What can a couple in this situation do?

[More2008]

I’ll attempt to be brief and not too explicit. My wife is entering menopause and, because of the irrational timing of her body, it might be months with no opportunity to have marital relations. In the interim, is it okay to have foreplay with her as long as it does not come to climax?

 

[Michelle_Arnold]

I assume that the reason you are asking is because you and your wife are trying to avoid pregnancy. In that case, the answer is that you may not engage in anything that can be considered “foreplay” if that foreplay will not proceed to marital relations. “Foreplay,” after all, means those activities that prepare the husband and wife for marital relations. If they will not be having marital relations, they should not be engaging in foreplay.

One of the benefits of Natural Family Planning (NFP) is that it prepares a husband and wife for those times in marriage when marital relations are not possible at all. For younger couples, that might mean extended separation during military deployments or the months just preceding and immediately succeeding childbirth. For an older couple, like you and your wife, it might mean incapacitating illness or attempting to avoid pregnancy during a time in life when that has been determined to be inadvisable. For all such couples, NFP trains them in self-control, enabling them to be affectionate with each other and sustain their relationship even when all sexual activity is impossible.

If you and your wife need further assistance, I recommend contacting the Pastoral Solutions Institute, a Catholic counseling apostolate.