We absolutely cannot have a baby just now: I have had to move countries to be with my new DH, and settling in here is at times an enormous strain. We’re also working on my job situation. So having a child immediately is not an option.
This sentence jumps out to me. For thousands of years, mothers stayed at home and took care of the house and the children. It is only in recent history where women are now expected to take a job in secular society, (which is rife with pitfalls of its own, spiritual and otherwise).
If you were to live from your husband’s income alone, you might not have all of the conveniences of modernity, but there would be more stability in the home.
I understand that financially speaking this is not always possible to have the mother at home - I understand that concept. However, it is definitely the ideal you and your husband should strive to attain in the near future. Our premarital counselor, a traditional Catholic priest, made the same recommendation: The ideal is for the mother to stay at home.
The Lord commanded us to be fruitful and multiply, and to place our trust in Him. One of the things I learned as a father was that when my wife and I had children, that opportunities, resources, and new possibilities opened to our family by the grace of the Creator. Family, friends, work associates, and members of the Church all helped us and continue to help us.
But at the moment, as newlyweds, we are only able to be intimate for 5 days a month after my period starts
You might consider reading about the dangers of having intercourse during one’s menstrual period. There are physical dangers as well as spiritual dangers.
In fact, in the Mosaic Law, a woman was separated from her husband during menstruation for 7 full days. (You can find the specifics in the Bible - Leviticus 15:19 and 24; 18:19, and 20:18.) To this day, many devout Jews follow these same laws, as a form of family purity.
The Jewish term refers to the family purity laws as the “laws of niddah”. Many devout Jewish women go through formal classes on these concepts of family purity prior to marriage. The gist of the family purity laws - in a nutshell (and I am simplifying) - is no touching of any kinds for a 7-12 day period (the time frame being dependent on following biblical direction or rabbinic).
Separating from one’s wife physically for seven full days allows a couple to have some perfectly natural “alone” time, and builds intimacy (“absence makes the heart grow fonder”). Our family priest advocated during our premarital counseling that even though you will be married, each partner to the marriage still needs alone time. Jewish men and women, therefore, sleep in separate beds at the onset of the menstrual cycle, and do not touch each other during this time frame. Prior to re-engaging with her husband, the wife goes to the mikveh, a small pool in a bath house, and immerses herself in water (think baptism, full body immersion).
Over time, Jewish women praise the laws of family purity, though it takes time to adjust and to learn.
In my experience, people do tend to like Marquette as a method. The lack of ambiguity is refreshing to those of us who don’t do subjectivity very well. Doesn’t mean they particularly enjoy the abstinence associated with it, of course, but who does?
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