How do men participate in NFP?

[underacloud]

I don’t want anyone to take this the wrong way, because I don’t think that there’s anything wrong with man being involved with NFP. But, you are asking your husband to bond with you over your monthly cycle. As a nonbeliever myself I can tell you that you are extremely lucky that he’s on board with NFP and the abstinence involved. He must really love you to make such a sacrifice. You do it for god, but your husband does it for you.

However, I think asking him to bond over it is a bit much. I’m not even sure how he could go about doing that, and I really don’t see how it would make him feel closer to you to try.

Your husband is who he is. You can’t expect him to be a devout catholic husband to you when that’s not the person he is to start with.

I agree with this.

I think you (OP) should be very grateful that your husband does this for you at all. I would not push it any further. Perhaps for some couples it has been a great bonding experience, but I never found this to be the case. There are invariably days where there is disappointment and that’s just a reality of NFP. Being involved in the process never made me feel any better about it.

I honestly can’t think of any way you should change what you and your husband are doing. He is making a great sacrifice for you already.

My wife takes temps and charts. I interpret the charts. So, it’s me who says yes or no.

Observations are facts. I don’t tell her we need a temp of such and such or whatever. She just records the facts.

Yes, I (husband) was the one who primarily interpreted charts in our marriage. Given we have more children than we planned, either her charting was off (she was pretty lax about the whole thing), my intepretations were off (hormones can certainly affect the way you read the data), or we were deliberately too risky on occasion. But I wouldn’t change any of it.

 

[Contra_Mundum_1]

Have you asked at your church? Or called your diocese to see if they have contacts they can give you? That is how I found our instructor.

They only do Billings here.

 

[Contra_Mundum_1]

I think you (OP) should be very grateful that your husband does this for you at all. I would not push it any further.

I actually don’t agree with this attitude. Why should I be grateful to my husband to do something that is important to me? I do things that are important to him. Of course it is a sacrifice for him, but I also sacrifice things. Isn’t this what marriage is about?

I’m not surprised that the atheist poster needs to stress that I can’t expect an atheist to be a good Catholic husband to me. Thanks for enlightening me, I never realised that.

 

[Mary_Gail_36]

I’m glad that several men have also replied. Thank you for your (name removed by moderator)ut. I don’t think that my husband will participate in NFP like that, and that is fine with me, I can live with it. But it is hard to feel like ‘the gatekeeper’ all the time, because the focus is not on us, but on depriving him of sex. I agree with the following comment:

Do you know how I could find an instructor who would be willing to teach me over Skype? Is there some kind of a Creighton teaching group or something like that that I can contact?

You could try searching around the website. popepaulvi.com/

Also, I remember that the Marquette method can be learned on line. The Marquette method uses a fertility monitor (Clear Blue easy)

 

[Contra_Mundum_1]

You could try searching around the website. popepaulvi.com/

Also, I remember that the Marquette method can be learned on line. The Marquette method uses a fertility monitor (Clear Blue easy)

Thank you for this info. I will look into it and see what can be done.

 

[BlueEyedLady]

I actually don’t agree with this attitude. Why should I be grateful to my husband to do something that is important to me? I do things that are important to him. Of course it is a sacrifice for him, but I also sacrifice things. Isn’t this what marriage is about?

I’m not surprised that the atheist poster needs to stress that I can’t expect an atheist to be a good Catholic husband to me. Thanks for enlightening me, I never realised that.

That might be the crux of the problem. If you guys have gotten to the point where you no longer think that being grateful for the sacrifices you make for each other your problem may go deeper than NFP.

He is making a huge sacrifice and in doing so allowing you to unilaterally dictate your family planning and sex life, and although he personally doesn’t like it he’s doing it out of love. That’s a lot more love than many people get to experience. And if you browse this site you’ll see a lot of posts from people wishing their spouses would make that sacrifice.

Yes, be grateful for your husband. Never take a loving spouse for granted.

 

[underacloud]

Contra Mundum;10811261:

I actually don’t agree with this attitude. Why should I be grateful to my husband to do something that is important to me? I do things that are important to him. Of course it is a sacrifice for him, but I also sacrifice things. Isn’t this what marriage is about?

I’m not surprised that the atheist poster needs to stress that I can’t expect an atheist to be a good Catholic husband to me. Thanks for enlightening me, I never realised that.

That might be the crux of the problem. If you guys have gotten to the point where you no longer think that being grateful for the sacrifices you make for each other your problem may go deeper than NFP.

He is making a huge sacrifice and in doing so allowing you to unilaterally dictate your family planning and sex life, and although he personally doesn’t like it he’s doing it out of love. That’s a lot more love than many people get to experience. And if you browse this site you’ll see a lot of posts from people wishing their spouses would make that sacrifice.

Yes, be grateful for your husband. Never take a loving spouse for granted.

I was going to respond, but I think BlueEyedLady has covered it.

 

[Contra_Mundum_1]

I was going to respond, but I think BlueEyedLady has covered it.

Yes,** I know this**. I just don’t appreciate being lectured by a woman who is not Catholic, is not married and I safely assume has less life experience than me. That is arrogant imo.

Plus where the heck did you get the idea I was not grateful to him? Again, I’m not surprised that the atheist would assume this given the nature of her ‘advice’, but the rest should be a bit more charitable and assume that my heart is in the right place.

Just another lesson that any NFP thread here always ends up with some sort of accusation and all sorts of assumptions.

 

[underacloud]

Yes,** I know this**. I just don’t appreciate being lectured by a woman who is not Catholic, is not married and I assume has less life experience than me. That is arrogant imo.

I didn’t take it as a lecture, but just sharing her honest opinion. I certainly don’t think it was arrogant. BlueEyedLady is quite a regular contributor around here and I appreciate her sharing her perspective, whether I agree or not.

Regardless, I am a married Catholic man and my opinion is the same. But you can take it or leave it, it was just my opinion on the matter as well as briefly sharing my experience of NFP as a Catholic married couple.

 

[underacloud]

Plus where the heck did you get the idea I was not grateful to him? Again, I’m not surprised that the atheist would assume this given the nature of her ‘advice’, but the rest should be a bit more charitable and assume that my heart is in the right place.

I never said you weren’t, just that being grateful and accepting the status quo was your best option IMO. Expecting him to “bond” over this experience is probably unrealistic, and that holds true for many men whether they are athiest or Catholic.

That said, your response as below indicates that perhaps you aren’t as grateful as you ought to be, or a least that you don’t see a reason why you should be grateful.

I actually don’t agree with this attitude. Why should I be grateful to my husband to do something that is important to me? I do things that are important to him. Of course it is a sacrifice for him, but I also sacrifice things. Isn’t this what marriage is about?

 

[Contra_Mundum_1]

Undercloud,

you conveniently omitted the sentence that follows: that I do things for him as well. I make sacrifices for him, both big and small. I don’t know why you have chosen to understand my question about men and NFP in this random way, but you have. Thanks for your contribution. I’m sure there are other interesting topics you could focus your attention on now.

 

[underacloud]

Undercloud,

you conveniently omitted the sentence that follows: that I do things for him as well. I make sacrifices for him, both big and small. I don’t know why you have chosen to understand my question about men and NFP in this random way, but you have. Thanks for your contribution. I’m sure there are other interesting topics you could focus your attention on now.

I didn’t omit it…it’s right there in the section I quoted.

You asked about how men participate in NFP and I’ve shared my experience of it and provided what I thought was a relevant opinion regarding your own circumstances, so I’m sorry you don’t find it helpful. Nonetheless, you are right, there are other things I will choose to focus my attention on. All the best.

 

[Contra_Mundum_1]

You asked about how men participate in NFP and I’ve shared my experience of it and provided what I thought was a relevant opinion regarding your own circumstances, so I’m sorry you don’t find it helpful.

I don’t find it helpful when people assume things about my marriage and lecture me. I find that quite upsetting actually. I find it even less helpful when on a Catholic forum where I want to get a Catholic perspective I am lectured by non-believers. That is just bad manners on their part.

I hope that the discussion here will return to the topic, as it was at the beginning since that was very interesting and it helped me figure some things out. Thank you all who answered my question without assuming things about my marriage.

 

[BlueEyedLady]

Yes,** I know this**. I just don’t appreciate being lectured by a woman who is not Catholic, is not married and I safely assume has less life experience than me. That is arrogant imo.

Plus where the heck did you get the idea I was not grateful to him? Again, I’m not surprised that the atheist would assume this given the nature of her ‘advice’, but the rest should be a bit more charitable and assume that my heart is in the right place.

Just another lesson that any NFP thread here always ends up with some sort of accusation and all sorts of assumptions.

Wow. Just wow. You said in plain English that you should not have to be grateful for his sacrifices because you sacrifice for him and that’s what marriage is. I responded that you guys should be grateful to each other for those sacrifices. I’m not sure how this advice was controversial. To me sacrifice and appreciation are both very important and go hand in hand.

You got a lot of good advice from catholics. But your husband is not religious. There is value in getting (name removed by moderator)ut from a neutral 3rd party on his outlook. I am not “lecturing” you, but when you publicly ask for advice on a forum that does welcome people of any or no faith you have to be ready for some diverse points of view.

My best advice if you really have your heart set on him participating is to show him that you appreciate the sacrifice that he has made. Make him feel like you respect what he has already given up. Then when you finally do bring it up to him frame it in such a way that it doesn’t make it sound like you want him to do more, but rather that this is special to you and you want to share it with him. If he’s open to it include him, but don’t be surprised or take it personally if he just isn’t interested. Even many catholic men don’t play a role in it, so as an atheist the odds of him joining in are even lower.

When I think of the best marriage I’ve ever seen I think of my grandparents. My grandmother was always so grateful that her husband would clean off her car after a big snow so she wouldn’t have to. He never forgot to thank her for every meatloaf and pie she ever made. And those were just the little things. Gratitude and appreciation are vital.

 

[mommamaree]

ContraMundum,

I will make no assumptions about your marriage, but I did want to make a general point about marriages in general. IMO, marriages are happier and more joy-filled when spouses regularly express their gratitude. Sometimes it can be just a quick thank-you. Other times, it can be a more heart-felt expression.

In the case of NFP, as I stated before, my husband is responsible for charting. All I have to do is tell him my signs and temp. We do it this way BECAUSE we had some serious healing to do in our married life, from things that occurred pre-conversion. I needed to learn to trust and be vulnerable. He needed to learn to be compassionate and dependable. So the arrangement we agreed upon is good because it forces us to work on building our relationship in a positive way. I could say he owed it to me. But that is not how I feel. Instead, I feel immense gratitude to the Lord for the wonderful changes in my husband as he has learned to be more selfless and more loving. And I comment to my husband often about how much I appreciate his new way of interacting with me, his intellectual ability to understand and interpret fertility signs, and his attitude about NFP and sacrifice. I say it because I mean it, but then I see the look on his face and realize that when I comment positively and thank him for his efforts, he feels good. He knows his efforts are noticed and appreciated. He gets built up and our marriage gets strengthened.

I know that when I do a good job in anything I undertake as a wife and mother, I love it when my husband notices it and says “well done!” or “thank you”. If he neglects to notice or comment, I will even bring it to his attention. Like saying “I ironed your shirts for you today, sweetie” or “Look! I scrubbed the bathrooms. Doesn’t it feel good to have a clean bathroom?” And then he compliments me and I feel good and then the next time I am called upon to make a similar sacrifice, I know that it does not go unnoticed by my husband.

I think (forgive me please if I am wrong) that is what underacloud and BlueEyedLady were referring to. You may already be expressing your gratitude regularly. Like I said, I make no assumptions at all. But any husband in the modern world who is able to set aside the social conditioning of sex-on-demand in any way that he prefers, without the possibility of pregnancy, is a man apart. It is incredibly difficult, Catholic or non-believer, for any human being, but especially men, to ignore the sex-crazed culture’s ideas of what married sex should be like, and instead choose the path of sacrificial love and holistic sexuality. Good men like our husbands who accept NFP should be honored, no matter how much involvement in the actual process they have. They are truly seeking to love us as Christ loves us.

Every marriage has problems. They are made with imperfect people! But mutual sacrifice and gratitude are not mutually exclusive. That, IMO, is the point those other posters were making. I hope that helps, ContraMundum. I know how much you are working for a good marriage with your husband, and I know that you strive to be a good wife and mother. So please do not take any of this as accusations. I am just another imperfect wife and mother trying to do my best and wanting to reach out to you and give you encouragement and a different perspective on the issue.

God bless!

 

[Contra_Mundum_1]

Mommamaree,

thank you for this kind reply. It really lifted my spirit.

Yes, I completely agree about what you say in regards to gratitude and sacrifice. My husband and I try our best to express gratitude regularly, for both big things and small.

It was him who was curious about how other men participate in NFP because I couldn’t really tell him much. I think it is really interesting to see how couples do it, varying from non involvement of men to actively participating. What is now obvious to me is that there is no recipe on how to do it and that every married couple has its own ways and reasons for the way they approach the subject.

Thanks again.

 

[mommamaree]

Mommamaree,

thank you for this kind reply. It really lifted my spirit.

Yes, I completely agree about what you say in regards to gratitude and sacrifice. My husband and I try our best to express gratitude regularly, for both big things and small.

It was him who was curious about how other men participate in NFP because I couldn’t really tell him much. I think it is really interesting to see how couples do it, varying from non involvement of men to actively participating. What is now obvious to me is that there is no recipe on how to do it and that every married couple has its own ways and reasons for the way they approach the subject.

Thanks again.

To the bolded…
I am so glad!

And that is awesome that he was curious about other husbands’ involvement in NFP. You and your husband can come up with an arrangement that works best for your marriage, and so that you both feel comfortable with amount of sharing of information and responsibility. Every marriage is different!

 

[Allegra]

I let my husband put on the stickers. That way I’m not the “sex broker”.

 

[maryjk]

Yes,** I know this**. I just don’t appreciate being lectured by a woman who is not Catholic, is not married and I safely assume has less life experience than me. That is arrogant imo.

Plus where the heck did you get the idea I was not grateful to him? Again, I’m not surprised that the atheist would assume this given the nature of her ‘advice’, but the rest should be a bit more charitable and assume that my heart is in the right place.

Just another lesson that any NFP thread here always ends up with some sort of accusation and all sorts of assumptions.

No one was lecturing you. BEL was sharing her thoughts, just like the rest of us here. To assume, because you don’t share a belief system, or because she isn’t in the same stage of life that you are, that she has less “life experience” than you, is ignorant. And your post to her was rude.

In addition, her post was spot on. True love is sacrificial love. Giving of yourself to the person you love. And when someone gives you that love, you should be grateful. Every time.

 

[mommamaree]

True love is sacrificial love. Giving of yourself to the person you love. And when someone gives you that love, you should be grateful. Every time.

I know that I am sometimes mystified as to why in the world my husband loves me. I mean…he loves ME.
But a good marriage is one way that God can begin to awaken us to His immense love for us, despite our unworthiness. The fact that we are imperfect doesn’t matter. What matters is that God is Love, and He loves each and every one of us perfectly.
Married love that is true love is sacrificial, as you say. And that sacrifice comes in many forms: kind words, acts of service, affection, physical intimacy, prayer for and with each other. NFP is just one prism in a beautiful mosaic of true love in a Sacramental marriage.