Living the Marriage Vocation Without Children

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My husband and I haven’t been blessed with children. I know that my Domestic Church is my mission/vocation, but any information I have found on the topic talks about families with children, which is kind of painful. Does anyone know of any resources for living out the vocation of marriage without children?

Thanks.

Jackie
 
My husband & I are in the same boat. I wish I had some advice to offer, but I have had the same problem- it seems that everyone just assumes that all married couples will have children, but sometimes God’s plans are not our plans.

I try to live out my vocation by making sure I put the needs of my husband ahead of my own desires. I am not always successful, but I keep trying!

I am interested in what others have to say on the subject, but just know, you are not alone!!

Peace be with you on your journey!! 🙂
 
Have you checked the “for your marriage” website for resources? It is run by the bishops. I would hope they talk about living out your vocation without children. Not everyone is blessed with children, but marriage is still a vocation nonetheless.
 
I have been married for 28 years and we were not “blessed” with children. At first this was difficult for us to understand, but we have chosen to grow in our faith together as a married couple. We have gotten active our in parish, with lectoring, leading adult bible study, I taught CCE for 6 years. We do fundraising for our Dominican Provence Priests and for our RE Dept. Our church has become our “family”. Our lives would have been very different with children. But we have been blessed with being able to spend more time with our parents, and our nieces and nephews.

As a couple you can decide to question the children issue for a long time, or you can accept it and look to the next door that God opens for you to grow closer to him. Each day is a journey in our pilgrimage to Him. In marriage, our first job is to get our spouse to heaven and as Fr. Corapi used to say it might be really difficult as our “hair shirt” may be sitting beside us.

You should also nurture yourself and your individual faith. There is not any guidance for married with no kids, but you are much freer to find ways to serve the Lord in so many different capacities. Keep praying for the next door to open.
 
My wife and I have been married for 35 wonderful years…we were never blessed with our own biological children…we’ve always been active in our parish, and a year after we joined the RCIA team, we were asked to start up and lead RCIA for Children in the parish…we’ve worked with youngsters from four parishes, and we have been blessed with many Godchildren.
 
A different perspective here…

Some of us are forced to live out singlehood (and no I dont see it as a vocation, but rather a consequence of a broken culture).

So neither am I in the vocation of marriage, never mind no children.

How do I approach it?..I focus on Christ and ask Him to guide me to those of His children (adult or otherwise) that need me to make Him present to them…

Sometimes, and yes even in the Church, there is too much emphasis and even romanticizing whatever. Our first vocation is that of Disciple of Christ. The second step is it let Him guide us forward, whether married, Holy Orders, single, widowed/widowered, etc etc

Discipleship always and forever FIRST!!!
 
I don’t have any particular resources, but we are in the same boat (married 18 years). We decided that we had a vocation to serve the church. We did youth ministry for many years, now my wife is working on her PhD in theology at Univ of Dayton. We have a good theologian friend who knows of our situation and whenever he sees my wife, always makes sure to affirm her fertility as a spiritual mother.
 
All I can say is that we have many married couples without children–either they have no children or their children are grown and gone–who are a great asset to the parish! They are like little two-person religious communities.
 
My first wife refused to have children, and my second wife was at an age where the chance of having children is greatly diminished. So we adopted. It was the best thing we ever did.
 
Marie5890 said:
A different perspective here…

Some of us are forced to live out singlehood (and no I dont see it as a vocation, but rather a consequence of a broken culture).

So neither am I in the vocation of marriage, never mind no children.

How do I approach it?..I focus on Christ and ask Him to guide me to those of His children (adult or otherwise) that need me to make Him present to them…

Sometimes, and yes even in the Church, there is too much emphasis and even romanticizing whatever. Our first vocation is that of Disciple of Christ. The second step is it let Him guide us forward, whether married, Holy Orders, single, widowed/widowered, etc etc

Discipleship always and forever FIRST!!!
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Yes! This is very true. A family with young children has fewer opportunities to help outside their family, since their children’s needs necessarily come first.

For the single (by choice or not) and the married without children (hopefully not by choice), there is more capacity to help outside the person/couple. This doesn’t mean they must devote all their spare time to church activities, but certainly commitment to volunteering should be discerned. It sometimes happens as well that a single person or childless couple will be of great help to their own extended family.
 
TheWarriorMonk said:
My first wife refused to have children, and my second wife was at an age where the chance of having children is greatly diminished. So we adopted. It was the best thing we ever did.
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I agree. My sister and her husband adopted also and we have all love having their daughters as part of the family.
 
Adopted children are absolutely no different from biological children. My (adult) stepson insisted that there was no way this would be the case. He’s since admitted he was wrong, and enjoys his new adopted siblings.🙂
 
Admittedly, I am living on the fringes of couples life. Never married, and no current relatiionship.

Almost all of my life, I have been a stalwart foe of marriiage. But if there is one thing I am more opposed to than marriage, it is marriage with children.

I don’t mind if others marry and procreate. It is just not suitable for my life
 
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