Experiences with NFP?

[thechrismyster]

we’re looking into taking classes, anyone have any first hand experience with practicalities, thoughts on how it improves the marriage or anything else???

 

[Rascal]

Apparently many people here do! We’ve used NFP since being married 8 years ago. It’s been such a benefit, that we recently became teachers. There is another thread with almost the same topic where many people posted.

Hopefully this helps:
Your experience with NFP?

 

[renee1258]

I’ve been doing it for a few years. Didn’t know much about it, until I wanted to get pregnant, then I used it for over a year to avoid after giving birth. You have to chart about three cycles before it becomes very clear. I just had my second, so reading my signs is a little difficult. You have to be consistent, and follow the rules just like any form of control. People ask me how can I take my temp everyday, but millions of women take the Pill every day. And once you get good at it, you only take you tempature when cervical mucus is present.

 

[puppylove]

I’m only on my 4th cycle of using NFP and in my late 30’s. My cycles are unpredictable. I don’t ovulate every month. I didn’t realize that until I started charting my temp and mucus. For example, I am in my 26th day of my cycle and just yesterday my temp went above my coverline which means I am probably ovulating or about to ovulate. In younger women this would ordinarily happen around the middle of the cycle. As for it making marriage better, thats something on an individual basis. There is more communication about charting and mucus between a couple. I am open to life if God so chooses to make me a mother again.

 

[deaconswife]

We have been using NFP for 18 years, through my more fertile years and now into menopause. We took our classes through the Couple to Couple League and cannot say enough about their teachers. The couple who instructed us tell of frequently being called by couples new to the method and wondering whether they were fertile or not at the wee hours of the morning. If I can say anything about the benefits of NFP it is that it fosters a greater intimacy and respect between the spouses. When we do pre-marriage preparation with couples we always tell them that couples using NFP have a divorce rate of less than 2% compared to the over 50% for couples in the US. In the county where I live it is almost a 70% divorce rate. My husband often refers to the technique as giving a couple a magic wand that lets you have the excitement and closeness that you felt during your honeymoon. He is serious about this as he has postponed business trips, rearranged his work schedule, blown 40,000 frequent flyer miles to be home with me. Not to bad for someone married as many years as we have been.

 

[renee1258]

One thing during fertile times if you are avoiding, is that you have to find activities that won’t frustrate each other. You can only fool around so much, before it gets tempting to ignore that fact you are fertile. It is actually a good way to get back to doing things as a couple, other then having sex. It really bothers me, when I hear about couples with such poor compansionship skills, but think as a long as they are having sex all the time their marriage is fine.

 

[johnnyjoe]

That is a great observation, Renee, and most married couples will spend more of their lives in loving companionship than they will as active sexual partners. As Christ said himself, there is no “marriage” as we know it in heaven, for we all will be married to God. As such, our relationships in heaven will be as brother and sister, if you will, and the loving companionship that is the hallmark of a good marriage is the best training for heaven.

Don’t we all admire those elderly couples we know who’s marriages are marked with a tenderness that is truly and deeply “Christian”?

The practice of NFP, the courtship and honeymoon process the that the sexual dynamic becomes, or rather, was intended to be, is the dynamic God created for us to be heaven trained through marriage.