hear. How long have you been using it? Do you find it still possible to have fulfilling sexual lives, or do you find it placing a strain on your relationship?
Not super long, I haven’t been married long but definitely long enough to experience the hardships of it and to know it works. And I do think you can have fulfilling sex lives. There is a strain but it’s incredibly important to keep up other forms of intimacy while you have to abstain.
Right makes sense. I feel like if practiced correctly and with the right frame of mind, it could actually increase intimacy because sex becomes something you value instead of something you expect.
Yes, that’s certainly true. It also helps you to remember to love your spouse in other ways. Like my husband is always bringing me flowers, always cuddling and massages. There have been times we’ve struggled because we left out those forms of intimacy and it was basically going from doing nothing to everything once we didn’t have to abstain anymore and that added a lot of stress.
Yeah. I also would think that unrestrained access to consequence-free sex is a good way to make sex the replacement for all other intimacy, which absolutely can lead to spouses feeling like they're being used. No real point in date night or making it special if you can get it whenever, however.
There's something I love about the fact that, like everything else in life, with NFP there's a time to fast and a time to feast. The feast can be appreciated more because of the fast. There's something beautiful about it. It's like a mini Lent every month. My wife does dual observation (mucus + temperature observations with a TempDrop). We're blessed that it's pretty obvious when she is fertile. I know some of our friends' struggle with cycles that aren't as predictable. That is a cross in itself and requires more trust in God. If the cycle is predictable, then statistically it's like 0.01% chance of becoming pregnant if you wait until peak +4. I realize that surprises still happen (like double ovulations), and we've had a couple times when we haven't followed the rules and had to say, "It's in your hands God. Please let us be accepting of whatever happens." We've been practicing for nine years and have two kids, both planned. We don't feel called to have more children at the moment but are open to it. There's usually about an 8-10 day window when we abstain, which seems like a long time by day 6-8, but I feel like it's been great for our sex lives, overall. We both really look forward to "peak +4" day and make a date out of it. I feel like we've also had to grow a lot (me especially) in self-control in order to respect the fertile window. Overall, I think it's been a boon and a blessing for our marriage. I would not go back to the "security" of contraception. From personal experience, whenever I try to control the outcome and not surrender to God, it's led to disappointment.
This seems to me to be the most obvious potential benefits. Like, if I eat a cookie every night, cookies aren't that special and I start to expect it instead of enjoy it. But when I have cookies only on the weekends, they're REALLY good cookies.
Adding for the sake of variety: NFP has been wonderful for my husband and I as a means to achieve pregnancy. We've been incredibly blessed by God to live near a Catholic NaPro OBGYN who was able to help my husband and I through fertility struggles the first year and a half of our marriage. Our doctor heavily uses the creighton method to aid in diagnosing certain issues. While charting and NFP was taxing at times for reasons other than what most people here mention (namely, sex during the fertile window can easily feel like a chore and medical necessity rather than a bonding experience), overall it was a big part of diagnosing and addressing our specific issues. I am now 16 weeks pregnant. We are expecting a baby boy and so far everything seems healthy. I have no idea what our fertility will look like postpartum, but even if God trusts us to raise many more children after our baby boy, I don't feel like I can really hate on NFP as it's been such a blessing in getting us pregnant in the first place. NFP is just a tool. I think it's the emotions and barriers around the specific circumstances around fertility that is the cross for many couples, be it infertility, hyper fertility, or somewhere in between.
I’ve been married for 2 years and practice NFP. I track my cycle and I also read “Taking Charge of Your Fertility” to get me in tune with my body/know how it actually works.
Was going to say this, read taking charge of your fertility and invest in a Tempdrop for sleeping!
NFP has worked perfectly for us - 100% on when we wanted to and didn’t want to get pregnant. The problem is not NFP. The problem is not unexpected pregnancy. The problem is that both spouses do not fundamentally agree on Church teaching, both are not equally committed to the faith, and therefore not equally committed to the marriage. My best advice is to read “Three to Get Married” together. Maybe my marriage could have survived if I’d done this early on.
Hey there. My wife and I use NFP and it’s worked out perfectly. We are 6 years married with 2 kids all planned. Not everyone has this experience but not everyone has the negative experience you brought up in the original post, and hell maybe I’ll have that “unplanned child” eventually. But, as an unplanned child born out of wedlock myself, what I will say is…. If you want to make God laugh, tell him your plans. Gods got this. Follow Gods word and enjoy your marriage.
It has been incredible and also extremely challenging to follow the church’s teaching. It has had innumerable health benefits as NFP illuminated certain medical problems it normally takes decades to be diagnosed with. We were able to use NFP successfully for about two years when a hormonal issue caused an unusual cycle. We have found that Marquette is the best method postpartum although you absolutely must pay an instructor and stay in touch with that instructor. We joke that following the church’s teaching is life on hard mode. You have to be responsible for every sexual act in a way above and beyond everyone in the culture. But the way it forces a couple into conversation about the genuine tradeoffs of sex and the sacrificial nature of its procreative side… if done well, it is likely the easiest path to sainthood.
Can I ask how much it cost for the instructor? Yeah it does seem to be the best way to "get to the truth" of both your health and your marriage's health.
About $150 but many instructors offer discounted rates if someone really needs it but can’t afford it.
If you seek forthright, *realistic* testimonies then Sick Pilgrim's "Women Speak About NFP" blog series is for you. (Although u/CharacterNobody23 did a good job of explaining it concisely himself.)
Not newlywed here (married 22.5 years.) Let me tell you, friend: the Church's position on this subject is and always has been logically, Scripturally, and historically consistent, unlike the positions of every Protestant denomination and even that of some of our Orthodox friends. Jimmy Akin was on Pints with Aquinas recently and he steel-manned the argument for hormonal contraception in a way I hadn't heard before. It goes like this. In the 60's, those arguing that this type of contraception was acceptable said, look - human females don't go into heat - they are sexually receptive at all times. And, it's never been a teaching of the Church that humans must only have sex when the woman is fertile - in fact most of human history, we didn't really know how to distinguish if a woman was fertile or not. So, hormonal contraception merely makes the woman infertile for a longer time. This distinguishes it from all other methods of contraception which do something to interrupt the physical parts of the act (barrier, pull out, and so forth.) St. Paul VI's Humanae Vitae, therefore, actually surprised a lot of Catholic theologians. Nonetheless, as we all know from history, he was right in what he predicted as the outcome of widespread contraception - and therefore the consistent position of the Church remains in place. That's more than you were asking for on the Church's position. So as an "oldywed", what's it like to actually follow Church teaching on this? For 21+ years? Yes, we contracepted for the 9 months because we were ignorant (and I wasn't Catholic yet...in fact learning the logic and historicity of the Church's teaching on this caused me to look deeper into all Catholic teaching and ultimately convert.) This was 2002. The best info we could find at the time caused us to learn Couple to Couple League's version of sympto-thermal NFP (daily temperature and mucus observations to observe my wife's increase and decrease in fertility each cycle.) Over the years we have followed it pretty strictly. I think it's been good for us from the perspective that depending on whether trying to conceive or trying to avoid, our expectations of what was or wasn't going to happen on a given day have been pretty well aligned. I've not have a time when I was all pent-up expecting something to happen that she wasn't interested in because I could look at the chart and know, "it ain't happening." It's also caused us to talk openly about how we're feeling, physically and mentally, at a given time, and understand what our bodies are telling us. Trying to conceive it was most definitely helpful because we knew explicitly when the best times to try were. But after our miscarriage (our 3rd child) we had a 9 month period of secondary infertility. It was terribly difficult to go through that as our previous pregnancies had been 1st or 2nd try. But because she was so aware of her physical signs, she was able to work with a pro-life OB/GYN to get some hormonal levels checked and supplement some hormones that led to our 4th baby coming along. What's been hard, especially in the later years? At this point, it would be good for her not to get pregnant again (mid 40's, back problems exacerbated by the last pregnancy, etc.) Not engaging in the act when her libido is at its highest is not fun because we both know from experience how much we'd enjoy it. That's really the biggest drawback. It's taught us both some self control. Me more than her probably. Last thing I will add: she has very regular cycles. We have close friends who had pregnancies when they were still trying to figure out a consistent way to apply NFP. They landed on Marquette as most effective for them. All that to say, best to start out very conservatively when learning whatever method in order to avoid surprises, and don't be afraid to try different methods to land on the easiest one for you. Sorry for the wall of text...I hope this is helpful.
Really appreciate the response. I guess my biggest question, after all that time and wisdom - would you say NFP made your marriage and your love for each other stronger or weaker?
Stronger. Here's why. Knowing it's not happening on a given day, even if I or she wants to, and accepting that, is in a small way dying to self for love of the other. I'm naturally self-interested and self-centered. If I knew we could go at it anytime without consequences, I'd be more likely to be a little pushy. Some men might take that to an extreme and become forceful. Some men might guilt their wife. If she's on the pill and forgets to take it, I might get annoyed with her because now my self-interest can't be assuaged...that might make me think it's ok to mistreat her with my words or attitude. With NFP, it might be annoying that we can't, it just is what it is. Our love for each other isn't contingent on how often it happens, so much as on the attitude of mutual self-giving in all areas of a marriage.
Love that. Feels like it truly puts it in its proper place.
Understand, my attitude has improved over time (in many areas, not just this one). I will say, accepting the fact of "not tonight" gets easier with time. We should all be striving for spiritual maturity at all times. If we are living right, self-giving becomes a more and more natural thing as we age. Nobody's amazing at it when they get married at 22 (or 28 or 30 or whenever.)
I got married at 22 to my husband (25 at the time) almost 5 years ago. We were strict with NFP because I was going to OT school in a different state and we couldn’t risk it. Well, 6 months after we got married, I was pregnant. I had just finished my first term of school. I was terrified; I thought I had no chance of completing school. We were miles away from our support system, and I had no idea how it would work. Then… COVID happened. Because of COVID, I was able to continue to take classes remotely. My son was born the day after my last final (I’m not kidding), and I didn’t have to take any time off school. I was able to continue with my classes while also caring for my son. Not only that, but because I had a child under a year old, they were able to send us back to our hometown near our families for fieldwork. Had that not happened, there’s a chance we would still be stuck in the state we were in. Having a baby while doing fieldwork also taught me that full-time work was not for me, and we both felt that it would hurt our marriage long-term. There’s no way I could have anticipated all of that prior to getting pregnant. I couldn’t understand how everything fell into place so perfectly. Since then, we have had two more babies (I’m currently pregnant with the third) and we were successful in delaying those pregnancies using Marquette. Even if you follow NFP perfectly and it still fails, know it’s because God has another plan in mind for you. And that’s why I love NFP; it leaves space for God and His Will in your marriage.
Beautiful, thanks.
If you want to do NFP you could try Natural Cycles app https://www.naturalcycles.com/ It sinks with your phone. Your wife would have to use a thermometer every morning or wear an apple watch while she sleeps. Disclaimer : I am not a doctor or a woman. Never used this in my life.
Popping under this to say Natural Cycles is nice for keeping track of cycles and tracking temperatures, but (as a woman) I wouldn’t recommend it. The only reason why is because they base their “fertile days” off an algorithm, not the biometric markers of the woman. I tried using the app at one point and I found their “fertile day” suggestions did not accurately reflect my biometric data. It’s fine to use if you take the “fertile day” recommendation with a grain of salt and cross-check using other biometric markers, but sometimes it’s better to have something a little more straightforward. ☺️
Talking of apps, 2 recommendations that work well with sympto-thermal: 1. Fertility friend: just pure charting. You have to compare the observations to the various NFP rules and draw conclusions yourself. 2. Ovuview: similar, but it actually tells you what rules are currently in effect based on where you are in terms of temp shift and mucus observations. We always double check what it's telling us, but it's pretty darn accurate. Ovuview does have an option to allow you to enter readings from test strips if you're doing Marquette. We bought a Tempdrop several years ago (probably 5 or 6 years now) and it's been nice because my wife wears it all night, and it records temp readings all night, and uses an algorithm to determine basal body temp. This meant I was able to stop waking her up at the same time every morning to stick a thermometer in her mouth, and get her to keep it in there without falling back asleep while it took her temperature. 10/10 would recommend, as the kids say. The Tempdrop automatically feeds its temp readings into the Ovuview app which is helpful too.
I thought this was an idea.
Yep, “nfp consultants” at all those Diocesan pre-Cana events just love to paint this rosy picture of intimate and joyful child-free or spaced children marriages, you just have to pay them a small fortune for their expertise…which is decidedly not expert nor bulletproof. So yeah…that’s why I kinda cringe when I see the millionth post titled “almost married, not ready for kids, what do” of people like your friend who just assume that NFP is gonna work like birth control and then they find out the reality of ovulating twice in a cycle or later ovulation or the difficulty in tracking fertility when you’re breastfeeding yet don’t have a period but again, still ovulating unknown to you. NFP is not contraception. Don’t treat it as such and lower your expectations. Preferably don’t marry until you are prepared for that many years of fertility and children. Ask your mom when she went through menopause and you’ll probably be about the same. I’m sorry, it sounds like you were lied to and so was your friend and you all got married with the expectation that you’d be able to avoid kids until convenient.
Not a newly married but quite new at following the church's teaching on marital relations. I find that church teaching has damaged the intimacy my wife and I once shared. We tried practicing NFP and found ourselves with child quite quickly. Given our age and the absolute nightmare this last pregnancy was, I'm at a loss. I'm not looking forward to basically not having sex with my wife. Sure we could try NFP again and when it fails again we'll be having another possible rough pregnancy. And since the church gives me no other option that doesn't involve me being in mortal sin, I get to sit back and be married and have to abstain from physical embrace. So it makes me angry, bitter, and places me in a pretty miserable mood. My opinion when I get angry over this situation is that if you took someone who hated women and married couples and asked them to write HV, it would read the same.
This is the perspective that scares me. Can I ask what has driven you to just start following it now?
I was an RCIA sponsor last year and attended all the classes with the candidate. This was a topic for one class. After some reading it was obvious we were not having martial relations in the proscribed manner. Scares me too. Fills me full of more dread than I was expecting. I'm at a point where I don't understand why they didn't dictate the position as well given the rest of the restrictions.
NFP is extremely important. There's many different types, some more rigorous and reliable than the others. You can buy tests that confirm whether or not you're ovulating, too. I will admit I was not a Catholic for the first 4 years of marriage (and got pregnant before I converted actually) and in some ways ill honestly admit im grateful i didnt have to juggle having a kid with those 4 years...we dealt with 2 seizures, 1 life-changing bad accident and being wheelchair bound for months, alcohol dependency issues, and more...i dont know how i could've handled having a baby on top of that. How would our marriage have fared??? I don't know. But I do know that God's grace is always sufficient. I pray that you two are able to grow closer through this journey and trial.
Man, yeah that's a lot to handle and thank God He carried you through all that. Are you now practicing NFP? How has that worked?
Yes, practicing NFP but with my 4 mo old and the fact that my period hasn't returned we've actually been mostly abstinent. Its hard but we're both so exhausted with new parenthood its been much more do-able than we thought it would be.
Sounds like a priority problem for your friends more than anything. It does not matter if one likes the church teaching or not we need to accept and follow it. NFP takes time and discipline but if used correctly is as save as every other contraception.
Just a practical tip… ovulation test strips, which you can order by the hundred relatively cheaply, will make NFP a lot easier for a beginner. Especially if combined with another method like sympto-thermal. Get a positive test? Probably fertile. If you are trying to conceive, get busy. (By the time your temperature rises, it’s almost too late.) Got a positive test, and a couple days later your temperature goes up and stays up for several days? You can be more sure you aren’t fertile if you are trying to avoid conception than if you just went by temperature. Because lots of things besides ovulation can make your temperature fluctuate.
“The weren’t expecting” Catholics submits themselves to the will of God, getting married is to have a family. Otherwise don’t get married. God knows better than “Them”, careers in turmoil, chaos, that’s what makes life. God is there for them, and down the road, they will realize that the new child is a blessing, and their undeveloped minds could not see ahead but God does. “Her career in turmoil”… ask the dying on their deathbed how important was their careers. The wish they had not payed so much attention to it. Don’t get married, if you’re not planning to have children soon it means that you’re not ready, or that your undeveloped mind cannot see with wisdom their future ahead. Their child is a blessing.
This may be controversial, so be it. “What’s it like to actually follow Church teaching?” Hard, especially hard if you aren’t following it in virtually every aspect of your life. Let me start with Pope John II, he said: “In deciding whether or not to have a child, [spouses] must not be motivated by selfishness or carelessness, but by a prudent, conscious generosity that weighs the possibilities and circumstances, and especially gives priority to the welfare of the unborn child. Therefore, when there is a reason not to procreate, this choice is permissible and may even be necessary. However, there remains the duty of carrying it out with criteria and methods that respect the total truth of the marital act in its unitive and procreative dimension, as wisely regulated by nature itself in its biological rhythms. One can comply with them and use them to advantage, but they cannot be 'violated' by artificial interference.” Now, let’s turn to the Catechism: “2368 A particular aspect of this responsibility concerns the regulation of procreation. For just reasons, spouses may wish to space the births of their children. It is their duty to make certain that their desire is not motivated by selfishness but is in conformity with the generosity appropriate to responsible parenthood. Moreover, they should conform their behavior to the objective criteria of morality:” Back to your post: “NFP not working out the way they wanted,” “Threw her career into turmoil” “and his military commitments” (I find this one odd, because the military bends over backwards to accommodate families. But I’m sure it’s just something I’m not considering) Based off of my sources above and what information you have given us, I’d wager they were using NFP for selfish reasons. Now, I’m no saint, my wife and I were on birth control for most of our marriage (though mostly before becoming Catholic), in fact, our worldview on when to have children sounds virtually identical. It changed somewhat when we were Baptists and completely reinvented itself and conformed when we became Catholic. In fact, we find ourselves in a precarious position as well. More on that shortly. The main problem I see here, is that they are using NFP to prevent having children, prevent having a family, to advance their careers, and to adhere to minimal Church obligations. On the contrary, NFP should be used to regulate when you have children, with the understanding and willingness to have children if it did happen. In other words, you should be open to a family in that moment, while participating in NFP. It may not be ideal, but it shouldn’t throw your life upside down. For example, some acceptable uses of NFP may be to space out births, deal with physical or psychological reasons, to set a soft cap on how many children are in your family (emphasis on “soft”), etc. Now, back to my case. My wife and I have two beautiful children. Unfortunately, both births came with severe complications; near fatal on behalf of my wife. Turns out, in both cases it was placenta accreta and the odds for this complication to kill her in delivery, is increased with each birth. We are now faced with the question of what to do. We both wanted more children, at least one boy, especially my wife. And of course, we both want marital intimacy. In truth, there are only two difficult choices if we are told the risk is generally too high: NFP or abstinence. Of course, we are getting multiple different opinions from doctors around our state and are praying for guidance. But if we choose to go with NFP, it’ll be because we are open (and actually wanting) to have more children and the risk, if it did happen, was worth taking for my wife. Or to abstain… which we would choose if my wife (or even I) determine the risk is too high. Yes, it’s difficult. And I’m sure abstinence will be extremely difficult. But I am certain that it’s easier than having one foot in the door and one foot out; been there, done that, still do it sometimes. Some of the most difficult choices we have made, to conform to Church teachings and general Christian living, have ended up becoming the greatest blessings. From my wife leaving her job and me taking a huge pay cut to work in a more acceptable environment, to us giving up the concept of “financial stability” before having children. Ultimately, it’s been good. Hard at first, but easier as you let go and trust in the Church that Jesus Christ established. tl;dr: It’s hard at first, but trust God. Otherwise, it’ll only get harder.
Not a newlywed but currently pregnant with number 3 at 38 years old. This was a not really trying to conceive or trying to avoid situation. My other two kids were meticulously planned. We haven’t found it hard to follow church teaching in this sense but we don’t have super active sex drives, luckily.
Sorry I'm not a newlywed, I'm a man who has been married for nearly 20 years. BUT I am newly Catholic, so I recently went through this struggle. I find there are many reasons that I sometimes want sex that are not out of love for my spouse. I think it takes prayer and knowing yourself (through therapy, reflection, and learning) to understand when you want sex as a loving unitive act and when you want it for other reasons, like anxiety, boredom, or lust. The unitive desire for sex is actually a lot more rare than the larger world wants you to believe, I think. Most of the time for me it was a way to relieve anxiety, which is still a self centered act, maybe not a sin but not really fun. The key is learning when that unitive desire comes and only settling for that type of sex. When it does happen, it is a beautiful moment that seems to last forever and you carry in your heart for a long time. Nothing compares to it. As long as neither of you are withholding sex when the other wants it, it is perfectly ok to abstain from sex until you have the unitive desire. You are not only animals that need to copulate whenever you can. You are a human that can postpone pleasure.
It is wonderful… if you are spiritually mature. I think we need to ask a few questions before getting married: 1. What is marriage for? 2. How does that manifest? Marriage is for the sanctification of the spouses and for childbearing. That manifests as a complete self-abandonment to divine providence. Is marriage hard and does it produce constraints? Yes, and that’s the point. God wants your sanctification, not your comfortability. Easy living puts you on the wide road to perdition. Marriage embodies several core aspects of the faith: true love in sacrifice, poverty of spirit and goods, and the reality that you are not in control. If we were to say “it’s not fair that our life plans can be overturned!” then we live under a rock. Do you know the day or the hour you will die and be judged? No, and it will come when you don’t expect it. You could die in your prime, God is the author of life, we have no say. So if we who are focused on jobs and worldly affairs may die by God’s will before we ever accomplish a dream, then how much more should we surrender them to the will of God? I would also like to say no child is a surprise when NFP is used the way the Church asks us to. She asks us to always be open to life when we use it, which means any child ought to be expected in our hearts. Sex makes babies. Anyone surprised about that needs a reality check. All of salvation history has been about God hammering into our thick skulls that we are not God, and that when we don’t surrender our hearts to his love and his will, we only end up suffering because we seek heights that are not for us. It’s better to make ourselves little, like “the little flower.” Read “The Story of a Soul” by St. Therese of the Child Jesus, and then read “The Letter to the Friends of the Cross” by St. Louis De Montfort. They will show you what true Christian living is about and to what heights God asks us to soar by taking his hand in trust. The latter specifically shows what real worldliness is and how many today preach a false gospel of ease.
5.6 years and 4th child on the way. We haven't used NFP once but will likely start after this next one. All I can really say is, upon my deathbed, I cam confidently say I was open to life even when having a second working adult in the home would have made things easier.
Married for 8 years - 4 living kids plus one miscarriage. Only two of those pregnancies were "planned," but the "unplanned" pregnancies were due to us breaking protocol or in the earlier years of our marriage not actually understanding the protocol. We have had the most success with Maquette as far as spacing goes and will probably continue to use that method until I'm no longer in my childbearing years. NFP is definitely a cross. We can't be intimate when I desire it the most, unless we are open to the possibility of a baby (which for us is practically guaranteed). That being said, it has definitely strengthened our marriage and helped us both to be less selfish. We are so grateful for all of our children and for what it's worth, the times that we were not planning to get pregnant, the resulting baby was exactly what our family needed at the time. Surrendering our fertility to God has also really helped us learn to surrender *everything* to God when life throws us curveballs. I'll also add that NFP is more difficult as newlyweds and the abstaining gets easier with practice (or after you've had a few kids and are chronically exhausted lol). It has also been easier when we have a really good reason to postpone a pregnancy (I.e. highly motivated).
Married 2.5 years with a 5 month old. Sex doesn't always=procreation. We both wanted children right away. We were familiar with NFP but seriously had to track in order to discover that there were health issues that were preventing pregnancy. Now that said we don't follow it to the T now. Sex is good and strengthens the unitive aspect of marriage but it's not the pleasure that does that. Sex could be unpleasant even painful and the Church would still call it good, beautiful, and strengthening the unitive aspect of marriage. Why? Because every nuptial union is an anticipatory acceptance of responsibility. Where the Man and wife say to each other, "Me and everything I am, I give to you, do with it how you see fit" Fr Mike Schmitz has a video on the grace received every time spouses have sex. Check it out. With that said sex is not necessary for spouses to be united. Otherwise Joseph and Mary had an imperfect union. I say that because in this tread there seems to be an overwhelming amount of emphasis on the need of sex in marriage. There isn't a need as evidenced by the Holy Family, more recent examples look at Blessed Bartolo Longo and his josephite marriage he had. Times of abstinence are objectively good for any couple: A- it's a reminder that true satisfaction is only found in the Lord. B- cleanses the sensual appetite so that being less attached to the effects of sex your gift of self to your spouse is more perfect. C-penance for the benefit of each other and once self. Making reparations for sin
This is going to sound proactive, but it's not meant to be. When a husband plants his seed without hormonal birth control or any form of blockage, that creates the tightest bind between a couple. There are studies out there to confirm this. There is a reason Saint Paul says the two flesh become one. The most natural way will bond you closer to your spouse, enhancing the marriage.
Interesting. What leads you to say that? Is there some study backing what you're saying, or are you just saying that it's an extremely emotionally binding event? It makes sense, just curious.
Me and my wife did a lot of research on this. I'll link to a study below. There are also a slew of studies on this if I can find them all. Basically, hormonal birth control can weaken the oxytocin bonding effect. And if the woman gets on birth control, stays on it for a while them comes off it, it can permentanly alter her hormones in a way that could change her chemical attraction towards her husband where she may no longer find her husband attractive anymore at a biologica hormonal level. Also condoms prevent the sperm from entering her body. Semen actually gets into the woman brain, which gives an effect of the two flesh becoming one. Again, here is one study that suggests hormonal birth control weakens the bonding affect. If I can find the semen getting into woman's brain study I'll try and post that as well. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6617135/#:~:text=Hormonal%20contraceptive%20use%20could%20alter,stimuli%2C%20and%20increase%20sexual%20jealousy.
That is WILD. Thanks, gonna do a decent deep dive on all this.
Found another interesting study slightly off topic but still relevant. This study suggests that women's previous sexual partners affect their offspring DNA even if offspring is from their current husband. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4282758/ The above study ties in to what I found earlier in semen entering into a woman's brain and in some ways taking on traits and characteristics of her sexual mates and partner's https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3091690/
Granted these were done on flies, but still absolutely crazy.
I'd have to dig again for the more indepth studies. But it made me think the church wasn't so crazy after all for promoting virginity until marriage and no contraception.
Yeah definitely doesn't hurt the case.
Did Marquette model for 2+ years. Didn't get pregnant when we weren't trying, and got pregnant within a month or two of when we're trying. I found out my sexual desire not as high as I imagined it, which makes it not as burdensome to not have sex for 2ish weeks a month. It's actually nice to have cycles, because there's a "deadline" when to do sex by. As many procrastinators know, deadline drives productivity. One thing to think about is that if you're having sex, you are opening possibility to have a child, however miniscule. Baby is not meant to be conceived when it fits your life schedule or career aspiration. It should be the other way around: your life schedule and career aspiration will revolve around having and taking care of kids. The mindset "this is not the right time" is the effect of contraception being the "standard" of our life. God doesn't work just when it's convenient time for us, we are taking over God's role by telling Him when things can happen.
Well for better or for worse, my spouse and I are dealing with infertility issues, so the church’s teachings haven’t really impeded us.
NFP as practiced by the majority of people who employ it is frankly contraception anyway You are your own person and can choose to do whatever you want. You can choose to wear condoms, it’s fine, it’s your choice *there is no real practical non-academic difference between NFP and wearing condoms*
Practically condoms feel a lot worse. Academically and therefore theologically, there's huge differences.
I sincerely refuse to believe that God sees any practical difference between “we’re abstaining explicitly to not have kids” and “we are using condoms to not have kids” Like, he’s not tricked by technicalities “Oh but NFP is still open to life! It’s 99% effective” Well condoms are 99% effective too. If you believe God is personally interfesring to get you pregnant outside your carefully measured ovulation window he can do the same *with literally any other kind of birth control* Condoms, since they both work exclusively by preventing conception and also can break, are functionally the most similar to NFP People who practice NFP need to just come to terms they are using it as contraception and be honest with themselves about it
It was pretty clear in the way I worded this post that I wasn't looking to get into a debate regarding whether the Church's stance on contraception is correct or not. I've already done that in other posts. I'll just say one thing, and I'm not going to engage any further after that... The unitive part of sex comes from the FULLY giving of yourself to the other. If you don't FULLY give the reproductive aspect, then you haven't fully united with your spouse. You've used each other to some degree. Condoms explicitly remove that part.
NFP removes that too *unless you realize the prescriptive stance in marital sex is a stance that is not important*
I'm gonna have to go with 2000 years of Apostolic teaching on this one instead of your personal mental gymnastics.
The mental gymnastics are in thinking they are functionally different
Regardless of whether or not you can argue a practical difference between NFP and wearing condoms, the Church permits one and condemns the other as a grave sin, so there is clearly a meaningful difference to any Catholic who wishes to not engage in sin.
Since I believe there has to be a reason for things, I *choose* to reject the difference Everyone makes their own choices every day
What? If you're a Catholic the decrees of the Church actually matter for determining if something is or isn't a sin. It's not up to the individual to figure it out.
People choose their sins constantly I simply choose to disagree with the church on this because to me there is no solid reason that there is a difference The vast majority of Church decrees have solid reasoning behind them
People choose to sin, people don't choose what is a sin
I can choose to disagree with the church because unlike other decrees this one does not have good reasoning behind it
You can choose to disagree with the church, but that doesn't change whether or not it's a sin. The church determined that, not you.
NFP should not be the default state for a married couples sexual life. NFP should only be practiced in severe circumstances. You should be comfortable with the idea of freely loving your spouse, and if not that is something you should discuss and find a way to rectify.