Openness to life

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There, that is one way.

@hoosier-daddy, other families may have other ways that they know.
Hoosier-Daddy said:
When you have an act that is given to us to procreate and unify, How do we decide in union with God what the purpose of that will be.
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Again, to HD, when one is going to enter into a lifelong marriage, which for Christians is a Sacramental union that mirrors the Blessed Trinity, how do we truly decide in union with God what person we are going to commit to for life?

How did you determine your spouse was “the one”?
 
That is helpful. So it isn’t permanent. Which is so hard for me to grasp. It is like saying "we’ve decided something but it is only decided until it isnt.
 
In as much as each couple has a different set of circumstances as well as different temperments and thresholds of tolerance, “You just know” is pretty accurate. I guess step one is to make sure that you actually asked God. Have you been praying about it, together as a couple? (Rhetorical question not meant to be directed at you personally, but any couple who is trying to discern.) When couples disagree on the matter, I guess the only thing to do is the same is what you do when you disagree on any other matter. Discuss it honestly and actually listen to one another’s concerns. Be willing to compromise and make loving sacrifices for one another. That sort of stuff.
 
So to the OP, the permanence of the decision is to be avoided.
I guess that is what I struggle with. The idea that a decision is made, but we must be open to it being reversed. That isn’t really a decision at all.
 
One of the blessings and curses of growing up in an unstable living environment is learning early on that permanent decisions are an illusion. One tries to figure out the best course of action, until it isn’t the best course of action anymore. Besides, God’s in on this element too. It’s not like He’s bound to our decisions anyway.
 
Exactly. How can you ever make a permanent decision on anything if you must be willing to change it?
So no decision is ever permanent.
 
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Joe01ma said:
That being said, if the desire to procreate is no longer there is marital relations permissible?
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Yes.

Please don’t be scrupulous.

Remember even those who’ve had medical procedures that left them sterile and those physically past menopause can have sexual relations.
 
Aren’t all long-term decisions simply consistent re-commitments to a decision you already made? You may say, “I will NEVER eat bread again!”, but really, you’ve just made that decision once in that moment. For the rest of your life, you will have to make that decision again and again, every day. You’d be foolish to not consider changes in circumstances. If your country is taken over by warlords and it’s either eat bread or starve, that changes circumstances. If a medication that resolves your gluten allergy is developed, that changes circumstances. If someone makes bread with a different substance that is no longer offensive to you, that changes circumstances. You’d be foolish to make a life-time commitment to any decision that can be effected by circumstances, and nearly all of them can. The only exceptions that come to my mind are very rare things like, “I will never deny my God.”
 
Yes. And this is one of the reasons that NFP is different than most forms of contraception, ime. We can decide that we’re done indefinitely but every single month when that fertile time comes around, we have to make an actual decision about whether it’s worth it to us to abstain. It can’t be a passive decision if we have the desire to have sex, as it could be if I was taking a pill.
 
True that. It’s certainly does require you to revisit your priorities more regularly!
 
One decides each time with a barrier method, or the pill which can be daily. An IUD should be changed and often is. Most ABC methods are choices. They may not be moral ones but the narrative that somehow nfp is different because it requires communication and deciding on a regular basis is false.
 
The choice to not have relations is morally licit.

The choice to have natural relations is morally licit.

The choice to use a contraceptive device in order to make the encounter sterile is morally wrong.
 
Right. I said it’s different from them. I didn’t say it was contraception.
 
Yes, a couple could decide that they are going to let nature take its course in any given month even if they use contraception.The difference with NFP is that if you want to have sex, it is an active decision to risk pregnancy. If I’m on the pill, I don’t get to a fertile time of the month and think “is avoiding the potential of a pregnancy actually worth not having sex”. I just have sex. It’s passive on an ongoing basis until there’s a reason to want another child or change the birth control method.

Whereas when we’re using NFP, my husband and I have to actually think about why we’re avoiding a pregnancy right now and whether that’s worth the cost. Every time I think I might be fertile.
 
Also, with the pill, the woman doesn’t usually talk to her husband daily about taking the pill, but with NFP, you do have to. So there’s definitely truth to the idea of the couple making the decision together.
 
Unfortunately the semantics differ with you. The FDA has approved a form of nfp as contraception , not to mention things like the lady comp are covered by insurance under obamacare’s mandate. It may make us wince but the term can apply to nfp.
 
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