Birth Control Issue

[silentfactor80]

Dear all,
I am engaged to a Catholic woman. We have begun talking about birth control for after we are married. I am opposed to any artificial forms but she is not. I got a long lecture on how its her body, her decision, and that I should be grateful she wants to be so available for me. I told her my body is mine and I will not allow a woman to use it for sinful purposes. I explained to her I would be very patient while we figured out NFP together but no luck. Anyone been in this situation? I don’t want to deny her her conjugal rights after marriage but I am not interested in enabling someone else’s sin either.

 

[einna]

Dear all,
I am engaged to a Catholic woman. We have begun talking about birth control for after we are married. I am opposed to any artificial forms but she is not. I got a long lecture on how its her body, her decision, and that I should be grateful she wants to be so available for me. I told her my body is mine and I will not allow a woman to use it for sinful purposes. I explained to her I would be very patient while we figured out NFP together but no luck. Anyone been in this situation? I don’t want to deny her her conjugal rights after marriage but I am not interested in enabling someone else’s sin either.

One thing is for sure, you should not get married unless you resolve this issue, it will not just get better because you get married. If you both have very strong opposing thoughts on this issue your marriage will be doomed from the start. One person might give in to save the relationship, but that could lead to resentment later on. Good luck,

 

[MichaelHowling]

Wow.

Lol…usually this issue goes the other way where its the man that wants to use contraceptives.

I highly suggest getting the video/cd : “woman, Gods masterpiece” by Christopher West.

By your belief…you are holding up her own dignity! And showing that you want to love her WHOLE self…not just parts that are fun for you.

This cd is AWSOME! It can change your life. Before you get married, I would HIGHLY suggest you insist watching it! It will open up a dialog between you two . It shows why God made us (including or sexual side) they way He did…it’s VERY eye opening!

It comes from Pope John Paul II’s theology of the body.

 

[The_Bucket]

I got a long lecture on how its her body, her decision, and that I should be grateful she wants to be so available for me.

Nice attitude on her part. I understand when interreligious couples suffer from this issue, but this mentality is pretty contrary to the Catholic understanding of marriage.

The two become one flesh. It’s not “her body, her choice” anymore. That’s a ridiculous attitude to begin with and a terrible one to bring into the marriage. You freely give up your rights over your body when you enter into a marriage. That does not mean one spouse has the right to abuse the gift he or she is given in the form of that body, but we as spouses have to recognize that we’re not in charge of ourselves anymore. We relinquish it to the other. That’s the mutual self-sacrifice JP2 talked about in Theology of the Body.

When you’ve got a Catholic marrying a non-Catholic and the question is a matter of disagreement over doctrine, that’s one thing. When you’ve got someone saying “my body, my decision and you should be grateful that you’ll get what you get…” that’s another and far more concerning matter. Grateful my backside. My wife promised her life to me and that includes her body. I promised her the same.

 

[KCT]

One thing is for sure, you should not get married unless you resolve this issue, it will not just get better because you get married. If you both have very strong opposing thoughts on this issue your marriage will be doomed from the start. One person might give in to save the relationship, but that could lead to resentment later on. Good luck,

Yep. Work it out or don’t get married. It’s too big an issue to sweep under the carpet.

 

[anruari]

Dear all,
I am engaged to a Catholic woman. We have begun talking about birth control for after we are married. I am opposed to any artificial forms but she is not. I got a long lecture on how its her body, her decision, and that I should be grateful she wants to be so available for me. I told her my body is mine and I will not allow a woman to use it for sinful purposes. I explained to her I would be very patient while we figured out NFP together but no luck. Anyone been in this situation? I don’t want to deny her her conjugal rights after marriage but I am not interested in enabling someone else’s sin either.

You must resolve this issue and it’s surrounding issues or your intended marriage could be invalidated.
It is not possible to enter into a sacramental marriage without consenting to all that that requires. Part of that it an acceptance of the churches definition of Marriage, and an openness to Life.
However: You must tackle this with Love!
You dont want her to go to Hell due to being unrepentantly attached to a serious Sin
those sins most apparent are:
She may be consciously and deliberately rejecting the churches teaching and refusing to look at why they are right.
She is proposing to interfere with her god given fertility in a manner contrary to the Will of God.
She is proposing to use Sex, (within marriage) in an unchaste manner
By obstinately refusing to accept these are sins, she is likely to then want to receive Holy Communion in a state of unrepentant Mortal Sin. This is itself a serious mortal sin.

If she died in that state she would come face to face with her Maker, and be unable to accept His Forgivness: “What do you mean you forgive me? I did nothing wrong. You cant tell me what to do with my body, and my unborn children… Well if you’re going to be like that then I’m off over here… (ooops…)”
At best this would make purging these sins so intensely painful it would be hugely difficult and *almost *impossible to face going through Purgatory.

You need to help her to see why these things are Evil. and why the “Womens Lib” movement is morally bankrupt in this area.

It is also worth considering that most forms of chemical contraception and many mechanical forms, act as abortifacients either as their primary purpose (e.g. Plan B, or The Coil) or as a back-up method of action (The Pill, the IUD). Getting her to acknowledge the Sanctity of Human Life may be easier than directly attacking the concept of Contraception… and from that you may be able to get a handle on the whole concept of Contraception.

There’s lots of info out there on *why *the Church teaches what it does. Get help to understand these issues yourself, so you can teach her.

Also: there’s an increasing amount of info out there on the dangers of the Pill. It’s very dangerous, with a range of health side effects, including the fact that it can kill in at least 5 different ways. You love her and dont want her taking that poison.

Note:
If all else fails, this needs to be an “Ultimatum” issue. You cannot enter into a marriage with this woman if she does not expect to permit you to practice your Catholic Faith. (that would apply even if she were not Catholic!!!)
Adherence to the Churches teaching on the Family and Marriage are often listed as one of the “Precepts of the church” (a list that varies from 5 to 7).
(it’s one of the Traditional ones, but not one of the ones in the modern CCC. (2041 - 2043)
It is still a mandatory requirement to consider and call yourself Catholic.

 

[nodito]

From Ephesians 5:13:

For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and shall be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.

In marriage, the husband and wife freely give the rights to their bodies to their spouse. This is why we speak of conjugal rights at all. In our day-to-day lives, of course, we don’t forfeit responsibility to take care of ourselves and we can’t (and shouldn’t try to) force our spouses to do something to or with their bodies that make them uncomfortable. Still, it’s absolutely within your bounds as this woman’s future husband to tell her (charitably) that you intend marriage to be a joining of your lives and your flesh and that it’s not just “her body, her choice” when it comes to birth control.

In my opinion, I think this is a serious enough issue that it ought to be an engagement breaker or at least mariage postponer. I know this has the potential to sound controlling. So I would frame it not as, “Do this or I won’t marry you,” but rather, “This is important enough to me that I am willing to wait to be your spouse and wait to have sex with you until you feel comfortable enough to trust NFP or to have children.”

Have you taken an NFP class together? What is her objection to it? Do you know any happy, Catholic married couples that are having kids? It can be intimidating to be the first of your friends to get married, even more so to have children when everyone else is single. What are her concerns with getting pregnant? There’s lots to discuss and I think your role at this time should be to discuss them calmly, rationally, and lovingly. The prospect of getting pregnant can truly be scary for a young woman, even a Catholic, who grew up (as I did) hearing the “safe sex” message from every magazine, billboard, and tv commercial.

And absoutely start bombarding heaven for your intended’s change of heart. Mary can change hearts like no other. She changed mine.

 

[1ke]

Dear all,
I am engaged to a Catholic woman. We have begun talking about birth control for after we are married. I am opposed to any artificial forms but she is not. I got a long lecture on how its her body, her decision, and that I should be grateful she wants to be so available for me. I told her my body is mine and I will not allow a woman to use it for sinful purposes. I explained to her I would be very patient while we figured out NFP together but no luck. Anyone been in this situation? I don’t want to deny her her conjugal rights after marriage but I am not interested in enabling someone else’s sin either.

you are not yet married. This is a clear sign that you should not proceed with marriage to this woman.

This is not a negotiation. This is a deal breaker.

 

[runningdude]

Dear all,
I am engaged to a Catholic woman. We have begun talking about birth control for after we are married. I am opposed to any artificial forms but she is not. I got a long lecture on how its her body, her decision, and that I should be grateful she wants to be so available for me. I told her my body is mine and I will not allow a woman to use it for sinful purposes. I explained to her I would be very patient while we figured out NFP together but no luck. Anyone been in this situation? I don’t want to deny her her conjugal rights after marriage but I am not interested in enabling someone else’s sin either.

This should have been discussed before you became engaged. Now that you know her position, it may be prudent to reconsider the engagement.

 

[manualman]

Dear all,
I got a long lecture on how its her body, her decision, and that I should be grateful she wants to be so available for me.

Does she take this stance all the way through to its usual conclusion? (pro-abortion, aka “choice”?). If so, even more reason to be alarmed.

But I’m not on board with the “dump her she’s no good” crowd. When you love someone, you do what is best for THEM! In this case, that means exploring the issue in a way that is not a matter of you demanding that she comply with your will. Instead, tell us more about the rest of her faith life. Is this an aberration in an otherwise faithful and Christ centered worldview that she may have been suckered into via our polluted culture or is it part of a secularized pattern in her larger life? (In other words, “God is great as long as He knows when to shut up and and wait for me to summon Him…”)

If she’s otherwise a faithful catholic, ask her to explore the issue with you (and Christopher West videos are an excellent way to do that for people who grew up immersed in American culture with poor catholic formation).

If she’s got a larger pattern of secularized thinking, you MUST share your faith more fundamentally with her first and assess whether she is receptive to Christ or is merely a cultural catholic on a glide path to apostasy. Only if that is the case and she is uninterested in real conversion should you consider breaking it off. But you have to reach a point of moral certainty before you get married. It’s possibly the second most important life decision you make! (the first being your OWN committment of life to Christ).

 

[silentfactor80]

Thanks for all the replies. My comments:

"This should have been discussed before you became engaged. Now that you know her position, it may be prudent to reconsider the engagement."

We did and at the time she said she would consider it. Then thanks to politics and a bunch of her uninformed friends (liberal “Catholics”) her position changed.

"...Have you taken an NFP class together? What is her objection to it? Do you know any happy, Catholic married couples that are having kids? It can be intimidating to be the first of your friends to get married, even more so to have children when everyone else is single. What are her concerns with getting pregnant? There's lots to discuss and I think your role at this time should be to discuss them calmly, rationally, and lovingly. The prospect of getting pregnant can truly be scary for a young woman, even a Catholic, who grew up (as I did) hearing the "safe sex" message from every magazine, billboard, and tv commercial."

She said she would take it but has no intention to use it because she doesn’t believe those who say how effective it is. Apparently an older family member said NFP’s failure resulted in several of her cousins. Nice attitude eh? She said she isn’t worried about getting pregnant now but after we have 2 kids shes done and wants to focus her career. When I said thats ok we can postpone intimacy until she reaches menopause she looked at me in disbelief.

"If all else fails, this needs to be an "Ultimatum" issue. You cannot enter into a marriage with this woman if she does not expect to permit you to practice your Catholic Faith. (that would apply even if she were not Catholic!!!)
Adherence to the Churches teaching on the Family and Marriage are often listed as one of the "Precepts of the church" (a list that varies from 5 to 7).
(it's one of the Traditional ones, but not one of the ones in the modern CCC. (2041 - 2043)
It is still a mandatory requirement to consider and call yourself Catholic."

By this definition only about 1% of the women claiming to be Catholic in the US actually are. I guess Jesus did say many will be called but few shall enter. It is a shame. She actually did claim that since other Christians allow BC it can’t be all bad. Whats up with that?

"Yep. Work it out or don't get married. It's too big an issue to sweep under the carpet. "

Something tells me I’m going to die a single guy lol!

"When you've got a Catholic marrying a non-Catholic and the question is a matter of disagreement over doctrine, that's one thing. When you've got someone saying "my body, my decision and you should be grateful that you'll get what you get..." that's another and far more concerning matter. Grateful my backside. My wife promised her life to me and that includes her body. I promised her the same."

How would it be different if she wasn’t Catholic?

"Wow.

Lol.....usually this issue goes the other way where its the man that wants to use contraceptives."

I actually take offense to this and think it is untrue. Women don’t listen or care to hear what men have to say these days about BC or anything else for that matter. Remember the big 3 pushing for free BC in recent time in the US. It was Kathleen Sebellius, Sandra Fluke, and Cecil Richards. Obama was just a tool to provide cover. Women want BC so they can go “have fun” that they think men have been having and denying them. It is no more complicated that simple female ego. If religious people would stop thinking men are the only ones who want to have sex maybe we wouldn’t have this problem.

 

[1ke]

How would it be different if she wasn’t Catholic?

It wouldn’t be, actually.

If a Catholic finds themselve married and then their spouse begins using contraception against their wishes, I would say the Catholic is not participating in the sin nor condoning it (see Vademecum for Confessors on the matter).

However, if a Catholic knows either their Catholic or non-Catholic fiance fully intends to contracept and marries them anyway, then they are not a sinned against spouse they are a participant in the sin that they could have prevented.

I also want to say that while it may seem there are very few faithful Catholics, in reality I know many so do not be discouraged.

 

[silentfactor80]

It wouldn’t be, actually.

If a Catholic finds themselve married and then their spouse begins using contraception against their wishes, I would say the Catholic is not participating in the sin nor condoning it (see Vademecum for Confessors on the matter).

However, if a Catholic knows either their Catholic or non-Catholic fiance fully intends to contracept and marries them anyway, then they are not a sinned against spouse they are a participant in the sin that they could have prevented.

I also want to say that while it may seem there are very few faithful Catholics, in reality I know many so do not be discouraged.

If you didn’t know your spouse was using it I understand. But what happens if you find out and continue being intimate with them? You are giving them the goods without there being an actual sacrifice.

 

[manualman]

If you didn’t know your spouse was using it I understand. But what happens if you find out and continue being intimate with them? You are giving them the goods without there being an actual sacrifice.

You’re not culpable for the sins of another unless you intentionally enable them. In the case of an already married couple, if one partner starts using ABC the other is not obligated to withold intimacy, but cannot directly participate in it. It’s complicated, but it comes down to the difference between committing a sin and loving someone who is committing a sin.

I would have to agree that most catholics today rebel on this issue, but there are more believers out there than the pundits want you to think. Many like me are also middle aged and only have 2-3 kids too (and not for lack of fertility either!). Your fiance might be interested to learn that it is FAR easier to learn to recognize symptoms of fertility BEFORE you are sexually active. It’s really not that hard unless she has medical problems - nearly every mammal on earth learns to spot the symptoms of fertility in the female of the species. Why do people find it so hard to believe that humans can do it too??

 

[1ke]

If you didn’t know your spouse was using it I understand. But what happens if you find out and continue being intimate with them? You are giving them the goods without there being an actual sacrifice.

See Vademecum For Confessors. In confession, a priest may give counsel to the innocent spouse regarding conjugal relations with the spouse who contracepts.

 

[Chiltepin]

I actually take offense to this and think it is untrue. Women don’t listen or care to hear what men have to say these days about BC or anything else for that matter. Remember the big 3 pushing for free BC in recent time in the US. It was Kathleen Sebellius, Sandra Fluke, and Cecil Richards. Obama was just a tool to provide cover. Women want BC so they can go “have fun” that they think men have been having and denying them. It is no more complicated that simple female ego. If religious people would stop thinking men are the only ones who want to have sex maybe we wouldn’t have this problem.

Just as offensive.

 

[silentfactor80]

Just as offensive.

I was speaking into reference to the culture at large, not women in general. Lets face it, many more women than men are arguing in favor of birth control. They obviously have a reason and it’s not that hard to see sex is being turned into a god.

Lastly, in many religious circles men are always the target for “keeping their wandering eyes in line.” Lust is not a man-only issue and the church pays little attention to female sexuality except when it comes to birth control. I was reading an article that twice as many women than men are “experimenting” with same-sex acts. Many young women are now viewing pornography more than ever before and they prefer to look at women. In fact its so bad now that I read in an article that some women are actually leaving men for other women. Psychologists think its because women form deep friendships that are the basis for romantic attraction. When is the church going to address this issue instead of giving weekly sermons on guys looking at dirty pictures all the time?

 

[raikou]

She said she would take it but has no intention to use it because she doesn’t believe those who say how effective it is. Apparently an older family member said NFP’s failure resulted in several of her cousins. Nice attitude eh? She said she isn’t worried about getting pregnant now but after we have 2 kids shes done and wants to focus her career. When I said thats ok we can postpone intimacy until she reaches menopause she looked at me in disbelief.

The symptothermal method has been scientifically proven to be effective as the pill.

humrep.oxfordjournals.org/content/22/5/1310

Ask her if this family member used the symptothermal method. If not, then try to convince her to try this other natural method.

 

[runningdude]

Thanks for all the replies. My comments:

"This should have been discussed before you became engaged. Now that you know her position, it may be prudent to reconsider the engagement."

We did and at the time she said she would consider it. Then thanks to politics and a bunch of her uninformed friends (liberal “Catholics”) her position changed.

You can’t blame external factors. Your fiancee gave a non-committal promise to “consider” NFP, and (predictably ) did not commit. This is her choice to to listen to her friends over you.

 

[Mulligan2]

If you aren’t in agreement on this issue prior to marriage, it is likely to become a bigger wedge issue after you are married.

It seems to me like she is not right for you. And by the same token, you are not right for her. Your paradigms are different.

This is just my two cents, but I think it would be very unfair of you to marry her with the intention of changing her into someone she is not.