Newly married with NFP struggles

[Matt33]

Wow, you read a lot into my short little message!

I’m glad you found it so funny. This is a serious issue for me and most who respond on NFP issues. As a family who has struggled with NFP and is commited to Letting the Church guide us I realize that this is a tender, frustrating and frankly confusing issue that is dealt with in marriage. It isn’t solved with a jimeny cricket respose. One should recognize and support when a couple is trying to find thier way through a land of moral landmines. Honestly I did read a lot into your response, could be that I read too much but thier is a air of aloofness in our society when it comes to these most personal issues and it could be that I lumped you in with some who are enemies of the Church and families and just concerned for “self” For that I apologize. I should not be so quick to judge. But lets try to give meaningful advice to those who are seekng it.

 

[Matt33]

Do they really say only 5 days a month abstaining?! That sounds very unrealistic to me - I agree they should be more honest.

Yes that is what some have told us but I want to plug for two things here. 1 is the Lady comp, as with anything it is situation specific on who it is easiest for but it has been great for us. and 2 is just a mentality of acceptance and obediance, both to the Church and God’s will but to each other. One of the things they teach in the CCL is the sucess rate for couples who use NFP who never get divorced. It is around 95 percent. I submit that it is not because of NFP but because people who are commited to NFP are commited people in general, to thier faith to thier God and to each other.

 

[kage_ar]

You make some good points here - using NFP when you have to avoid is one of those things in life which is hard work, and requires serious effort and commitment, but is worth it.

Do they really say only 5 days a month abstaining?! That sounds very unrealistic to me - I agree they should be more honest.

While we did not use STM, we had 5 abstain days when TTA.

 

[Free_Radical]

I’m glad you found it so funny. This is a serious issue for me and most who respond on NFP issues. Honestly I did read a lot into your response, could be that I read too much but thier is a air of aloofness in our society when it comes to these most personal issues and it could be that I lumped you in with some who are enemies of the Church and families and just concerned for “self” For that I apologize. I should not be so quick to judge. But lets try to give meaningful advice to those who are seekng it.

No apology necessary. This has also been a struggle in my marriage. I have talked about our struggles with a couple different priests and feel at peace with the decisions we have made. NFP can cause a lot of anxiety in couples which, at least in my case, didn’t make for a very intimate experience.

 

[Matt33]

No apology necessary. This has also been a struggle in my marriage. I have talked about our struggles with a couple different priests and feel at peace with the decisions we have made. NFP can cause a lot of anxiety in couples which, at least in my case, didn’t make for a very intimate experience.

I appreciate your struggles and can surly empathize. But it is important that we are faithful to our Church. Many a priest can error but infalilibility comes from our Church. I hope you are not spreading a belif that contracepting is ok. You have not said as much but again I jump to conclusions quickly. Your decisions are between you and God. It sounds as if you are comfortable with them. But ESPECIALLY in this case of a young couple trying to do the right thing lets not justify ourselves at the expence of the innocent. Lets model Catholic teaching on Catholic boards of Catholic people that have a question of Catholic approved family and marraige decisions. But alas we dtract from the thread if you wish to conversate on this topic then lets start a new thread or PM but to help the point of this thread lets keep the discussion to how NFP WORKS.

 

[Matt33]

Hi everyone…

I guess I feel a little embarrassed asking this, but is it normal to have to abstain 3 out of 4 weeks every cycle? We are using the sympto-thermal method taught by the Couple to Couple League.

We abstain during phase I because of menses, and then several days of spotting afterwards which makes it difficult to tell whether there’s any mucus. Then, after the 7 day mucus patch and 3-4 day waiting period, we’re already up to day 20 and have 5 or so “green” days before it starts over again.

Before I learned anything about NFP, I guess I imagined we’d only be abstaining maybe a week every cycle. We’ve only been married two months, and this is already starting to become a struggle…

Getting back to the issue… Although I think 5-7 days of abstaining is not the norm, niether is 3 out of 4 weeks. As you are new at this remember that as you get more comfortable with this and learn it you will be able to be more liberal with it realitivly safely. Mix and match methods and use this time to learn, it will pay dividends later. Also if there are severe medical reasons for not concieving then naturally the abstinance will have to be stricter. Incidentally post pardum is also typically a frustrating time as is the time of people switching from some types of ABC to NFP as cycles are typically out of whack. (though I know some on these boards have PP cycles like clockwork.) Remember that God is great and will do great things in your life. And I do pray that you are strong, and most importantly in NFP, loving.