Miserable with NFP!

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Hi Everybody
Now I know what I’m about to say will bring on a lashing of rancor and anger and I’m going to probably get trampled, but I just want to vent a little and speak my feelings about NFP…

My wife and I have been MISERABLE with it for the last five years. Besides the fact that there are only about ten days of safe “green light” intercourse allowed in each month, it isn’t as reliable for us as it has been touted.

My wife and I feel so isolated and unhappy when we can’t be together intimately at times. This is not everyday but there are inevitably about five or six times per month where we want each other intimately and it is just not allowed. The separation is really a dreary and sad experience. Then, there are the VARIABLES like BREASTFEEDING that have gotten us into trouble with pregnancy. We conceived our second child, our daughter, while breastfeeding out son. My wife was very careful using the sympto-thermal method. She very very carefully charted her temp, mucouse, etc. Then, my wife had irregular periods after our daughter was born and, right after she finished her period, two days later, she ovulated??? Then she got pregnant with our current baby due in February.

Now, I know what people will say: “You don’t regret your last two children, do you? I know you wouldn’t trade them for the world, right!?” Well, the answer is, I ADORE my children, love them to death and wouldn’t trade them for ANYTHING. Problem is, financially speaking and emotionally speaking we DON’T want anymore. We have three and these three came 3 years in a row! My wife is so weary from being pregnant for three straight years. She hates the feeling of being bloated, heavy, tired, dizzy, and queezy. Three years straight.

I hear all the time that “if done properly,” NFP is 99% effective, etc. and invariably when someone says that NFP didn’t work for them, the first thing I see is everyone swoop down and condemn them for being uncharitable, not open to life and that “you must not have done NFP properly.” My wife and I have found NFP to be emotionally isolating, miserable, ineffective, and about as unromantic as heck.

We are at the end of our rope with NFP. I seldom hear anyone talk about negative experiences with NFP, just how wonderful it is and how it has blossomed their marriage and how people started off only wanting 3 kids and now have 15 and want more, etc. This hasn’t been our experience? We love our 3 but want to stop and properly raise them, give them each a ton of attention, pay for their private Catholic education, save for their college, and continue to have my wife stay home with them. I think some couples desire to have 10-15 kids and they do a GREAT job! Some people are geared for it and want it. We don’t. I never look down on people who have big families. I admire their commitment and resolve. But I know that temperment, personalities, finances, and life goals differ in us all. NFP has just been depressing for us.

Now I know I’m going to get a lot of heat for this post but I had to share my feelings and ask how you all cope with this NFP lifestyle? We’re not coping well and my wife wants to be done with NFP for good. With our experience, I agree with her most of the time. I’m a Catholic who is anti-abortion, pro-life, prayerful, watch EWTN constantly, try to follow the Church and relish in the sacraments. But this teaching is truly taxing us hard.
 
I feel the same way about NFP, there’s nothing natural about it to my mind and the ideal results that are touted completely ignore folks like myself.
You are not alone.
The only advice I can offer is to embrace one of the two crosses you are being presented with as the only other options are outside of grace.
Find a way to accept the difficulty of NFP. I hate to suggest this but know others who have done it for the same reason, maybe NOT breastfeeding so as to get a regular cycles going earlier? Or maybe make an extra effort to umm “get it” when you can to make the times when you can’t easier to bare? (And yes, I’m aware that when you can is usually when the hormones make it the least desirable to do so.)
or
Let go of the dreams of what you think you have to do to be good parents so as to be able to be more comfortable should more children come along. One doesn’t have to put them through Catholic school/college to be a great catholic parent.
And PRAY, pray, and pray again.
You have my sympathy. Pregnancy and finances are very hard on us at times, but we have the hindsight of the last 15 years and 8 kids to keep our hopes up when the chips are down.
I hope you and your dw can reach a point of acceptance and support in this area of your marriage.
 
You are not alone in how you feel. It didn’t work our for us with the first two as well. Then the next three were conceived while using artificial birth control. My husband and family joke that my body is immune to all advances that modern medicine has made in the birth control dept. After number five, I had a tubal. I know I will catch heck here for even admitting to it and I don’t care to hear it from anyone. But #5 put us in financial distress and ended up moving in with family. We still aren’t in the position to even be able to afford child care so that I can work to get us out of the hole we are in. I don’t for one moment regret the decision that I made. I have spoken to our pastor about it and he agrees that sometimes families can only handle so much… he did mention that during my conversion I should confess it. 👍 Consider it done. My husband, who was born and raised Catholic thought it was best for us as a family. His entire family, also practicing Catholics, agreed it was the best for us. God gave us plenty. My husband has a good job. But we really couldn’t afford anymore. We prayed about our decision. Talked about it at lengths for months before making a decision. Now two years later all things are still good. I cannot imagine being surprised with another pregnancy.
 
**NFP is not easy on us either. Me and my hubby have been downright miserable at times. But it is either that or complete and total abstinence as neither of us is willing to go against God.

We just try to accept it as best we can and do our best to follow God’s will even though we feel lost much of the time. Hopefully come judgement day we can look back on our lives and know we did our best:shrug:

I give you and your wife my prayers. Things will get better, please don’t despair.

Malia**
 
I don’t for one moment regret the decision that I made.
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I have spoken to our pastor about it and he agrees that sometimes families can only handle so much… he did mention that during my conversion I should confess it.

In light of your comments and knowing this:

**
1491
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** The sacrament of Penance is a whole consisting in three actions of the penitent and the priest’s absolution. The penitent’s acts are repentance, confession or disclosure of sins to the priest, and the intention to make reparation and do works of reparation. 1492 Repentance (also called contrition) must be inspired by motives that arise from faith. If repentance arises from love of charity for God, it is called “perfect” contrition; if it is founded on other motives, it is called “imperfect.”

**I fail to see how one could have a genuine penance if they have no contrition for their sin, but that’s for you to deal with, not me.😦 🤷 **
I do not see how it is helpful to encourage someone who is struggling with their faith to act outside of the grace of God and Church, esp as in their very weakest moments that very grace is what they most need.
Yes, sadly, I’m sure one can find many priests who don’t have the backbone to tell people what they don’t want to hear and most certainly one can easily find that 90%+ segment that are not following the Church in regards to this issue. One can easily find others to lead them to sin.
I’m sure we would all appreciate a life with less sufferring, that is not really the point. If God is calling us to suffer in some way, we only have two choices:
Say yes to Him and trust He will make it well worth it.
or
Say no to Him and trust that He isn’t worth it.
I cannot in either good conscience as a Catholic or personal experience recommend the second option.
 
I’m sure at times it is difficult for you and your wife and I know that you are thankful for your children, but just remember that there are people like my husband and I that would love to be able to have 5 or more children if that’s what GOD has in store for us.

I know at times it’s hard for you and your wife but GOD has chosen you to do this work. Pray to OUR Lady to help you overcome these troubling times.
 
OP, it sounds like you and your wife have a lot going on. Rob’s and Feanaro’s wives have very good advice. It is hard in our culture to understand that NFP isn’t an alternative to contraception, but an alternative to abstinence. It is also very hard to trust that God will not give us more children than we can handle. And it is extremely hard to hear about the NFP statistics, to find oneself in the “other” category.

That said, perhaps you can use the rest of this pregnancy to check out some other methods of NFP. Maybe sympto-thermal isn’t right for you. Returning to cycles after pregnancy can be a very difficult time, especially when you add breastfeeding to the mix. With this in mind, you may want to check out Creighton. I say this specifically for a couple of reasons. First of all, if your wife is totally breastfeeding (no other substinance other than occasional sips of water from birth), she will have a good amount of time to start learning her fertile signs. Also, it is not dependent on being in cycles. There are specific instructions for the situation that will leave you knowing fertile/infertile days.

I don’t think anyone here will question your love for your children. It must be very difficult to work through the emotions of back to back unplanned pregnancies. If I can help with more details about Creighton, please feel free to PM me.
 
Gurney, Same here, we had three in under three years. The oldest turned three almost two months after the third was born. I thought we had traveled back to the 50’s or 60’s. No. 3 was conceived while breastfeeding No. 2. We went from being a close, hold hands, talk about dozens of things at night couple, after work, to ROBOTS cleaning and caring for babies. This lasted for about six years.

We were back on track to being a couple who could talk and take care of our marriage once again. Then one day on a cold, dreary day in the Fall, the Holy Spirit blessed us again and we were back in the baby business. Believe it or not, our marriage and we have lived to tell about it, but it has taken EVERY fiber in our being to get were we are today.

"My wife and I feel so isolated and unhappy when we can’t be together intimately at times. This is not everyday but there are inevitably about five or six times per month where we want each other intimately and it is just not allowed. "

If your wife wants to be with you, you are significantly ahead of the game. This is the time pray together, you have to see it to believe how wonderful and uplifting the Rosary and other prayers can be. Taking time to thank our Lord for your young family, you guys health, safety and asking for continued graces. Just do It.

As for us, given the status of culture in the US and world for that matter. We do have strong Catholic Schools and High Schools in our area so we made the commitment to send our Children. We had to beg and borrow to make it happen we have gotten our first to college.

With the pop-culture sewer that our child have to swim in everyday we feel like we have to put on their armor every morning to protect them, like the Crusaders & Knights of Templar. So we spend lots of time talking to them, being involved at the schools, having friends over, etc.

Academically our goals are to reflect closely the standards the Church ask of the Priest and Bishops, .ie. ultimately have our children prepared to complete a Masters or PhD. level curriculum. That is NOT to say that finishing at the high-school level is sub-par. That is just how we were taught in my high-school days and it was not buy Jesuits. We ask the Holy Spirit for leadership and have each one of them prepared for High-School Honors and AP curriculum. So we live in almost TV Free home, focusing every minute on raising our children, spiritually and academical and giving the remainder of the day to our marriage before we collapse into sleep.

My point is for us to raise a Mid-Large family 3+ is taking everything we have, with the Holy Spirit caring us on more days than I can count.
 
I will offer prayers for you and your wife to find strength during this difficult time :gopray2: NFP has its own struggles that are different than ABC (which isn’t a walk in the park & is a sin) but still NFP struggles are very real. God though even in the struggles find ways to bring you His Grace with NFP.

My DH & I found the Marquette Model works well for us, we have used a CM only method it worked well but left DH feeling less confident & having a harder time which made it harder for me (he needed an additional cross check to feel more confident & temping wasn’t a good fit for me). Marquette does have a protocol now to use during breastfeeding and lacking a cycle, I used the breastfeeding protocol when I started the method before my period returned (we did abstain more then but we have more days now).

Our three kids are all under 4.5 & the youngest is 16.5 months. Right now this is the longest spacing we have had between kids & really helped us given the serious issues that we faced (emotionally, physically for me, financially & spiritual temptation). It is still hard but for different reasons we would LOVE another baby right now (which we didn’t think would happen a year ago) but after a lot of prayer we realize that we are better to space a little more, I have faced some medical issues recently that are nearly resolved. (Obviously if God decides otherwise we’d be more than willing:thumbsup: )

We had to really work at trying to find other ways to be close to each other emotionally and in other ways physically that didn’t lead us to sex. With 3 very little kids who really need so much, we often found we were neglecting our intimacy overall (not just sex but other ways) and we were also neglecting ourselves. This is not good, if the marriage suffers so much else suffers in the family. We had to really work on getting more time together (date nights after the kids are asleep, prayer together) and some time for just us as individuals helped (even if just for a walk alone). I won’t lie it was hard us during the time right after DD was born but it did help to find that time to connect, especially when we have “safe” days and might not have the same hormone drive as during the fertile time. Harder still since we had been contracepting and outside the Church before we had our children:( , we had that temptation to go astray again (oh we had that temptation something terrible) but with God’s Grace we did not stray! I cannot stress enough how much prayer helped us and frequent reception of the Sacraments. Now things are much better due to changing those things, turning to God for help to bare the cross we felt we were carrying (we need Him), and using a method that was a better fit for us. We still have our moments as anyone does (no couple has a perfect time with everything

marquette.edu/nursing/NFP/Model --here is the link for Marquette if you wanted to check, the NFP Institute there helped me learn via homestudy. Learning was free but the monitor & sticks do cost more money up front which can be harder on the pocket book. It was easy to learn though & I got the monitor & sticks from Amazon. I cut some other items out to pay for it, I figured we’d have to sacrifice in other areas to get the cash.

However, you might find that Creighton or Billings might be something you’d might want to consider too. Less money and might be a good fit for your wife if she is having a hard time with the breastfeeding and NFP signs.

I don’t know this info will help at all but it might help to just not feel alone, that others struggle at times too.

I will pray for you both :gopray2:
 
texaspanda said:
You are not alone in how you feel. It didn’t work our for us with the first two as well. Then the next three were conceived while using artificial birth control. My husband and family joke that my body is immune to all advances that modern medicine has made in the birth control dept. After number five, I had a tubal. I know I will catch heck here for even admitting to it and I don’t care to hear it from anyone. But #5 put us in financial distress and ended up moving in with family. We still aren’t in the position to even be able to afford child care so that I can work to get us out of the hole we are in. I don’t for one moment regret the decision that I made. I have spoken to our pastor about it and he agrees that sometimes families can only handle so much… he did mention that during my conversion I should confess it. 👍 Consider it done. My husband, who was born and raised Catholic thought it was best for us as a family. His entire family, also practicing Catholics, agreed it was the best for us. God gave us plenty. My husband has a good job. But we really couldn’t afford anymore. We prayed about our decision. Talked about it at lengths for months before making a decision. Now two years later all things are still good. I cannot imagine being surprised with another pregnancy.
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Do you recognise that your tubal was wrong and sinful and a heinous offence to God who gave you your body for HIS purposes rather than for your own?

Even if those purposes involve suffering for yourself - well, so did they for Jesus. Where would you be, after all, if He had chosen to stay comfortable and not suffer (far more suffering than you ever have borne or ever will bear) for your sake?

If you are not truly repentant, and it seems you aren’t, then your priest was wrong to give you absolution. More than that, regardless of his words you were not absolved of that sin and remain unabsolved unless truly repentant.
 
We all have crosses to bear. Some bear the cross of lack of initmacy. Some the cross of losing a child. Some bear the cross of mental illness. The list goes on . . .

Heaven is where we rest and have complete peace. That’s what we live for - happiness in eternity. Until then, it’s a struggle.

I’m sorry NFP isn’t making you happy here on earth. My cross doesn’t make me happy, either. But in the grand scheme of things, it’s a short time compared to eternity, so I continue to be patient. I hope you and your wife can do the same.—KCT
 
Maybe I’m wrong here, but doesn’t imperfect contrition suffice for the sacrament of penance to forgive mortal sins? Obviously this presupposes a firm desire to amend one’s life and not commit the same sin, but in the case of sterilization surgery what’s done is done, so it’s rather moot. I don’t see how one could make oneself regret such a thing if one doesn’t. One could say “I know the Church teaches against this. I know objectively this was wrong. I am afraid of going to hell, so I ask God’s forgiveness.” But having said all of that, one could still not regret the temporal effects of the decision.

I can’t really say that I think ABC is always immoral. Yes, I know the Church teaches that it is, and to that I give my obedience and assent. I guess what I am saying is that it is impossible to make myself believe something that I don’t believe, KWIM? In my case, I’m all for NFP for a variety of reasons, and I have no problems using it, so being obedient in this area isn’t a terrible burden for me. But it does seem to be for others (and I’m not saying others should disregard Church teaching, btw, just making an observation).
 
TweetyBird said:
Maybe I’m wrong here, but doesn’t imperfect contrition suffice for the sacrament of penance to forgive mortal sins?

There has to BE contrition for it to be imperpect or otherwise. Contrition is a regret of committing the sin, a “detestation” of the sin. The pp wrote, “I do not for one moment regret the decision that I made.”

[**
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LilyM said:
Do you recognise that your tubal was wrong and sinful and a heinous offence to God who gave you your body for HIS purposes rather than for your own?

Even if those purposes involve suffering for yourself - well, so did they for Jesus. Where would you be, after all, if He had chosen to stay comfortable and not suffer (far more suffering than you ever have borne or ever will bear) for your sake?

If you are not truly repentant, and it seems you aren’t, then your priest was wrong to give you absolution. More than that, regardless of his words you were not absolved of that sin and remain unabsolved unless truly repentant.
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We really need to be careful in evaluating another person’s level of repentance. I think this is the danger in Catholicism is that some of us who are completely following the Vatican and Catechism become like Pharisees and think we have the right or ability to judge whether someone is contrite or not. I think this person got a tubal in a frustrating situation and later felt sorry for it but does not regret the benefits of it. We all have imperfect contrition at times. I know I have. Would that we could all be 100% contrite and perfect. How many guys have watched dirty movies with their buddies, regretted it, confessed it, and then once in a while reminisced together about the “good old days.” Let’s be careful in analyzing other people’s contrition. We must remove the wooden beams in our own eyes first. In the “Imitation of Christ” we are told to look at everyone as 1000 times more righteous and holy than ourselves and that WE are the sinners who need help.
 
I guess what I am trying to say, or maybe ask, is how does one ‘make’ oneself ‘feel’ sorry for sin if one doesn’t? I suppose the poster in question could have said “The only reason I regret it is because it could land me in hell.” That would be imperfect contrition, right? But is that the same as a true regret for sin because one believes one it is wrong, or is that more like “I don’t really think it’s wrong, but I’ll err on the side of caution and confess, out of fear of hell, just in case.” See what I mean? The reason I’m pressing this point is because there are sooooooo many Catholics in this boat. What I’m trying to figure out is how one can, by sheer force of will, be sorry for something that they really don’t believe is sinful.
 
gurneyhalleck1 said:
We really need to be careful in evaluating another person’s level of repentance. I think this is the danger in Catholicism is that some of us who are completely following the Vatican and Catechism become like Pharisees and think we have the right or ability to judge whether someone is contrite or not. I think this person got a tubal in a frustrating situation and later felt sorry for it but does not regret the benefits of it. We all have imperfect contrition at times. I know I have. Would that we could all be 100% contrite and perfect. How many guys have watched dirty movies with their buddies, regretted it, confessed it, and then once in a while reminisced together about the “good old days.” Let’s be careful in analyzing other people’s contrition. We must remove the wooden beams in our own eyes first. In the “Imitation of Christ” we are told to look at everyone as 1000 times more righteous and holy than ourselves and that WE are the sinners who need help.
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I’m not saying she wasn’t and isn’t genuinely contrite, simply that is the impression her post gives.

And no-one should be reminiscing over past sins. For myself I do my utmost to avoid doing so, because it betrays a lack of true contrition - no fear of the hell to which these sins would condemn me, nor sorrow for having offended God by them.
 
LilyM said:
I’m not saying she wasn’t and isn’t genuinely contrite, simply that is the impression her post gives.

And no-one should be reminiscing over past sins. For myself I do my utmost to avoid doing so, because it betrays a lack of true contrition - no fear of the hell to which these sins would condemn me, nor sorrow for having offended God by them.
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I agree. No one SHOULD reminisce about past sins but it’s a reality that some people do. And the fact that they might act in a jovial manner about those sins to a friend or family doesn’t necessarily mean they are not sorry for them. A person with an addiction might miss the feeling they got from drugs, alcohol, pornography, etc. and wish once in a while that they could take that drug of choice again and remember the fun of their “high times” but know better and know that it offends God.

I think we’re all better off admitting we’re sinners instead of bragging. Many Catholics, orthodox Roman Catholics, tend to love to brag that their contrition is so perfect, they follow every rule, and they do this and they do that. Your first and second post sound Pharisaic. A few weeks ago at Mass in the readings a Pharisee was praying to God: “Thank you so much, Lord, for making me perfectly holy and contrite and not a sinner like these other people” while a sinful man stood not far away and admitted to God that he was a terrible sinner and needed forgiveness, was horrible and undeserving of salvation, etc. God forgave the second man, not the first.
 
One thing I always find BOGGLING is how very orthodox Catholics spend a great deal of time furious and vocally fighting birth control within the Church, touting NFP, and yet, the Church itself seems to not care much?

I say this because how much do most parishes actually spend in time and treasure educating their parishoners about NFP? My parish is very orthodox and traditional and yet never have we had any NFP classes offered or education, nothing spoken of it at all, period? We live in Visalia, CA and, if interested in NFP, the Couple to Couple League will refer you to a couple one hour north up in Fresno who will assist you FOR A $50 fee? It seems like no class, retreat, or experience in our church ever comes without a fee and it’s never easy to find? Most Catholics hear we’re not supposed to use artificial birth control but they assume it’s a ludicrous teaching because they don’t know about NFP and assume the rythmn method or just nothing at all is the alternative to the pill. The Church puts very little effort into NFP except on EWTN internet and radio (which is all they seem to talk about day in and day out, birth control) so it is no surprise that the parishoners feel the Church is aquiescent or just turning a blind eye to it altogether.
 
gurneyhalleck1 said:
One thing I always find BOGGLING is how very orthodox Catholics spend a great deal of time furious and vocally fighting birth control within the Church, touting NFP, and yet, the Church itself seems to not care much?

I say this because how much do most parishes actually spend in time and treasure educating their parishoners about NFP? My parish is very orthodox and traditional and yet never have we had any NFP classes offered or education, nothing spoken of it at all, period? We live in Visalia, CA and, if interested in NFP, the Couple to Couple League will refer you to a couple one hour north up in Fresno who will assist you FOR A $50 fee? It seems like no class, retreat, or experience in our church ever comes without a fee and it’s never easy to find? Most Catholics hear we’re not supposed to use artificial birth control but they assume it’s a ludicrous teaching because they don’t know about NFP and assume the rythmn method or just nothing at all is the alternative to the pill. The Church puts very little effort into NFP except on EWTN internet and radio (which is all they seem to talk about day in and day out, birth control) so it is no surprise that the parishoners feel the Church is aquiescent or just turning a blind eye to it altogether.
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The magisterium of the Church finds it important, which is what most orthodox Catholics really mean when they say the “Church.” But in reality, orthodox Catholics (those who submit to the magisterial teaching authority in matters of faith and morals) are in the minority in the U.S. The vast majority of parishes in the U.S. are predominantly people (including many if not most priests) who believe in the primacy of their own consciences over Church teaching, so it’s no surprise you don’t find much emphasis on NFP vs. ABC at the parish level.

As to why Rome doesn’t address this…? There’s lots of stuff that goes on that is pretty much ignored by the magisterium. 🤷
 
gurneyhalleck1 said:
We really need to be careful in evaluating another person’s level of repentance. I think this is the danger in Catholicism is that some of us who are completely following the Vatican and Catechism become like Pharisees and think we have the right or ability to judge whether someone is contrite or not.
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hmm, when one says they have no regret, it’s not really an issue of evaluation. It’s simply a statement of fact at that point.
TweetyBird said:
What I’m trying to figure out is how one can, by sheer force of will, be sorry for something that they really don’t believe is sinful.
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**They cannot. **
**I’m not sure I’m understand what you mean by “believe”. In order for it to be a sin, one must know that it is a sin. It would appear the issue here is not about the act, but about belief in the Church and Christ? For example, I could not say I believe in my husband and marriage AND say I do not believe having an affair is a sin. **
Trying to make since of this myself at this point. Sins are sins, regardless of situaitonal ethics we would like ot impose to make them otherwise.
**:hmmm: **And all this is actually rather off topic anyways. Maybe another thread?? Not bad questions, but I don’t know that this is the thread for them?
gurneyhalleck1 said:
I think we’re all better off admitting we’re sinners instead of bragging. Many Catholics, orthodox Roman Catholics, tend to love to brag that their contrition is so perfect, they follow every rule, and they do this and they do that.
:confused: I don’t think I’ve ever had a perfect contrition yet. Maybe once, slim chance for twice.
I don’t think anyone is bragging. It is not bragging to exhort our fellow christians to right actions with our words and/or actions. Of course we are all sinners! Most of us don’t need to be exhorted to sin and it’s usually readily apparent that we are all sinners without admissions.
I can readily admit I understand your frustrations and difficulties and worries without saying those are valid reasons to set aside what you know to be right for what you know to be a sin. Even more, it would a sin for me to do so.
**
**[
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Again, I think this thread has gotten a bit off-track. I submit my references to the CCC not to be like a pharise, but to give knowledge to aid in another’s understanding of their faith, should they desire or need it.
To the topic at hand, I hope the OP is able to find some peace within their faith for their situation.
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