What if a couple disagrees on more kids?

[LightBound]

Hold on a second. Are you saying that if a couple can not agree that they should just let it tear apart their marriage? Agreement should always be sought, but in some rare instances someone has to make a call for the entire family. The husband answers first to God and if God wants the couple to have more children and the wife does not are you asking the husband to disobey God? Also, you are judging the motives of the husband. What if the husband knows that in the long run another child will bless his wife even if she does not think that at the present time? Is it not possible to love her by leading her in this decision?

If the wife doesn’t feel she can handle another pregnancy or raising another child, the husband then needs to follow what St Paul told him to do in Ephesians 5:25.

He is to hand himself over for her, even unto death, as Christ did for the Church. That doesn’t just mean a physical death, but a death to his wants and desires, putting the needs of his wife first. That means he needs to accept her wishes. Should the wife want another child and the husband doesn’t feel he can provide and raise another child, then she must accept that he may abstain from sexual relations during her fertile time. Pulling some kind of rank as “head of the wife” when it comes to this is a recipe for marital disaster and resentment that can last a lifetime.

Finally, if they are having this much discord over more kids, they need professional marriage counseling, by a trained Catholic counselor who understands and presents authentic Catholic teaching about marriage and family relationships (someone familiar with Blessed John Paul ll’s teaching is a good idea) and can work to find the root of the problem, because if there is this much disharmony over having another child, there is more than what is visible at the surface regarding the dynamics of the marriage and communication.

 

[severus68]

Hold on a second. Are you saying that if a couple can not agree that they should just let it tear apart their marriage? Agreement should always be sought, but in some rare instances someone has to make a call for the entire family. The husband answers first to God and if God wants the couple to have more children and the wife does not are you asking the husband to disobey God? Also, you are judging the motives of the husband. What if the husband knows that in the long run another child will bless his wife even if she does not think that at the present time? Is it not possible to love her by leading her in this decision?

Where the couple can’t even agree on such an important issue, then the marriage has problems and counselling should be sought.

Both husband and wife should first answer to God. I am not talking about motives. It is about marriage being about mutual respect, trust and love, not dominance.

The wife could well know better than her husband that it is not the time for another child. A wife is not a child to be lead by her husband. Loving discussion and communication - yes.

 

[gardenswithkids]

Oh, were it true that “depending on the couple doing nothing is a surefire way to get pregnant.” No, that is not true. This is the kind of presumption that gets those of us with no or few children looked at as if we must use a diaphragm on top of the Pill. Not everyone is so fertile as all of that! Before birth control was widely available, women with few children were looked upon as having fewer blessings. Now there are not a few people who feel entitled to believe them to be selfish and worldly, because they don’t have at least three or four. Well, that isn’t the way it works, especially if you didn’t find your husband while you were still in school!! The median age of first marriage for women was 20.3 in the US in 1960. In 2010, it was 26.1. No, women cannot just assume they can get married at 28 and automatically get a baby because they’re healthy. It doesn’t work that way.

This is a weird thread. Why on earth would anybody assume that every good faithful Catholic married couple out there must be either trying to conceive or trying not to conceive, as if the vocation of marriage cannot be lived well unless the couple is constantly obsessing over their chances of pregnancy? That’s not true!

If a couple is actively trying to conceive, knowing that their clock is ticking, then they are wise to chart and actually to abstain for a few days before the fertile time, so that the husband will be more fertile, too. Such a couple will undoubtedly find themselves interiorly encouraged to find a mood once in awhile where they might otherwise not. It’s not as if the time of maximum fertility were two weeks out of the month! Conversely, if a couple is actively trying to avoid conceiving, then of course the natural cycle can be used with intelligence to raise the odds of that, too.

Still, presumably both spouses know where babies come from and they can both decide to just have a married life *without *(gasp! ) any charting, which Catholics have done for centuries. There is nothing irresponsible or closed to life to that, it does not automatically betray a “Providentialist” attitude, or any of the rest. Yes, they’re far more likely to conceive than if they were trying to avoid it, but also less likely to conceive than if they were trying to conceive. That is OK. A married couple is allowed to give up worrying and just live their life without obsessing about whether or not they’re going to have another child–that is OK!

:clapping:

 

[Walking_Home]

If the wife doesn’t feel she can handle another pregnancy or raising another child, the husband then needs to follow what St Paul told him to do in Ephesians 5:25.

He is to hand himself over for her, even unto death, as Christ did for the Church. That doesn’t just mean a physical death, but a death to his wants and desires, putting the needs of his wife first. That means he needs to accept her wishes. Should the wife want another child and the husband doesn’t feel he can provide and raise another child, then she must accept that he may abstain from sexual relations during her fertile time. Pulling some kind of rank as “head of the wife” when it comes to this is a recipe for marital disaster and resentment that can last a lifetime.

Finally, if they are having this much discord over more kids, they need professional marriage counseling, by a trained Catholic counselor who understands and presents authentic Catholic teaching about marriage and family relationships (someone familiar with Blessed John Paul ll’s teaching is a good idea) and can work to find the root of the problem, because if there is this much disharmony over having another child, there is more than what is visible at the surface regarding the dynamics of the marriage and communication.

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[Walking_Home]

Paul Fekete:

Hold on a second. Are you saying that if a couple can not agree that they should just let it tear apart their marriage? Agreement should always be sought, but in some rare instances someone has to make a call for the entire family. The husband answers first to God and if God wants the couple to have more children and the wife does not are you asking the husband to disobey God? Also, you are judging the motives of the husband. What if the husband knows that in the long run another child will bless his wife even if she does not think that at the present time? Is it not possible to love her by leading her in this decision?

Where the couple can’t even agree on such an important issue, then the marriage has problems and counselling should be sought.

Both husband and wife should first answer to God. I am not talking about motives. It is about marriage being about mutual respect, trust and love, not dominance.

The wife could well know better than her husband that it is not the time for another child. A wife is not a child to be lead by her husband. Loving discussion and communication - yes.

Where the couple can’t even agree on such an important issue, then the marriage has problems and counselling should be sought.

Both husband and wife should first answer to God. I am not talking about motives. It is about marriage being about mutual respect, trust and love, not dominance.

The wife could well know better than her husband that it is not the time for another child. A wife is not a child to be lead by her husband. Loving discussion and communication - yes.

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[LightBound]

Where the couple can’t even agree on such an important issue, then the marriage has problems and counselling should be sought.

Both husband and wife should first answer to God. I am not talking about motives. It is about marriage being about mutual respect, trust and love, not dominance.

The wife could well know better than her husband that it is not the time for another child. A wife is not a child to be lead by her husband. Loving discussion and communication - yes.

 

[Debora123]

Hold on a second. Are you saying that if a couple can not agree that they should just let it tear apart their marriage? Agreement should always be sought, but in some rare instances someone has to make a call for the entire family. The husband answers first to God and if God wants the couple to have more children and the wife does not are you asking the husband to disobey God? Also, you are judging the motives of the husband. What if the husband knows that in the long run another child will bless his wife even if she does not think that at the present time? Is it not possible to love her by leading her in this decision?

:nope:

 

[Paul_Fekete]

Yes, it is possible, but what if the wife knows, in a way that her husband cannot understand, that another kid will destroy her emotionally? What then? Is she just supposed to submit because her husband thinks he knows better? No, they need to sit down and have a conversation about it, probably many conversations about it where they both try to understand where each other are coming from. If done out of love, eventually one of them will realize that they ought to be the one to give in and will do so. That is how this situation needs to be settled, not by some universal “get pregnant” or “the man gets his way” kind of statement.

The hypothetical question that was raised was that the wife or husband would prefer not to have another child. The basic assumption was that the wife had the capacity (emotionally, physically, and Spiritually) to have another child, but may prefer not to have child. If the wife does not have the capactity, then of course the husband needs to realize that and not force the issue and wait until she has the capactity to have another child.

 

[Paul_Fekete]

Where the couple can’t even agree on such an important issue, then the marriage has problems and counselling should be sought.

Both husband and wife should first answer to God. I am not talking about motives. It is about marriage being about mutual respect, trust and love, not dominance.

The wife could well know better than her husband that it is not the time for another child. A wife is not a child to be lead by her husband. Loving discussion and communication - yes.

The hypothetical question that was raised was that the wife or husband would prefer not to have another child. The basic assumption was that the wife had the capacity (emotionally, physically, and Spiritually) to have another child, but may prefer not to have child for other reasons like wanting to pursue a career for example. If the wife does not have the capactity, then of course the husband needs to realize that and not force the issue and wait until she has the capactity to have another child.

 

[Paul_Fekete]

Where the couple can’t even agree on such an important issue, then the marriage has problems and counselling should be sought.

Both husband and wife should first answer to God. I am not talking about motives. It is about marriage being about mutual respect, trust and love, not dominance.

The wife could well know better than her husband that it is not the time for another child. A wife is not a child to be lead by her husband. Loving discussion and communication - yes.

A couple could go to martial counseling for years and still not agree on issues like how many kids to have, where to live, what type of house to buy, what school to send your kids to, etc. In the end someone has to make the call and live with the consequnces of that decision. Jesus submitted to the will of the Father, but Jesus was Spiritually equal to the Father. I am not sure why you equate the loving leadership of a husband with dominance? Does Jesus “dominate” us or does He love us? Husbands are called to love their wives like Jesus loves the Church right? Who lovingly leads the Church? Jesus or his bride (the people in the Church)? It just seems your basic assumption is that any man that wants to lead a women is doing so out of selfish ambition which is judging his motives.

 

[Walking_Home]

A couple could go to martial counseling for years and still not agree on issues like how many kids to have, where to live, what type of house to buy, what school to send your kids to, etc. In the end someone has to make the call and live with the consequnces of that decision. Jesus submitted to the will of the Father, but Jesus was Spiritually equal to the Father. I am not sure why you equate the loving leadership of a husband with dominance? Does Jesus “dominate” us or does He love us? Husbands are called to love their wives like Jesus loves the Church right? Who lovingly leads the Church? Jesus or his bride (the people in the Church)? It just seems your basic assumption is that any man that wants to lead a women is doing so out of selfish ambition which is judging his motives.

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And the “last call” – does not automatically fall to the husband – for that would be a marriage of one sided submission – which is not Catholic.

 

[EasterJoy]

The hypothetical question that was raised was that the wife or husband would prefer not to have another child. The basic assumption was that the wife had the capacity (emotionally, physically, and Spiritually) to have another child, but may prefer not to have child for other reasons like wanting to pursue a career for example. If the wife does not have the capactity, then of course the husband needs to realize that and not force the issue and wait until she has the capactity to have another child.

Let us remember that in terms of what the faith teaches, when neither spouse wants more children for selfish reasons, they really are not free to actively avoid having any. For the purpose of this discussion, we have to presume the reasons are not selfish, because if the reasons were selfish then it would be a moot point how the voting was going. Likewise, we have to presume that the reasons for wanting to avoid pregnancy aren’t dire. We’re talking about a middle ground, where neither spouse has an obvious veto over the other.

In this thread, one has to expect that the disagreement itself is over what it means for a family to “have the capacity”. The Church leaves it up to the couple to discern, and sometimes it isn’t straight-forward. Take the example of the wife “wanting to pursue a career”. One of the reasons for not wanting additional children is that both parents already need to be in paid employment, which is exhausting both of them. That doesn’t mean that it is practical for either of them to quit in order to “regain capacity”. I don’t think we would find that either most women or most men are in the workforce because their job is so rewarding they’d go to work if nobody paid them.

For instance, sometimes the wife’s employment makes health insurance attainable, while the husband’s does not, or one job is reliable while the other cannot be relied upon or would dry up if the worker were to be physically injured on the job. Other times, the family asset of the professional training of one of the spouses needs to be preserved by some amount of participation in the workforce. If the training isn’t used, it is a financial asset lost* to the family*, an asset that prudence might dictate should not just allowed to decay, lest it be needed to educate or even support the children later on down the line.

I don’t mean to say that you were saying something different, but just to clarify that “wanting to pursue a career” shouldn’t be presumed to be a simple matter of someone wanting to seek job satisfaction outside the home. Sometimes (I would say usually) it is a matter of preserving or at least recouping on a substantial investment that the family has already made–student loans are one of those debts that even personal bankruptcy can’t erase–and that the family will certainly need to make use of later. The money coming in might make a standard of living possible that the family could live without, but the family might be foolish to try to live without the earning capacity that the employment is preserving, too. Employment in our times is very often a matter of “use it or lose it.” You don’t just give up the golden eggs by not working. If you’re not careful, you can kill the goose, too. Many families are about as inclined to give up one person with earning capacity as a healthy person is to give up one kidney. Sure, in theory you can get by with one, but that doesn’t make it a good idea to give up the extra one lightly, if you have it! You could very much live to regret that choice.

 

[mommamaree]

I would think, that since it is the woman who suffers physically to bring forth a child, that if she really and truly feels she cannot handle another pregnancy, that her husband should respect her feelings and not pressure her or impose his will upon her. If her husband demands sexual relations during her fertile time and attempts to use guilt to manipulate her into having sex despite her objections, then his request is unreasonable and he is sinning by attempting to use her either for pleasure or for her ability to give him a child. Spouses who refuse an unreasonable request for marital relations do not sin. But really, getting to this point, where one spouse is trying to figure out how to get what they want or to prevent what they don’t want, all without falling into sin themselves, while knowing that their spouse is behaving sinfully…this is the point where meeting with the pastor or counselour becomes imperative, and in a hurry. There are more serious problems in this sort of situation than a mere intellectual understanding of proper use of NFP.

 

[thewanderer]

The hypothetical question that was raised was that the wife or husband would prefer not to have another child. The basic assumption was that the wife had the capacity (emotionally, physically, and Spiritually) to have another child, but may prefer not to have child. If the wife does not have the capactity, then of course the husband needs to realize that and not force the issue and wait until she has the capactity to have another child.

First, there was no assumption in the hypothetical in the OP that there were no serious reasons to avoid. The hypothetical was that husband and wife disagree as to whether or not to have more children. It is very possible (and indeed most likely) that such a disagreement would occur because one spouse believes they have serious reasons to avoid and the other does not. In this case one of the spouses is correct and the other isn’t, but it is impossible to tell from a generalized hypothetical which is the case.

Second, you keep bringing this to a situation where the wife doesn’t want kids and the husband does… why? Thats not at all the hypothetical in the beginning. If it were the husband who wanted to stop and the wife who wanted more would your response still be that the wife ought to listen to and submit to her husband’s will?

 

[thewanderer]

I would think, that since it is the woman who suffers physically to bring forth a child, that if she really and truly feels she cannot handle another pregnancy, that her husband should respect her feelings and not pressure her or impose his will upon her. If her husband demands sexual relations during her fertile time and attempts to use guilt to manipulate her into having sex despite her objections, then his request is unreasonable and he is sinning by attempting to use her either for pleasure or for her ability to give him a child. Spouses who refuse an unreasonable request for marital relations do not sin. But really, getting to this point, where one spouse is trying to figure out how to get what they want or to prevent what they don’t want, all without falling into sin themselves, while knowing that their spouse is behaving sinfully…this is the point where meeting with the pastor or counselour becomes imperative, and in a hurry. There are more serious problems in this sort of situation than a mere intellectual understanding of proper use of NFP.

 

[EasterJoy]

I would think, that since it is the woman who suffers physically to bring forth a child, that if she really and truly feels she cannot handle another pregnancy, that her husband should respect her feelings and not pressure her or impose his will upon her. If her husband demands sexual relations during her fertile time and attempts to use guilt to manipulate her into having sex despite her objections, then his request is unreasonable and he is sinning by attempting to use her either for pleasure or for her ability to give him a child. Spouses who refuse an unreasonable request for marital relations do not sin. But really, getting to this point, where one spouse is trying to figure out how to get what they want or to prevent what they don’t want, all without falling into sin themselves, while knowing that their spouse is behaving sinfully…this is the point where meeting with the pastor or counselour becomes imperative, and in a hurry. There are more serious problems in this sort of situation than a mere intellectual understanding of proper use of NFP.

Yes. There isn’t room in a healthy marriage for someone to use strong-arm tactics, even when it is a matter of insisting that their legitimate rights be protected. That is to be avoided at all costs. With the exception that canon law allows a spouse who suffers from unreciprocated infidelity to unilaterally sever the common conjugal life and to allow anyone to preserve themselves from others who would do them or someone in their protection grave harm, spouses are generally bound to live the vocation of marriage through mutual cooperation.

Yes, I believe the husband in a marriage has unique authority, but he is also given a unique command to lay himself down for the common good of the marriage. This isn’t a typical worldly power relationship, then. It is not give-and-take, 50/50. It is give and give, 100/100. In the *normal *situation, the decision-making is mutual and the high regard of one spouse for the opinion of the other, not to mention the desire to please the other, is mutual:

“A friend, a neighbor, are timely guides, but better than either, a prudent wife.” Sir. 40:23

We can’t say, “If they disagree, they must do such-and-so”. The answer is that if they disagree, they mutually decide what to do today, and if they need to re-visit tomorrow, then they do that. Most of all, they are bound to return to honestly asking themselves how to follow the will of God, but to be morally-bound to use strong-arm tactics, that is going to be rare. That is the last resort, and sometimes the 2nd best result in peace is far preferred over the best end achieved by the worst means. Try again tomorrow to reach the better end…

 

[mommamaree]

First, there was no assumption in the hypothetical in the OP that there were no serious reasons to avoid. The hypothetical was that husband and wife disagree as to whether or not to have more children. It is very possible (and indeed most likely) that such a disagreement would occur because one spouse believes they have serious reasons to avoid and the other does not. In this case one of the spouses is correct and the other isn’t, but it is impossible to tell from a generalized hypothetical which is the case.

Second, you keep bringing this to a situation where the wife doesn’t want kids and the husband does… why? Thats not at all the hypothetical in the beginning. If it were the husband who wanted to stop and the wife who wanted more would your response still be that the wife ought to listen to and submit to her husband’s will?

If it were the husband who wanted to stop and the wife wanted more, and they cannot see eye-to-eye, no matter how much praying and talking and counsel, then hopefully they can agree to use NFP to avoid pregnancy. If the wife is fertile, he should not ask for relations, and she should not demand relations. During the infertile time, they may enjoy relations as usual. If she asks for relations during her fertile time, he may justly say no, but there could be consequences for saying no. Similarly, if he desires relations and she is fertile, he will have to abstain, unless he wishes to reconsider his reasons. Neither may attempt to use guilt trips to manipulate their spouse into relations or impose their will with regards to pregnancy.
In a special case, perhaps a woman refuses even to use NFP to avoid pregnancy. Her husband has one option in this case, as far as I can see it, if he truly feels it is prudent to avoid pregnancy: pray for God to provide. From what I have read, neither spouse may impose total abstinence upon the other, unless it were a matter of life-and-death or if adultery has occurred and the innocent spouse is unable or unwilling to resume the conjugal life.

 

[NSFrame]

I am 35. I have one child. It is not by choice. My husband is not willing to TTC another even though there is strong evidence that if we do not have another soon, it may never happen. I have wanted to conceive since 2006, in my mid-20s. He made me wait until 2010 to begin TTC, then we lost our first child, then it took quite a while to conceive the second pregnancy. It is now a year and a half after the birth of my daughter and he is balking at making an effort to concieve again even though we have been “not avoiding” the whole time. He claims we don’t have the resources to have the family life we should and that he will be too exhausted and have no time to himself. We make almost $200K a year and somehow we don’t have the resources? As for being exhausted, it was not my idea to wait until we were this old to begin (he just turned 40), and of course we won’t have time for ourselves, we are parents of a toddler! He is an only child and does not understand the desire for a family where the kids have siblings.

If I just “submit” to what he wants, there is a very good chance I will just have the one. I don’t think that’s fair, personally, but what can I do about it either way?

Our marriage is actually quite good otherwise.

Not asking for advice, just throwing an example out there of a wife wanting more children but the husband wishing to avoid.

 

[EasterJoy]

I am 35. I have one child. It is not by choice. My husband is not willing to TTC another even though there is strong evidence that if we do not have another soon, it may never happen. I have wanted to conceive since 2006, in my mid-20s. He made me wait until 2010 to begin TTC, then we lost our first child, then it took quite a while to conceive the second pregnancy. It is now a year and a half after the birth of my daughter and he is balking at making an effort to concieve again even though we have been “not avoiding” the whole time. He claims we don’t have the resources to have the family life we should and that he will be too exhausted and have no time to himself. We make almost $200K a year and somehow we don’t have the resources? As for being exhausted, it was not my idea to wait until we were this old to begin (he just turned 40), and of course we won’t have time for ourselves, we are parents of a toddler! He is an only child and does not understand the desire for a family where the kids have siblings.

If I just “submit” to what he wants, there is a very good chance I will just have the one. I don’t think that’s fair, personally, but what can I do about it either way?

Our marriage is actually quite good otherwise.

Not asking for advice, just throwing an example out there of a wife wanting more children but the husband wishing to avoid.

Exactly. If two spouses can’t agree, they are caught between a rock and a hard place. Someone has to give in, for the sake of the marriage. If both sides insist on being “right” and there is an on-going strife over it, then it can ruin the marriage.

I don’t know what TTC is, but If he is at least willing to “not avoid”, then perhaps you may conceive after all. One can hope. I have known two different only children as adults, and as they grew and knew what their friends with siblings had, they wished they had at least one…they didn’t care which. When their parents became old and needed care and decision-making, then they really wished they had some help with that! Still, you are right, this is a question where if there is no meeting of the minds, there at least has to be a decision in favor of the marriage. Even when one spouse is obviously “right” from a standpoint of moral principles, there is such a thing as being “dead right”. The other spouse has to convince the first to cooperate. They can’t force them; it does not work. (I have had a priest tell me as much, too.)

 

[thewanderer]

If it were the husband who wanted to stop and the wife wanted more, and they cannot see eye-to-eye, no matter how much praying and talking and counsel, then hopefully they can agree to use NFP to avoid pregnancy. If the wife is fertile, he should not ask for relations, and she should not demand relations. During the infertile time, they may enjoy relations as usual. If she asks for relations during her fertile time, he may justly say no, but there could be consequences for saying no. Similarly, if he desires relations and she is fertile, he will have to abstain, unless he wishes to reconsider his reasons. Neither may attempt to use guilt trips to manipulate their spouse into relations or impose their will with regards to pregnancy.

Yeah, thats pretty much how I think it should work for either spouse, assuming that no matter how much discussion and prayer they put into it they can’t come to agree. I guess I was moreso asking Paul Fekete because his other reply seemed to imply that the reason the wife should give in was because she was the wife. Yet, at the same time he also seemed to imply that the husband would be right not because he was the husband, but because welcoming more children was the right thing to do in that circumstance. I was trying to get more clarification on which of the two he believed was the real reason the wife in his scenario should give in and have another child.

In a special case, perhaps a woman refuses even to use NFP to avoid pregnancy. Her husband has one option in this case, as far as I can see it, if he truly feels it is prudent to avoid pregnancy: pray for God to provide. From what I have read, neither spouse may impose total abstinence upon the other, unless it were a matter of life-and-death or if adultery has occurred and the innocent spouse is unable or unwilling to resume the conjugal life.