Nah, not my experience at all. I don’t really understand how you feel, the whole concept if completely foreign to me. You evidently feel very guilty, not sure about what but that’s how I see it. We both enjoy making love, I don’t think of her as an object in the least. we are very empathic to each other.Well, I’m not talking about seeing others do this but speaking about one’s personal experience. No one needs to judge anyone here because we all have sin in our lives.
I see this as a topic that is avoided like the plague and suspect that people really know better. From my own perspective, when my wife was on the pill I felt like a machine, not a human. I tried my best not to see her as an object for sex. It made me feel cheep. I didn’t like it, but really had no options. If I abstained then we drifted apart. I did abstain many times because I felt like the above. It angered me. But then I turned around in self loath for having fallen into this trap. It was after a scary birth that motivated her to seal her womb, sterilization. I remember very clearly telling her “well, it might be a problem if we ever become Catholic”. You see I was Catholic, left the Church, not for these reason but thought I was in the one true church until I saw all the flaws of it. This topic ultimately opened me up even further to Catholicity, unlike some people.
I do not like feeling like some sort of sexual machine. It’s cold. My wife was beautiful, but I wanted nothing to do with her because she was not open to having babies after our first. That is why whe have such a spread in age. It wasn’t until she opened up to more children that I began to draw closer to her. But the sterilization hurt. It was like she was saying I don’t want to have children with you. It also hurt because I felt that this was not our choice but rather God’s.
FYI, and I’m sure most of you know, this is NOT what the Church and what Christ taught.Not at all, whether it be condoms, the pill or my soon to have vasectomy. I feel completelty normal and have every expectation of continuing to feel normal whilst being infertile.
( I’m all done having kids)
Yes, absolutely. Just giving my opinion.FYI, and I’m sure most of you know, this is NOT what the Church and what Christ taught.
No, contraception never made me feel like a machine. My husband and I have been happily married for 27 years and our intimacy was never affected by whether or not we used contraception. There were times when we used contraception and when we didn’t; We were intimate before vasectomy and after vasectomy, before hysterectomy and after hysterectomy. Sex is just one part of our relationship, and the decisions we made were made together as partners in our life together. Our decisions were based on doing what was morally responsible.Does contraception make you feel like a machine rather than a real person with the ability to cooperate with God’s creation? How do you deal with this contradiction that I discovered on my own in my previous beliefs?
The Catholic Church only condones NFP in the severe event that a couple needs to be careful for some grave reason, not just to use NFP for the purpose of contraception. Then it turns into contraception. This has been clearly explained to me.Hello eucharisteo. Greetings!
There’s this prevalent thought in the Philippine Catholic Community that sex is dirty unless it is exercised for pro-creation.
This is not Catholic doctrine. Catholic doctrine teaches that sex is the power of procreation but also a sacred expression of love between husband and wife. That is why the Catholic Church condones the rhythm method of contraception. It acknowledges that even if you have no intention of having children, you may still engage in sexual intimacy with your wife as an expression of love.
So, if one doesn’t love his wife, then yes, sex would make him like a sexual machine. But for somebody who loves his wife with all his heart, then sex should be an expression of that love and glorified. It is important.
You see it when you abstained from the encounter that you became distant - you lost that expression of love in sexual intimacy. So, you might want to think about love in relation to sex rather than just the porn-type-sex-stuff. That is - think of it as GIVING instead of receiving.
Brannock, greetings. I understand your point. I have utmost respect for the Catholic principle of contraception and I follow it in my life.I cannot speak from experience, as I am not yet married, but this line really hit me.
“the sterilization hurt. It was like she was saying I don’t want to have children with you.”
I had a long discussion with my gf on this matter, and as a Protestant she previously (past tense) did not see the problem with contraception. I felt the same way like, you say you love me and I love you, but you aren’t open to God helping us make more of us to love?
Before I had kids, I thought the very same thing. Now I realize that not everyone wants kids and not everyone should have kids.But, you are right. A lot of times, couples don’t have children for selfish reasons - chasing that career, don’t want to lose that model-figure, don’t want the responsibility, etc.
There is nothing wrong with couples that do not have children. That part is true. But if that couple chooses to not have children, that is a completely different thing. They fail to see what marriage is because they do not have the faculties to know ore refuse to let God use them to create life. This requires a bit of research and prayer. But I find what you’ve said to be offensive because God is offended by it. God is the creator and he gave us a gift. That give is love, love so much that a gift comes from that love.The facts speak for themselves, childless couples live longer, are healthier and are happier.
ReadingSt Cyprian’s treatise on the Lord’s PrayerAs God’s children, let us remain in the peace of God.Christ has clearly added a law here, binding us to a definite condition, that we should ask for our debts to be forgiven us only as much as we ourselves forgive our debtors, knowing that we cannot obtain what we seek in respect of our own sins unless we ourselves have acted in exactly the same way to those who have sinned against us. This is why he says in another place: By whatever standard you measure, by that standard will you too be measured. And the servant who had all his debt forgiven him by his master but would not forgive his fellow-servant was cast into prison: because he would not forgive his fellow-servant, he lost the indulgence that his master had granted him.
And Christ makes this point even more strongly in his teaching: When you stand up to pray, he says, if you have anything against anyone, forgive it, so that your Father who is in heaven may forgive your sins. But if you do not forgive, nor will your Father in heaven forgive you. On the day of judgment there are no possible excuses: you will be judged according to your own sentence, and whatever you have inflicted, that is what you will suffer.
For God commands us to be peacemakers, and to agree, and to be of one mind in his house. What he has made us by the second birth he wishes us to continue during our infancy, that we who have begun to be children of God may abide in his peace, and that having one spirit we should also have one heart and one mind. Thus God does not accept the sacrifice of one who is in disagreement but commands him to go back from the altar and first be reconciled with his brother, so that God may be placated by the prayers of a peacemaker. Our peace and concord are the greatest possible sacrifice to God – a people united in the unity of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.
Not even when Abel and Cain were making the first sacrifice – not even then did God pay attention to their gifts. He looked into their hearts, and the gift that was acceptable was the one offered by the one who was acceptable in his heart. Abel, peaceable and righteous in sacrificing in innocence to God, taught the rest of us that when we bring our gift to the altar we should come, like him, with the fear of God, with a heart free of deceit, with the law of righteousness, with the peace of concord. He sacrificed in such a way, and so he was worthy to become, afterwards, himself a sacrifice to God: he who bore witness through the first martyrdom, who initiated the Lord’s passion by the glory of his blood, had both the Lord’s righteousness and the Lord’s peace. Such are those who are crowned by the Lord at the end; such are those who will sit and judge with him on the day of judgment.
But he who quarrels and stirs up discord, he who is not at peace with his brethren – the Apostle and holy Scripture together testify that even if he meets death for the sake of Christ’s name, he will still be held guilty of fraternal dissension, for it is written, whoever hates his brother is a murderer, and the murderer cannot attain the kingdom of heaven or abide with God. No-one can be with Christ who preferred to imitate Judas rather than Christ.
This is the job for a priest to help guide us through it. A faithful Catholic spiritual director could also help. But deciding on the severity of any sin has already been established. However in order for the sin to be grave three criteria must be “met”.eucharisteo, i read your post and opinion about nfp and reasons for using it. i feel the hardest thing to judge is grave reason. some may only see grave reason as threat to health which may lead to death while others think of lesser means. my wife and i will resort to the nfp method (though we hardly have relations now due to our jobs) after this next baby because she will turning 40 years old and we both have full time jobs. does that meet the “grave reason” standard? if not should we be totally abstinent and live as brother and sister?