NFP Is A Burden

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keith2002

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So this post will be a bit personal. SO here it goes.

My wife and I began practicing NFP about two years ago. It was something I brought up to my wife after I came into the Church in 2001. Being a life long Catholic she siad the Church must teach this for a reason and she went along. We were taught by a very generous couple and are practcing NFP now.

After being asked why the Church taught htis and not being able to fashion and answer, I have spent spare time learning about the WHY. I am coming to see that NFP has the potential to be such a channel of grace in our marriage. I am so glas our Lord moved us in this direction.

However…my wife sees NFP as a burden. She compains that at the times of the months that she is most interested we must abstain if we wish to postpone pregnancy (which we are doing right now for serious reasons). I have to remind her constantly to make her mucus observations and chart them. She has as much as said that NFP sucks the fun out of it.

I have asked he to read some things about NFP and sexuality and she hasn’t read it yet.

In addition to praying for her and our marriage and my ability to be loving and charitable, I need help!

Is there anything written from a testomonial perspective (or a tape) that might help her and us in this time of concern.

Peace and Grace :confused:
 
My husband and I teach NFP and I understand that sometimes practicing the method can be trying. Would it be possible for you to respond to your wife from the perspective of sacrifice. Hopefully you won’t always have to postpone a pregnancy,but when you do, you could help her to see the beauty in your vocation as husband and wife and recognize that every vocation has a cross that comes with it–this is her path to holiness right now and the better she bears the cross, the holier she will become.

Another practical suggestion would be to try to do little things to liven up phase 1 and phase 3. Hopefully, if you start to make those times a little more spontaneous and exciting, the phase 2 abstinence and daily observations won’t be seen as such a burden. Also, maybe the timing of her observations seems like it takes the sponteneity out of the marital embrace. Maybe you could encourage her to make her observations throughout the day instead of right at the opportune moment. In doing so, she would know where she is in her cycle and would be prepared for whatever may come.

I hope this helps, but ultimately prayer is the key. I will say a prayer for you.
 
I find NFP to be a burden too. We (my wife and I) need to use it for very serious medical reasons. I don’t disagree that the Church teaches that it is acceptable, I disgree with people who romanticise it and proclaim it to be some marriage enhancing way of life and the couple is sooo much more in love and they are soo in tune with their bodies blah, blah, blah. It is a burden that sometimes we need to use - but it takes the spontaneity and mystery and fun out of marital relations.
 
Hi, I teach nfp, and it’s great to be able to share our frustrations with using the method. And I do sing the praises of nfp— sorry to those who hate that. But my husband and I contracepted for half our marriaged life-- 12 years, and then we’ve been practicing nfp for the last 12 years. What one needs to do is to keep things in perspective. There are downsides to nfp at times, some challenges, but there are downsides with contraceptives, too, in addition to the immoral use of contraceptives. Frankly, I hated contraceptives when my husband and I were using them. And it is a wonderful surprise to learn that most women with whom I talk about fertility reflect similar dissatisfaction with using contraceptives. So, when my husband and I have our nfp “challenges,” we think back during those days when we contracepted, and realized we don’t ever want to go back there again. Using nfp is an intellectual choice, and you use your “will” to come up with ways to help you get through challenges. Perhaps you and your wife can review your choice for nfp, and then to re-commit to finding creative ways to get through challenges.

One particular challenging time for my husband and I was when we were away from kids at a resort hotel on Valentine’s Day and the last observation of the day was fertile. My husband said, “That’s O.K., Come over here and sit down, so I can tell you about my day.” And we stayed up for hours, talking as we did during our courtship days. I felt as if we weren’t in our 40’s, but a young couple in our 20’s. We fell in love with one another all over again, enjoying that intimacy only a married couple can enjoy one another. He is only for me, I’m only for him, and we have the blessings of children and years of living together. If we didn’t have that challenge that night, what would we have missed out on remembering how blessed we truly are! So, pray, and use your creativity!
 
Perhaps you and your wife should bring this to a priest for discussion. You perhaps you could talk to Father Vincent here at Catholic Answers. She may just be ready for children. :rolleyes:

Peace and all good,

Thomas2
 
I disgree with people who romanticise it and proclaim it to be some marriage enhancing way of life and the couple is sooo much more in love and they are soo in tune with their bodies blah, blah, blah. It is a burden that sometimes we need to use - but it takes the spontaneity and mystery and fun out of marital relations.
My wife and I have been practicing NFP for 5 years now and have found ways to get around the spontaneity problems. We have had a point to really work on phase 1 and 3, and let the rest be in God’s hands. We have 5 wonderful children, all planned and conceived by NFP, not in spite of. You and your wife need to work through the “blah, blah, blah” of NFP and see the gifts that God has granted you. My question is this. What other options are out there? To take the blessing of sexuality and make it your own is removing God from that act. I believe that by being a part of this forum, you understand what you are supposed to do. And I know that does not make it any easier to follow. But the blah, blah, blah you are referring to is not imagined. If you can embrace the love that the church is teaching, you will find the joys, also. God bless you in your journey. Believe me, I know what you are saying. It is hard to explain in words, but it is real.:dancing:
 
Smoke Boy:
I disgree with people who romanticise it and proclaim it to be some marriage enhancing way of life and the couple is sooo much more in love and they are soo in tune with their bodies blah, blah, blah. It is a burden that sometimes we need to use - but it takes the spontaneity and mystery and fun out of marital relations.
Click to expand...
My wife and I have been practicing NFP for 5 years now and have found ways to get around the spontaneity problems. We have had a point to really work on phase 1 and 3, and let the rest be in God’s hands. We have 5 wonderful children, all planned and conceived by NFP, not in spite of. You and your wife need to work through the “blah, blah, blah” of NFP and see the gifts that God has granted you. My question is this. What other options are out there? To take the blessing of sexuality and make it your own is removing God from that act. I believe that by being a part of this forum, you understand what you are supposed to do. And I know that does not make it any easier to follow. But the blah, blah, blah you are referring to is not imagined. If you can embrace the love that the church is teaching, you will find the joys, also. God bless you in your journey. Believe me, I know what you are saying. It is hard to explain in words, but it is real.:dancing:
 
Keith2002,

I can see your dilemma and I think that there are ways around this! First, make sure that you are fully supporting her efforts, which I feel you are. Take her temp. and record for her, etc. Also, make it known that our FAITH is one of discipline. These times that she wishes she could be close to you, make sure that you recall that this can be offered up as an act of discipline to our LORD. Perhaps, this will help by using a new perspective.

Will pray for you and your wife, keep practicing 🙂

Proud Papa
 
This may not apply, but one thing that I’ve learned in my marriage is that often when my wife complains about something, what she really wants is for me to listen and understand what she is going through. She isn’t looking for me to “fix” the problem. So, being a guy and not knowing the difference, I have to ask. Would probably go something like “I realize this is difficult for you and that it can be a burden, but I’m here to help in any way that I can. Would you like for me to try and give you some info or for us to try something different that still allows us to follow our Faith?”

Sometimes says yeah, lets get some info/try something but more than half the time she tells me no, she just wanted to be able to talk about what is going on.

Hope that helps,
IN CHRIST,
 
“My wife and I have been practicing NFP for 5 years now and have found ways to get around the spontaneity problems. We have had a point to really work on phase 1 and 3, and let the rest be in God’s hands. We have 5 wonderful children, all planned and conceived by NFP, not in spite of. You and your wife need to work through the “blah, blah, blah” of NFP and see the gifts that God has granted you. My question is this. What other options are out there? To take the blessing of sexuality and make it your own is removing God from that act. I believe that by being a part of this forum, you understand what you are supposed to do. And I know that does not make it any easier to follow. But the blah, blah, blah you are referring to is not imagined. If you can embrace the love that the church is teaching, you will find the joys, also. God bless you in your journey. Believe me, I know what you are saying. It is hard to explain in words, but it is real.”

-FiremnBob

Bob: I am not complaining about necessity of NFP as much as I am about the contrived romanticism about it (the blah, blah, blah).

“If you can embrace the love that the church is teaching, you will find the joys, also.”

What exactly is the love the church is teaching in this regard?

" You and your wife need to work through the “blah, blah, blah” of NFP and see the gifts that God has granted you."

What makes you think we have not worked through the burden of NFP. Again the blah, blah, blah isn’t the NFP it’s the charachterization that it is soooo awesome for the marrige in all circumstances and should be practiced by all couples because of it’s awesome powers to bring the couple closer together and closer to God. How did marrige survive without it for so long? God only knows.

What are the gifts that God has granted me in this circumstance that you are reffering to?
 
Hi! I am a nutcase who is prone to talking about how NFP has helped our marriage and helped me to understand my body and fertility.
I think what is unrealistic is to say NFP is always all fun- but just because you may find NFP to seem to be a barrier to your relationship that doesnt mean it will be this way forever.
For us to be where we are today it took getting comfortable with the reality of being open to life and what that really would mean-- attitudes we had to change. I think ‘spontanatiety’ (sp?) might be something thats overrated-- or maybe I’m not knowing what people mean by it. With 2 small kids its not practical or even possible to think I’m going to have spontaneous encounters? But I am always open to my husbands advances which I think is a key to our happiness.
We also each had issues we had to deal with because we did engage in premarital relations–

If NFP is a burden you might find a way to lighten things up, find ways to be spontaeous- think outside the box!
We actually both enjoy plotting a date night and the build up of abstaining and self denial.
If its too much you might want to reconsider your method of NFP?
We ditched the charting and I just use other signs. I sort of figured what I am doing to space children must be at least as good as what my grandmother was doing when she was just doing the calendar rhythm method and she only had 5 while her sister only had 3. We are just taking it one child at a time =)
 
Again- I am not saying NFP is a barrier to my relationship with my wife. I accept the fact that we need to use it and we make the best of it. I reject the romantisization of NFP, that it is somehow intrinsically a marriage enhancer. The glowing - our marrige is so much better that we discovered NFP stuff. I am expecting some catholic contemporary band to come up with a love song about it, or love poems extolling the use of NFP. Can you imagine waxing poetically about charting and mucous - thats how some of this comes off.
 
I am new to marriage and NFP (married 3 months)

We haven’t found it to be a burden yet. The only burden is waking up every day at a certain time to chart when we want to sleep in.

One thing to point out is that the grass is always greener. Put bluntly, many of the artificial birth control forms make you fat and give you breast cancer. Many of the barrier methods decrease pleasure for some couples or cause irratation in women. It is important to remember that the pill/depro/barrier methods have their burdens too, even in strictly secular terms.
 
Smoke Boy,

I knew this was not going to be as easy as it appeared when I responded. Ok. To answer your questions in order.
1-The love that I am referring to is the burning desire to embrace the teachings of the Catholic Church. When you become submissive to the true teachings of the Church and dismiss the secular posture that many people mistake as teachings, such as “birth control is alright as long as I think it is.”, then you are graced with many blessings from the Lord, because of YOUR obedience to Him. Your are promised this in scripture.1 Peter 1:2 - chosen and destined by God the Father and sanctified by the Spirit for obedience to Jesus Christ and for sprinkling with his blood: May grace and peace be multiplied to you.
2-I apologize if my supposition was that you had not already worked through this. I was only trying to read into your question. Now, I will have a hard time explaining this, as my wife would attest. We were skeptical about NFP, just as many are, when we first started. But, as we struggled through the hardships of suppressing our sexual desires for one another while fertile, a strange and wonderful thing started to happen. We, as a couple, learned how to communicate our desires for one another WITHOUT relations. We bagan to hold hands more often, to cuddle on the couch, to talk about our feelings for each other, and began to find a DEEPER emotional bond between us. As we struggled to keep our emotions in line with our faith, I learned about cherishing my wife as a WHOLE person, fully and completely,(and there is a definate benefit for men in that:dancing: ), which helped my wife to feel that emotional love and desire that she needs to feel sexual towards me. So when Phase 3 came around, our love was made complete at a whole different level. Now you and your wife may already be there, and I pray that you are. But the romantisizing that you speak of is not fake. It is not a way to sell NFP. It is the TRUTH. It does all that you say, and more. How did marriage survive without it? Do you think that even 50 years ago, artificial contraception was a 1/10 as prevelent as it is now. And look at the divorce rate now compared to then. People practiced a sort of NFP back then, they just called it normal living. The last will be on the next post. Not enough space here.
 
Here is the continuation of my last post.

And Last- The gifts that you have been granted are these: You have found the one love that God has brought to you and, I believe, you cherish that love as Christ does the Church, otherwise you wouldn’t care about these things. Also, The gift of Sexuality is far too many times overlooked in our society. It is splattered about like it is a right and our duty to be sexual. You have a wife to share that sexuality with, and that is something that can never be taken from you or your wife. And finally, you have the One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church behind you, leading and cheering for you to become true to IT’S word:clapping: . I hope this helps. Sorry I didn’t explain this properly before. God Bless you, smoke boy.
 
NFP is great. It is a wonderful gift from God…

And it IS a burden.

NFP is tough and puts strains on relationships. Certainly nowhere near the strain put on a marriage by contraception. Ideally, it would be great if we could all just leave everything in the hands of God and He would send us babies every 3 years, and it would be easy to handle, and we would have plenty of money. But, Nature doesn’t work perfectly so sometimes we have to make use of NFP. It’s unfortunate and difficult, but at the same time, it is a gift and an opportunity to grow closer to God.
 
My wife and I use NFP and I can say it is not always easy. But we find that any discomfort is best offered up to God. I’ve particularly found that it makes me more aware of the power of the gift of sexuality and chastity. We prefer to use it instead of contraception because it keeps Jesus as our marriage partner. Strength comes through trusting in the Lord.
 
Bob says: And Last- The gifts that you have been granted are these: You have found the one love that God has brought to you and, I believe, you cherish that love as Christ does the Church, otherwise you wouldn’t care about these things. Also, The gift of Sexuality is far too many times overlooked in our society. It is splattered about like it is a right and our duty to be sexual. You have a wife to share that sexuality with, and that is something that can never be taken from you or your wife. And finally, you have the One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church behind you, leading and cheering for you to become true to IT’S word:clapping: . I hope this helps. Sorry I didn’t explain this properly before. God Bless you, smoke boy.

Bob what does this have to do with NFP? Does a couple not have these gifts without NFP?

Bob says: The love that I am referring to is the burning desire to embrace the teachings of the Catholic Church. When you become submissive to the true teachings of the Church and dismiss the secular posture that many people mistake as teachings, such as “birth control is alright as long as I think it is.”, then you are graced with many blessings from the Lord, because of YOUR obedience to Him. Your are promised this in scripture.1 Peter 1:2 - chosen and destined by God the Father and sanctified by the Spirit for obedience to Jesus Christ and for sprinkling with his blood: May grace and peace be multiplied to you.

Does a couple not embrace the teachings of the Church if they do not use NFP? I don’t understand what this has to do with glamorizing NFP.

Bob says: -I apologize if my supposition was that you had not already worked through this. I was only trying to read into your question. Now, I will have a hard time explaining this, as my wife would attest. We were skeptical about NFP, just as many are, when we first started. But, as we struggled through the hardships of suppressing our sexual desires for one another while fertile, a strange and wonderful thing started to happen. We, as a couple, learned how to communicate our desires for one another WITHOUT relations. We bagan to hold hands more often, to cuddle on the couch, to talk about our feelings for each other, and began to find a DEEPER emotional bond between us. As we struggled to keep our emotions in line with our faith, I learned about cherishing my wife as a WHOLE person, fully and completely,(and there is a definate benefit for men in that:dancing: ), which helped my wife to feel that emotional love and desire that she needs to feel sexual towards me. So when Phase 3 came around, our love was made complete at a whole different level. Now you and your wife may already be there, and I pray that you are. But the romantisizing that you speak of is not fake. It is not a way to sell NFP. It is the TRUTH.
 
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