Celibate Marriage

[Baralinel]

A friend of mine has some pretty severe heart problems that only get worse when she gets pregnant, and they’re getting progressively worse with each pregnancy. Last year she ended up in the emergency room. I don’t know specifically what is wrong with her, but a doctor has pretty much told her that if she gets pregnant again, she will die. She’s already using two forms of NFP to try and avoid pregnancy so that, y’know, she won’t die. But there are some complications with that too. (Her husband doesn’t help her juggle the two methods, and there is something wrong with her cervix that really makes it difficult to tell when she’s actually fertile.) It is beginning to look as if she has three options: A tubal litigation, complete celibacy until the heart problem is resolved, or just continue using two methods of NFP and hoping for the best. It has been recommended by some that they simply be celibate. Does anyone know anyone else who lives a celibate, married life? How does that work for them?

 

[anruari]

1st you need to get the terms correct:
Celibacy: the state of being unmarried: committed to being “Single”

Chastity: The virtue of committing to a Pure and Holy view of Sex and sexuality. For single people this includes total abstinence from sex and trying to avoid sexual temptation. it recognizes that sex should take place in a mutual loving marriage, which is open to life.

Abstainance: (within marriage) refraining from an act. In this case we are talking about refraining from the act of sexual intercourse, which itself is not wrong, but is avoided for some greater good.

I myself have had to endure over a year of marital abstinence with my wife due to health reasons. It’s not easy, especially when you feel rejected by your spouse.

NFP is a technique which does not belong exclusively to the wife. it is a collaborative effort. The husband must Love his wife. That includes putting her health far above his libido of his busy life. He should make his wife feel fully supported in the necessary time or times of abstinence.
He should be helping her to remember to “Chart” the symptoms needed to monitor her fertility signs. That would mean he is intimately familiar with her charts and know not to initiate intimacy on her fertile or dangerous days. He should not be putting her in the position of having to say “No!”

Using multiple methods to identify the fertile signs is usefull - but they shouldn’t be “Juggled”… If the Thermal method is used and so is the Billings method… then you can graph and chart both sets of data on one chart…

If the Sympto-Thermal or Creighton methods are used both sets of data would be charted automatically along with other data as well… So by mixing say the Thermal and the billings methods you are already approach something similat to the Sympto-Thermal method…
(The Creighton method is a development of the Sympto-thermal method)

Where medical necessity is involved then greater care is often needed, an a greater emphasis placed on avoiding days which would normally be considered “Low Risk”.

There are members on here who can advise on specific techniques that identify only the “Safest” days (typically just 1 week in the month).

But there are also others in this situation who have had to abstain totally due to life threatening risks like you describe.

I’m sure others on here will provide the right links…

 

[Joe_5859]

If my wife’s health risk were that great, there’s no way I would feel comfortable taking that chance.

 

[bitznbitez]

Does anyone know anyone else who lives a celibate, married life? How does that work for them?

We have kids and have now chosen to have a marriage of abstinence precisely because we wish to remain faithful to church teaching and my wife for health reasons shouldn’t become pregnant.

I don’t know how to explain this but there is a lot more to life than sex. Only in modern times has constant and regular childless relations become viewed as essential to personal happiness and ironically we have more people dissastisified with life than ever.

…At the end of 1913, Maria was again expecting a child, her last, Enrichetta. Because of her difficult pregnancy, the best gynecologists advised her to have an abortion in order to “try to save at least the mother”. The possibility of survival then with that diagnosis, was barely five per cent. Luigi and Maria refused to do it; they put their whole trust in the Lord’s Providence. Maria’s pregnancy was one of suffering and anguish. God responded beyond all human hope and thus Enrichetta was born; both she and her mother were safe,…

…Maria together with her husband, Luigi, undertook a programme for their total response to any call from God, which in the end was the “difficult vow of the most perfect”, offered to the Lord in humble obedience to their spiritual father. As is well-known, this vow means the renouncing of marital relations, which the two decided together after 20 years of marriage, when Luigi was 46 years old and Maria 41 (cf “Maria Corsini e Luigi Beltrame Quattrocchi”, by Mons. F. Di Felice in L’Osservatore Romano, Italian edition, 24 August 2001). … ewtn.com/library/MARY/LUIGMARI.HTM

 

[agapewolf]

1st you need to get the terms correct:
Celibacy: the state of being unmarried: committed to being “Single”

Chastity: The virtue of committing to a Pure and Holy view of Sex and sexuality. For single people this includes total abstinence from sex and trying to avoid sexual temptation. it recognizes that sex should take place in a mutual loving marriage, which is open to life.

Abstainance: (within marriage) refraining from an act. In this case we are talking about refraining from the act of sexual intercourse, which itself is not wrong, but is avoided for some greater good.

I myself have had to endure over a year of marital abstinence with my wife due to health reasons. It’s not easy, especially when you feel rejected by your spouse.

NFP is a technique which does not belong exclusively to the wife. it is a collaborative effort. The husband must Love his wife. That includes putting her health far above his libido of his busy life. He should make his wife feel fully supported in the necessary time or times of abstinence.
He should be helping her to remember to “Chart” the symptoms needed to monitor her fertility signs. That would mean he is intimately familiar with her charts and know not to initiate intimacy on her fertile or dangerous days. He should not be putting her in the position of having to say “No!”

Using multiple methods to identify the fertile signs is usefull - but they shouldn’t be “Juggled”… If the Thermal method is used and so is the Billings method… then you can graph and chart both sets of data on one chart…

If the Sympto-Thermal or Creighton methods are used both sets of data would be charted automatically along with other data as well… So by mixing say the Thermal and the billings methods you are already approach something similat to the Sympto-Thermal method…
(The Creighton method is a development of the Sympto-thermal method)

There are members on here who can advise on specific techniques that identify only the “Safest” days (typically just 1 week in the month).
…

No, the creighton method is a scientific observation method developed from Billings.

One should not attempt 2 methods at once. They all have different observation rules and terms that are meant to be used with one’s own method. Using more than one at once will make interpretation even more difficult, and mistakes are much easier to make.

 

[anruari]

No, the creighton method is a scientific observation method developed from Billings.

One should not attempt 2 methods at once. They all have different observation rules and terms that are meant to be used with one’s own method. Using more than one at once will make interpretation even more difficult, and mistakes are much easier to make.

OK thanks… but does it not also involve charting multiple signs? (like temperature and other markers)… Billings only uses cervical mucus and position.

I should have been more specific… in using multiple markers you come close to scientific methods which assimilate those multiple markers into one unified method… like the Creighton and Sympto-thermal.

So far as I know the Creighton method is the most developed and researched method, having drawn significant lessons from several previous methods… But in the diocese where I live I can only find people qualified to teach the Billings method.

 

[ajecphotos]

Surely if the husband loved his wife that much he wouldn’t dream of wanting sex with her if he knew it would hurt her?

 

[agapewolf]

OK thanks… but does it not also involve charting multiple signs? (like temperature and other markers)… Billings only uses cervical mucus and position.

I should have been more specific… in using multiple markers you come close to scientific methods which assimilate those multiple markers into one unified method… like the Creighton and Sympto-thermal.

So far as I know the Creighton method is the most developed and researched method, having drawn significant lessons from several previous methods… But in the diocese where I live I can only find people qualified to teach the Billings method.

Creighton is mucous only.