Disagreement over NFP

[liaeona]

Hello,

I’m recently engaged and will be getting married this coming summer. My fiancé and I both travel 2-4 weeks per month for work and graduated college relatively recently. At this point in our lives, having a child would mean both of us needing to quit our jobs since the only role at our company we qualify for is this 50-75% travel role. Additionally, we are saving to pay for a wedding and hopefully buy a house, but we haven’t had many years of saving and we want to be on a stronger financial foot before having a child, particularly with the job transition consideration. We’d also like to have some time to grow in our relationship as husband and wife.

For these reasons, we’re on the same page about waiting to have children for a few years after marriage and we plan to practice NFP. Of course, we’ll lovingly accept any children even if it happens earlier than we’re planning, but we’d like to do our best to plan logically. As I’ve done more research into NFP, I’ve learned that the abstinence period is typically 10-14 days. This is much longer than my fiancé expected, and he’s very disappointed and thinks that number sounds wrong/high. The question also came up about our wedding night/honeymoon. He of course wants to have sex on our wedding night and honeymoon (as do I), but we’re on different pages bout what to do if I’m fertile at that time.

He seems to think that the chances of getting pregnant are very low, even when fertile, but I found that the odds are actually more like 30%. Additionally, he feels like our marriage won’t be valid until we have sex and that a sexless honeymoon is almost a waste of a honeymoon. I understand what he’s saying, but I don’t want to throw our plans to the wind just because society expects us to have sex on our honeymoon. If we’re waiting this long to have sex, what’s another week of waiting if it’s the best decision for us as a family? Also, if our honeymoon is 2 weeks long, we’re almost guaranteed to be able to have sex even with NFP at some point during that time frame. Sex is not the reason we are getting married, and I’m hurt that he’s acting like these facts about reproductive cycles are my fault or my doing.

I guess I’m looking for (name removed by moderator)ut/advice…am I in the wrong? Is he in the wrong? Has anybody else been through this experience?

 

[bitterhope]

I agree with Kelfa in your other thread. NFP does not work well for many couples. Perhaps you should hold off on marriage until you are able to accept children whenever God sends them because if you are anything like me, NFP is impossible to use successfully. Many women have hard to read signs, many are truly more fertile than others, and some if us gave been known to ovulate more than once per cycle. You may be like this too, or you may have a easy to read signs and ovulation that happens only once per cycle and slightly less fertile and NFP may work great for you. But there really is no way to know until after you are regularly counting in NFP to work for you before you can try find out which group camp you are in. Also, if you two are not on the same page than NFP will be a tremendous burden and a cause of tension. NFP can only work if both spouses are on board. I advise you hold off on marriage until you are willing and able to accept children in God’s terms in case NFP fails you like it has a great deal of the rest of us.

 

[Xantippe]

Here are some thoughts:

1. Why would having a baby require BOTH of you to quit the 50-75% travel jobs? (Barring some sort of extreme health situation.)
2. Do you have debt? If so, you shouldn’t be saving for either a large wedding or a house right now.

daveramsey.com/baby-steps

House downpayment savings are, according to that plan, the step that comes after paying off all other debt (credit card, car, student loans, etc.).

A modest wedding would be fine.

1. Your job situation is in flux. I wouldn’t be in a hurry to buy a house until you’re in a better situation.

Also, if you buy after you have a child or two, you’ll make better choices with regard to floorplan, neighborhood and school districts. Also, you may realize that the “charming” 1920s cottage you fell in love with has a lot of lead paint and other safety issues that you didn’t think about until you had a baby crawling around and chewing on windowsills.

Right now, you don’t know what you want or need, and it’s very expensive to repeatedly buy and sell houses. Also, home ownership is a lot to put on a young marriage, especially with the travel schedule you describe. Have fun instead and buy your second house first!

1. I think that some initial “live fire” practice with NFP can be very important down the road for when the stakes area higher. And, a couple years of just getting used to each others quirks can be important. (My husband and I used NFP and had our first baby 4 years after we got married. And it was very nice. But we started trying as soon as he had a real job offer in grad school.)
2. It would be a good idea to start charting very soon. The more information you have, the better you’ll do when it counts.
3. That all said, you need to be prepared for an early pregnancy. Be ready for that eventuality.
4. 10-14 days is rock bottom minimum. In more difficult circumstances (breastfeeding or perimenopause), abstinence goes easily into multiple months. Also, there are many different non-NFP reasons for having to abstain: pelvic rest during pregnancy (not always, but often enough), postpartum abstinence, etc.
5. NFP is going to be a pain in the neck with your two travel schedules.
6. Does your fiance want a baby right now? Because he’s setting you up for a baby 9 months from your wedding date.
7. If you have an unexpectedly early pregnancy, your honeymoon may be your only opportunity to take a trip together without being pregnant or toting along children for the next 20+ years. This is a big deal. If you can do it, do it, sex or no sex.

And I mean that about 20+ years. 16 years ago, my husband and I were able to do a big trip to Central Europe after we’d been married one year (it was combined family, pleasure and business). That’s literally the only recreational trip we’ve done together without children since. We’re going to have a heck of a time going anywhere for our 20th anniversary, although my in-laws have agreed to take our kids.

Take that trip as soon as you can.

1. Your fiance is being a big baby about this. Talk about it in your premarital counseling if you’re lucky enough to have a private session. Don’t go forward with wedding planning until you hash this out. Married life is going to require a lot of sacrifice and self-control from both of you, and he’s not showing a willingness to engage in either.

 

[pensmama87]

I think it would be wise to begin charting now so you know how to read your own signals and you have a better idea of what your situation will be once married. The averages will mean little - it will be your particular situation that matters.

 

[Kelfa28]

Copied from other thread.

Not that I’m looking to be the bearer of bad news…but 10-14 days of abstinence for NFP is typical to low end.

My cycles are really short and we end up abstaining for most of the month when using STM…which was the only method I really learned.

We abstain upwards of 20 days of a 30 day month…and I’ve still managed to get pregnant.

But every woman is different…even the same woman can have different cycles too.

Also…we’ve never actually had the chance to be just “husband and wife” because we had kids immediately and just kept having kids.

I’ve been married almost 4 years and have 3 kids.

You can get pregnant on the first try during your fertile period…that is what it’s designed to do…get you pregnant.

Every time we’ve had sex on my fertile period…I’ve gotten pregnant. I’m batting 100% at this point.

So, I’m totally jaded when it comes to NFP at this point. But there is a reality when it comes to NFP.

A cold and hard reality that it’s not all sunshine and roses and designed to make your marriage this fairytale.
For some of us it’s a huge cross to bear.
That is the truth.

You and your fiancé need to understand this. It’s not contraception…it doesn’t work the same way as the pill or condoms.

It’s totally different and can be a huge challenge.

I honestly believe that couples really shouldn’t enter marriage unless they are seriously ready for kids.

Besides…my husband and I are still a regular married couple and didn’t miss out too much on married life without kids.

 

[Xantippe]

I agree with Kelfa in your other thread. NFP does not work well for many couples. Perhaps you should hold off on marriage until you are able to accept children whenever God sends them because if you are anything like me, NFP is impossible to use successfully. Many women have hard to read signs, many are truly more fertile than others, and some if us gave been known to ovulate more than once per cycle. You may be like this too, or you may have a easy to read signs and ovulation that happens only once per cycle and slightly less fertile and NFP may work great for you. But there really is no way to know until after you are regularly counting in NFP to work for you before you can try find out which group camp you are in. Also, if you two are not on the same page than NFP will be a tremendous burden and a cause of tension. NFP can only work if both spouses are on board. I advise you hold off on marriage until you are willing and able to accept children in God’s terms in case NFP fails you like it has a great deal of the rest of us.

If the OP starts charting and monitoring now, within about six months, she should have a pretty good idea which camp she is in.

She might find out, for instance, that she’s only ovulating four times a year or barely ovulating at all, or something like that.

Or she might realize that the NFP method she started with was not a good fit for her and that a different one works better.

The earlier she starts charting, the more she’ll know.

 

[jmjZelie]

I agree with Kelfa and bitter hope. NFP is hard. It is an alternative to letting nature take its course, which usually means parenthood sooner rather than later. But sexual relations within marriage are for procreation, bonding between the spouses, and as a remedy for concupiscence (although many say the marriage itself is the remedy for concupiscence, and I agree that they have a valid perspective). If you seek to avoid the primary end, there must be just/serious/grave reasons. And especially if you are delaying consummation of the marriage, there must be just/serious/grave reasons. It sounds like you have serious reason to avoid pregnancy and childrearing, but it also sounds like an arrangement that is a hindrance to married life in general. In such a situation, it might be better to delay the marriage until you are in a better situation. NFP is not 100% reliable (even illicit forms of birth control are not that reliable) and it is possible that despite all your best laid plans, the natural fruit of your union with your new husband naturally results.

Now I am just a stranger on the Interwebs, but I am also a wife and mother with a history that gives me a certain perspective that I hope will be valuable to you. If not, I will not be offended and I wish you all the best. But one bit of advice that I urge you to consider is this, if you can get to the level of design (what is something meant for) and understand a thing’s purpose, making prudential decisions regarding use of that thing, through prayerful discernment and discussions with your fiancé and someday husband, becomes mush simpler. Not always easy. But simpler.

 

[Xantippe]

You can get pregnant on the first try during your fertile period…that is what it’s designed to do…get you pregnant.

You and your fiancé need to understand this. It’s not contraception…it doesn’t work the same way as the pill or condoms.

Right.

And the way that it works differently is that if a couple skips a pill or a condom on a randomly chosen day, there’s actually not that great a chance of pregnancy occurring on that one day.

But, knowingly do the same thing during the week before ovulation while practicing NFP and the odds are you’re going to get pregnant pretty fast.

(We’ve done pretty well with NFP, but we had one “my high temperature was a fever” unexpected pregnancy and one “marital relations 7 days before ovulation can cause pregnancy–wow!” unexpected pregnancy.)

 

[bitterhope]

If the OP starts charting and monitoring now, within about six months, she should have a pretty good idea which camp she is in.

She might find out, for instance, that she’s only ovulating four times a year or barely ovulating at all, or something like that.

Or she might realize that the NFP method she started with was not a good fit for her and that a different one works better.

The earlier she starts charting, the more she’ll know.

Maybe, but to be completely honest she won’t really know until she tests her charts in real life. Yes, all methods fail and that includes NFP so if a couple isn’t ready for kids they should not be getting married. I don’t care if they use NFP to avoid and it works great but no one should go into to marriage expecting that to be the case. Out of all the couples I’ve met in the real world, very very few have had the success rates that are touted on CAF or other websites/materials and the ones who have been that successful later struggled with trying to conceive. I seem to remember you posting that it took you several months using your charts to conceive one of your kids. Many of us have NEVER had to try to conceive at all. Some of us are more fertile than others. Fertility signs for me are easy to read. I have the problem that I have ovulated twice in a cycle. There are not warnings that I will ovulate again, just some months I will and others I don’t. The only way for me to avoid is to abstain. I’m not getting into that debate again so don’t try stating this is impossible. It happens to me and I am sure I’m not alone in that. If somebody is not ready to accept that a baby might be the result of having sex–just as God intended–they should not be having sex. If you aren’t ready to have a baby, you should not be getting married.

 

[jilly4ski]

Copied from other thread.

Every time we’ve had sex on my fertile period…I’ve gotten pregnant. I’m batting 100% at this point.

So I felt a lot like the OP when I got married, because I was entering law school the fall after the wedding. Well I also had my first baby 9 months after the wedding…

We too are batting 500. Every time we have marital relations during my fertile period (phase 2), we have gotten pregnant. Meaning we now have 4 children in 7 years of marriage. Because abstinence is hard. Being married and abstinent is a different animal than dating and abstinent. In my opinion. We usually have to abstain between day 7 and day 18, but as I have gotten older or after I have babies my cycles grow to 36 days or longer, increasing the abstinence time. Some cycles it is east to avoid and other cycles we battle both chastity and remaining abstinent, so sometimes we fail and get pregnant.

A happier ending, I was able to finish law school on time while having 2 babies and have had two since then. We have gone through some difficult financial times (we are still renting), but have pulled through.

 

[Xantippe]

Maybe, but to be completely honest she won’t really know until she tests her charts in real life. Yes, all methods fail and that includes NFP so if a couple isn’t ready for kids they should not be getting married. I don’t care if they use NFP to avoid and it works great but no one should go into to marriage expecting that to be the case. Out of all the couples I’ve met in the real world, very very few have had the success rates that are touted on CAF or other websites/materials and the ones who have been that successful later struggled with trying to conceive. I seem to remember you posting that it took you several months using your charts to conceive one of your kids. Many of us have NEVER had to try to conceive at all. Some of us are more fertile than others. Fertility signs for me are easy to read. I have the problem that I have ovulated twice in a cycle. There are not warnings that I will ovulate again, just some months I will and others I don’t. The only way for me to avoid is to abstain. I’m not getting into that debate again so don’t try stating this is impossible. It happens to me and I am sure I’m not alone in that. If somebody is not ready to accept that a baby might be the result of having sex–just as God intended–they should not be having sex. If you aren’t ready to have a baby, you should not be getting married.

My first took 6 months, but it was mostly a question of just stopping the NFP rather than doing much with charts. By the time I finally got pregnant I had kind of forgotten about the whole baby thing. I was 26 and we’d been married 4 years at that point.

My second took negative one month (we’d been planning on starting the next month). I was 29.

With my third, we’d had a late miscarriage of an unexpected pregnancy when I was 36 and I was VERY eager to get pregnant again. So, I bought and studied Taking Charge of Your Fertility and got pregnant the first cycle we tried. I was 37–so pretty darn good as these things go. (A lot of people around the internet–especially men–believe that women’s ovaries shrivel up at 35–not so!)

So I’ve had a total of four pregnancies in 17 years, two planned, two unplanned, three live births. Interestingly, both the unplanned pregnancies happened virtually as soon as we started thinking about having another child…

I don’t know how menopause runs in my family (WASPs don’t talk about this stuff), but based on my own previous record, I’m almost certain I could easily have a kid or two in my 40s without trying very hard. My natural level of fertility seems to be pretty solid but I also have an almost total hormonal shutdown during breastfeeding (even very limited breastfeeding). If I were to hazard a guess, I suspect that if things were left completely to chance, I’d be one of those ladies that either has a baby every two years or within a year of weaning (same thing for me, because I tend to wean around 1 year).

Edited for bad math.

 

[pensmama87]

So I felt a lot like the OP when I got married, because I was entering law school the fall after the wedding. Well I also had my first baby 9 months after the wedding…

We too are batting 500. Every time we have marital relations during my fertile period (phase 2), we have gotten pregnant. Meaning we now have 4 children in 7 years of marriage. Because abstinence is hard. Being married and abstinent is a different animal than dating and abstinent. In my opinion. We usually have to abstain between day 7 and day 18, but as I have gotten older or after I have babies my cycles grow to 36 days or longer, increasing the abstinence time. Some cycles it is east to avoid and other cycles we battle both chastity and remaining abstinent, so sometimes we fail and get pregnant.

A happier ending, I was able to finish law school on time while having 2 babies and have had two since then. We have gone through some difficult financial times (we are still renting), but have pulled through.

Same here.

I did start charting in advance of our wedding and we did realize that it was very, very likely that I would be fertile for our honeymoon. We had planned on waiting for a few years to improve our financial situation, but we decided to take a chance. That’s how we got our oldest. And since then, every time I have known that I was fertile we have gotten pregnant. In our case, we get to a situation where we think, “ehhhhh…we were planning on waiting…but hey, why not?” And now our third will be born any day.

It is a hard thing to explain to someone who is not married yet. DH and I had plans for how we were going to live our lives and it’s very different than what either of us thought, but at the same time, it’s better than the plans we thought we wanted for ourselves.

I don’t mean to advise you to be incautious with your financial plans, just be open. That’s a lot of what marriage is about.

 

[jmjZelie]

10-12 days of abstinence is not that bad in actuality. I have a pattern of alternating short cycles and long cycles. So my short cycles are right about 28-30 days long, which means about two weeks of abstinence in the middle. But my long cycles are about 45+ days long, so the stretch of abstinence is much longer that cycle. So it is either get ready for a new baby or wait it out.

Liaeona,
With your jobs requiring so much travel, have you and your fiancé talked about the fact that it is highly likely that there could be some times where you are both home and don’t have to travel, and the entire time you are together, you are fertile? So, the honeymoon might be only the first of the times when you encounter this problem.

 

[Xantippe]

A happier ending, I was able to finish law school on time while having 2 babies and have had two since then. We have gone through some difficult financial times (we are still renting), but have pulled through.

Yay!

The renting thing is definitely an issue.

On the one hand, babies don’t know they’re living in a rental. On the other hand, once you start having kids, it’s really hard to attain the sort of financial momentum that results in a good downpayment.

We had our first baby within a year of my husband starting his first real job (meaning, not a graduate student TAship or stipend). However, what with one thing and another, we didn’t manage to buy a house until we’d been married 15 (!) years, had three kids, and half of our downpayment came from generous in-laws. But, on the bright side, we had no other debt at all by then, a good emergency fund, and by renting so long, we were able to send our older kids to a really good school. (Thanks, Dave Ramsey!)

Somewhat off-topic:

A 20-year mortgage pays off really briskly. So, if you can’t manage a 15-year mortgage (which is what the personal finance cool kids do), a 20-year mortgage is still pretty good.

 

[Xantippe]

10-12 days of abstinence is not that bad in actuality. I have a pattern of alternating short cycles and long cycles. So my short cycles are right about 28-30 days long, which means about two weeks of abstinence in the middle. But my long cycles are about 45+ days long, so the stretch of abstinence is much longer that cycle. So it is either get ready for a new baby or wait it out.

Liaeona,
With your jobs requiring so much travel, have you and your fiancé talked about the fact that it is highly likely that there could be some times where you are both home and don’t have to travel, and the entire time you are together, you are fertile? So, the honeymoon might be only the first of the times when you encounter this problem.

That’s a very good point about the travel.

About cycle length–it makes a big difference to the NFP experience. Back when I was a sweet young thing, I used to have lots of 30+ day cycles (and some were a lot longer than that). It made for longish stretches of abstinence, which in turn encouraged corner-cutting. However, I’m 40 now and heading into perimenopause. At this point, my cycles have been shrinking and shrinking. I believe I’ve had a number in the 24 day range during the last year. While that has a negative side (blink and infertility is over), the advantage is that everything goes much faster right now–both fertility and infertility zip by really quickly. So there’s a lot less waiting.

That’s right now. What I expect will happen (based on my reading) is that my cycles will shorten up even more over the next couple years (which means keeping a good eye on cycle length as shorter cycles mean earlier ovulation). As it is, the short cycles mean that we stick to Phase 3 and the first two days of Phase 1, and that’s it. At some point, I’ll presumably start skipping cycles and having unpredictable longer cycles, but for the moment, the short cycles are manageable.

 

[liaeona]

Thank you for all the responses so far. A few things:

1. We are on the same page about NFP in general, the conflict is just over the wedding/honeymoon part.
2. We are open to having kids if that is God’s will, and if we got pregnant earlier than expected, we’d figure it out, but it wouldn’t be the most ideal with our current job situation. Therefore I don’t think we need to delay getting married.
3. We’d both have to quit out of fairness and practicality. Neither of us wants to miss out on our baby’s childhood because we’re gone half the time. We both work at the same company and we’ve dealt with the traveling thing throughout our whole relationship, but we couldn’t even keep a pet alive, much less a human with this travel schedule. Neither of us plans to stay at the company super long term, so both of us quitting in a few years, finding new jobs, moving to one of the cities we want to live in, and buying a new baby-friendly house would likely all happen around the same time as a natural and logical transition.
4. We have no debt. We just also haven’t had a ton of years to build up savings, and a 20% down payment is no sneeze.

 

[1990Domer]

Here are some thoughts:

1. Why would having a baby require BOTH of you to quit the 50-75% travel jobs? (Barring some sort of extreme health situation.)
2. Do you have debt? If so, you shouldn’t be saving for either a large wedding or a house right now.

daveramsey.com/baby-steps

House downpayment savings are, according to that plan, the step that comes after paying off all other debt (credit card, car, student loans, etc.).

A modest wedding would be fine.

1. Your job situation is in flux. I wouldn’t be in a hurry to buy a house until you’re in a better situation.

Also, if you buy after you have a child or two, you’ll make better choices with regard to floorplan, neighborhood and school districts. Also, you may realize that the “charming” 1920s cottage you fell in love with has a lot of lead paint and other safety issues that you didn’t think about until you had a baby crawling around and chewing on windowsills.

Right now, you don’t know what you want or need, and it’s very expensive to repeatedly buy and sell houses. Also, home ownership is a lot to put on a young marriage, especially with the travel schedule you describe. Have fun instead and buy your second house first!

1. I think that some initial “live fire” practice with NFP can be very important down the road for when the stakes area higher. And, a couple years of just getting used to each others quirks can be important. (My husband and I used NFP and had our first baby 4 years after we got married. And it was very nice. But we started trying as soon as he had a real job offer in grad school.)
2. It would be a good idea to start charting very soon. The more information you have, the better you’ll do when it counts.
3. That all said, you need to be prepared for an early pregnancy. Be ready for that eventuality.
4. 10-14 days is rock bottom minimum. In more difficult circumstances (breastfeeding or perimenopause), abstinence goes easily into multiple months. Also, there are many different non-NFP reasons for having to abstain: pelvic rest during pregnancy (not always, but often enough), postpartum abstinence, etc.
5. NFP is going to be a pain in the neck with your two travel schedules.
6. Does your fiance want a baby right now? Because he’s setting you up for a baby 9 months from your wedding date.
7. If you have an unexpectedly early pregnancy, your honeymoon may be your only opportunity to take a trip together without being pregnant or toting along children for the next 20+ years. This is a big deal. If you can do it, do it, sex or no sex.

And I mean that about 20+ years. 16 years ago, my husband and I were able to do a big trip to Central Europe after we’d been married one year (it was combined family, pleasure and business). That’s literally the only recreational trip we’ve done together without children since. We’re going to have a heck of a time going anywhere for our 20th anniversary, although my in-laws have agreed to take our kids.

Take that trip as soon as you can.

1. Your fiance is being a big baby about this. Talk about it in your premarital counseling if you’re lucky enough to have a private session. Don’t go forward with wedding planning until you hash this out. Married life is going to require a lot of sacrifice and self-control from both of you, and he’s not showing a willingness to engage in either.

Xantippe really has your best interests in mind. Very smart and compassionate!

 

[1990Domer]

Copied from other thread.

Not that I’m looking to be the bearer of bad news…but 10-14 days of abstinence for NFP is typical to low end.

My cycles are really short and we end up abstaining for most of the month when using STM…which was the only method I really learned.

We abstain upwards of 20 days of a 30 day month…and I’ve still managed to get pregnant.

But every woman is different…even the same woman can have different cycles too.

Also…we’ve never actually had the chance to be just “husband and wife” because we had kids immediately and just kept having kids.

I’ve been married almost 4 years and have 3 kids.

You can get pregnant on the first try during your fertile period…that is what it’s designed to do…get you pregnant.

Every time we’ve had sex on my fertile period…I’ve gotten pregnant. I’m batting 100% at this point.

So, I’m totally jaded when it comes to NFP at this point. But there is a reality when it comes to NFP.

A cold and hard reality that it’s not all sunshine and roses and designed to make your marriage this fairytale.
For some of us it’s a huge cross to bear.
That is the truth.

You and your fiancé need to understand this. It’s not contraception…it doesn’t work the same way as the pill or condoms.

It’s totally different and can be a huge challenge.

I honestly believe that couples really shouldn’t enter marriage unless they are seriously ready for kids.

Besides…my husband and I are still a regular married couple and didn’t miss out too much on married life without kids.

Some more excellent advice!

 

[1990Domer]

Thank you for all the responses so far. A few things:

1. We are on the same page about NFP in general, the conflict is just over the wedding/honeymoon part.
2. We are open to having kids if that is God’s will, and if we got pregnant earlier than expected, we’d figure it out, but it wouldn’t be the most ideal with our current job situation. Therefore I don’t think we need to delay getting married.
3. We’d both have to quit out of fairness and practicality. Neither of us wants to miss out on our baby’s childhood because we’re gone half the time. We both work at the same company and we’ve dealt with the traveling thing throughout our whole relationship, but we couldn’t even keep a pet alive, much less a human with this travel schedule. Neither of us plans to stay at the company super long term, so both of us quitting in a few years, finding new jobs, moving to one of the cities we want to live in, and buying a new baby-friendly house would likely all happen around the same time as a natural and logical transition.
4. We have no debt. We just also haven’t had a ton of years to build up savings, and a 20% down payment is no sneeze.

First, please remember that buying a house in this economy is not the end all and be all that it was for our parents. You may find renting a house more to your liking.

Second, I would not quit a job in this economy without having another one ready to roll. Unemployment is nasty. I am not sure your field, but it is not fun being on the outside looking in. If nothing else, benefits are nearly as important as the take home pay.

Ok, I think I gave you enough food for thought. God bless and good luck!

 

[nodito]

liaeona,

First off, congratulations on your engagement and upcoming marriage! What an exciting and joyful time in your life and I wish you all the best.

A few months before I got married, I posted on these boards asking for advice and encouragement because I was so worried about getting pregnant on my honeymoon. I was in a slightly different situation than you - my then fiance didn’t want to start our marriage using NFP and would have preferred to postpone the wedding, whereas I did think we had serious reasons to use NFP and didn’t want to postpone marriage. I was anxious about how pregnancy would affect my grad school plans. The feedback I got from CAF was discouraging. Many, many people advised me to call off the wedding if we weren’t ready (eager?) to accept kids (which is of course a lot easier to write anonymously then do in practice) and made me feel selfish and immature for wanting to postpone. Some of teh responses were helpful. In the end, I decided to take a leap of faith. We got married, consummated the marriage on our wedding night, didn’t use NFP at all, and actually had a hard time conceiving our first son, who was born about two years after our wedding.

The Church doesn’t give us a list of what constitutes just/serious reasons for avoiding pregnancy, but if you and your fiance have discerned that you have them, then NFP is, in my opinion, your best bet. It can be helpful to remember that NFP is not an alternative to artificial contraception, but to complete abstinence, which would of course necessitate not having sex at all. I would say 10-14 days of abstinence is typical, though it will vary based on the method you choose (there are several options) and your particular cycles and fertile signs. Have you started learning a method yet? Are you tracking your cycles?

The probability of getting pregnant if you optimally time intercourse for your fertile window is actually quite good. The per-day probabilities vary, but are highest about two days before ovulation, and some studies suggest the probability of intercourse that day resulting in a clinical pregnancy is between 30 and 40%. You can read more about that here. If your husband to be understood the “risk” he was taking by having sex with you on your honeymoon should it fall during your fertile period, what would he be inclined to do?

It is a good and natural and holy thing to want to have sex with your spouse, and I don’t think it makes your fiance selfish for wanting to show his physical love and affection to you right away, as soon as you are “allowed,” especially if you two have been chaste throughout your dating and engagement relationship. But I also agree with you that good, holy inclinations (wanting to make love to a spouse) can be sacrificed for the good of the family when you’ve discerned just reasons to avoid pregnancy. I also agree with a previous poster who suggested that NFP may be difficult with your travel schedules and it’s a good idea to sort out how you will handle future fertile periods should they coincide with the times when you are in the same city.

Just as an FYI, the Church teaches that your marriage will be valid and sacramental the moment you exchange vows (assuming you are both baptized Christians). However, the marriage becomes indissoluble once it is consummated. You can read more here.

I hope this is helpful. I would encourage you and your fiance to take an NFP class together and give him a chance to learn about the biology from someone besides you, plus it would give him the opportunity to ask questions and, if a guy is teaching the class, it might be helpful for him to hear a male perspective. We took a CCL class before marriage and I found it helpful.

God bless.