What to do when wife won't do/doesn't believe in NFP?

[surritter]

I just don’t see how ABC can hurt marriages or cause women to be mistreated. I don’t see the connection.

This is the crux of your difficulty on the issue. We can’t see the immediate harm being done because both spouses seem happy and are enjoying the sexual relationship. But because they are not giving themselves to each other 100% (I give you everything I am except this…) then a “virus” of sorts has crept into the relationship.

There may not be a mistreatment of the wife, but the marriage will be damaged because of a lack of total self-giving.

 

[IgnatiusBenedic]

I’m the OP posting to answer some of your questions. Sorry it took so long to fill everyone in. I’ve been busy with work and I don’t get online at home too much anymore. Please comment with any suggestions.

There are several reasons why my wife is not in favor of NFP. One - basically, she thinks it doesn’t work. Two - she’s had friends (non-Catholic) use this method who have fertility problems and they said it was a pain to check every morning and it killed the spontaneity of having sex. Granted, they were trying to get pregnant and we will be trying to avoid it. Three - my wife is not Catholic and I am. I converted against her wishes (see my other post if you would like to get the other scoop on that saga (forums.catholic-questions.org/showthread.php?t=393886) and she sees NFP as being “Not For Protestants”. I’m being facetious, but really, she has a really hard time accepting anything that has a Catholic smell to it. Four - She doesn’t think it will work. She doesn’t trust it’s a proven method. Five - We’ve tried it a few years ago. I would help take her temp and mark the chart. She found it to be “a pain and inconvenience”. Her chart was all over the place, she couldn’t tell the difference in her mucus being “tacky” or whatever. She was against taking the NFP classes because it would make her uncomfortable discussing bodily functions with strangers. So we barely read the Couple to Couple League text books and basically flew solo. The whole time we tried NFP she had a really really bad attitude about the whole thing. Though I don’t blame her for some of that bad attitude since I sort of forced her to do NFP (that’s her claim). Once I discovered the Church is against birth control, I told her I will not participate in using birth control, especially the Pill (which she sees as having no moral strings attached to it even after I shared with her what the Pill really does to her body and the fertilized egg – her mother and OBGYN, who told her there’s nothing wrong with the pill didn’t help my cause). So basically I laid down an ulitmatum. I don’t have the best track record with my wife concerning points we disagree on. I didn’t share with her my feelings on wanting to become Catholic (she’s anti-Catholic and I knew she wouldn’t like it but yet my heart was leading me that way) and I pretty much severed our sex life in one full swoop by saying I will not contracept. So our sex life is basically non-existant which is a really struggle when it’s causing me to do sins that I’ve struggled with most of my adolescent life (habitually and addictively). Eventually she was complaining so much about having to take her temp, check mucus, etc. I got angry and said “fine just quit doing it if you’re going to complain so much about it”. So we just stopped doing NFP and went blind. Both of our girls are "oops"es, though blessings for sure.

So these are some of objections my wife has. And I’m sure if you asked her she’d probably have more to add or maybe her view may be a little different from my observations.

My wife’s pregnancies seem to never make it full term. We have two little girls. Our first girl, who is two now, came 5 weeks early. And our new blessing is around 3 months old. She came 4 weeks early. For her my wife had to go on bedrest for 8 weeks to avoid her cervix from opening up. We went in for her routine check-up to find her cervix dilated 2cm’s. They immediately put her on medication and a permanent IV, all of which to stop dilation of the cervix and also complete bedrest to take pressure off it. She was MISERABLE to say the least.
She has never miscarried, that we know of, and she’s worried that her pregnancies will keep getting worse. My wife’s mom had the same thing happen, they only had 3 kids. My wife is also not looking forward to having to be on bed rest if we do have more. She’s a kindergarten teacher and is used to the active lifestyle. She didn’t have a very good attitude about the bed rest either. She found it a burden (I did nearly everything around the house) rather than something sacrificial she was doing for our baby. That seems to be her mentality with a lot of things. One time she remarked after our new born had puked late at night in our bed, that it “sucks to be a parent sometimes”. I know she was saying it out of frustration, but it makes me angry because she complains a lot and I think she doesn’t have the best attitude.

So she has said she doesn’t know if she wants any more children. I obviously do. I would like to have a boy sometime. She says we can adopt. I say adoption is fine and dandy for unfertile couples, but we can produce our own children. The doctors never labeled my wife with an “incompentant cervix”, which would only allow her to carry a child until 18-20 weeks or so. She can get to 35-37, but she just needs help.

She’s of the contraceptive mentality the rest of society is under. Doesn’t help with her parents, siblings and friends all using it and seeing nothing wrong with the pill or barrier methods. Whenever her parents and sister hears someone has gotten pregnant again, it’s most certain they’ll reply with “again!” My wife’s dad will often say “don’t they know how to use contraception!”. She WILL NOT read the literature I’ve read, she WILL NOT follow me because my way is the “Catholic way”. It’s quite frustrating from my end.
She also thinks I want like 20 kids because I quote the Scripture verse “It is God who opens and closes the womb”. And I say how if God wants to bless us with a child He will. She’s against all that becaue of her pregnancies getting worse and also because she looks at it financially wondering if we can afford another child.

This is most of the story.

-James

 

[Mary_Gail_36]

I’m the OP posting to answer some of your questions. Sorry it took so long to fill everyone in. I’ve been busy with work and I don’t get online at home too much anymore. Please comment with any suggestions.

There are several reasons why my wife is not in favor of NFP. One - basically, she thinks it doesn’t work. Two - she’s had friends (non-Catholic) use this method who have fertility problems and they said it was a pain to check every morning and it killed the spontaneity of having sex. Granted, they were trying to get pregnant and we will be trying to avoid it. Three - my wife is not Catholic and I am. I converted against her wishes (see my other post if you would like to get the other scoop on that saga (forums.catholic-questions.org/showthread.php?t=393886) and she sees NFP as being “Not For Protestants”. I’m being facetious, but really, she has a really hard time accepting anything that has a Catholic smell to it. Four - She doesn’t think it will work. She doesn’t trust it’s a proven method. Five - We’ve tried it a few years ago. I would help take her temp and mark the chart. She found it to be “a pain and inconvenience”. She had a really really bad attitude about the whole thing. I don’t blame her for some of that bad attitude. Once I discovered the Church is against birth control, I told her I will not participate in using birth control, especially the Pill (which she sees as having no moral strings attached to it even after I shared with her what the Pill really does to her body and the fertilized egg – her mother and OBGYN, who told her there’s nothing wrong with the pill didn’t help my cause). So basically I laid down an ulitmatum. I don’t have the best track record with my wife concerning points we disagree on. I didn’t share with her my feelings on wanting to become Catholic (she’s anti-Catholic and I knew she wouldn’t like it but yet my heart was leading me that way) and I pretty much severed our sex life in one full swoop.

So these are some of objections my wife has. And I’m sure if you asked her she’d probably have more to add or maybe her view may be a little different from my observations. She basically doesn’t like it because “it’s Catholic” and also because she doesn’t trust it will work.

My wife’s pregnancies seem to never make it full term. We have two little girls. Our first girl, who is two now, came 5 weeks early. And our new blessing is around 3 months old. She came 4 weeks early. For her my wife had to go on bedrest for 8 weeks to avoid her cervix from opening up. We went in for her routine check-up to find her cervix dilated 2cm’s. They immediately put her on medication and a permanent IV, all of which to stop dilation of the cervix and also complete bedrest to take pressure off it. She was MISERABLE to say the least.
She has never miscarried, that we know of, and she’s worried that her pregnancies will keep getting worse. My wife’s mom had the same thing happen, they only had 3 kids. My wife is also not looking forward to having to be on bed rest if we do have more. She’s a kindergarten teacher and is used to the active lifestyle. She didn’t have a very good attitude about the bed rest either. She found it a burden (I did nearly everything around the house) rather than something sacrificial she was doing for our baby. That seems to be her mentality with a lot of things. One time she remarked after our new born had puked late at night in our bed, that it “sucks to be a parent sometimes”. I know she was saying it out of frustration, but it makes me angry because she complains a lot and I think she doesn’t have the best attitude.

So she has said she doesn’t know if she wants any more children. I obviously do. I would like to have a boy sometime. She says we can adopt. I say adoption is fine and dandy for unfertile couples, but we can produce our own children. The doctors never labeled my wife with an “incompentant cervix”, which would only allow her to carry a child until 18-20 weeks or so. She can get to 35-37, but she just needs help.

This is most of the story.

-James

Hi James. I sympathize. We had a preemie in January, 11 weeks early. It was probably the hardest things we ever went through, to see a little baby suffer as much as he did. (He is fine now) I have a likelihood of it occuring again, at maybe even an earlier time where survivial of the baby could be not a possibility. So we are trying to avoid indefinitely.

The problem with NFP, is the trust issue, not trusting that it works. I am 40. I think I started reading women’s magazines at about 13-14. We are bombarded with contraception messages, how babies should be wanted and planned, that sex should be spontaneous. Even when I was getting married, all the Bridal Magazines had an article on all the different types of birth control.

I have never seen an article on NFP in a secular magazine. But by the time I was 14, I knew about pills, diapragms, iuds and condoms. For a long time, I thought the Church was so wrong, and should get with the times. NFP was the last hurdle for me to return to the Church.

What I am telling you is, it will take a while for her to be convinced, especially if fear of getting pregnant and having the baby be born early is present. Be patient. And pray for her. She fears the unknown.

 

[surritter]

James –

Next time a discussion comes up, try this. Ask her why society considers bulimia to be wrong. It doesn’t hurt anybody (unless they do it constantly, where it may irritate their esophagus) yet most people intuitively know that there’s something wrong about it.

That’s because food has two purposes: nutrition and enjoyment. Bulimia is wrong because the person has partaken of the enjoyment aspect but reneged on the biological aspect of eating.

If your wife can at least see some logic in that, then simply explain that it’s the same thing regarding artificial contraception. A contracepting couple partakes of the enjoyment aspect – a good thing in itself – but intentionally circumvents the biological aspect. This is the reason it is wrong; not because the Church is anti-sex! The couple has divorced the two aspects which God sealed together in the sex act.

I suspect that if she calmly listens to this, that she will at least understand why you believe what the Church believes. Tell her she doesn’t have to accept it right now, but at least it puts the light of logic and truth on the subject, and she won’t think you’re just a blind subject following the arbitrary dictator of religion.

 

[flyingfish]

On this point I will grant that women’s *position *in society has improved. But that is *not *thanks to contraception.

I think ways to reduce family size contributed significantly to the improvements in the lives of women.

It doesn’t have to be ABC, modern NFP methods achieve the same results. Just think about it, how can a woman who is nearly always pregnant and is looking after many children get an education, have a career? She would have to stay single, and most women would not make that sacrifice.

What you seem to miss is that nearly all of the early suffragettes were pro-life and pro-family. They split on contraception. Those factions who were pro-contraception went fringe and actually failed to pass laws bettering women.

I don’t know that much about history to comment either way. But to be honest I don’t see why it matters what early suffragettes believed about contraception.

There were many reasons why early fighters for women’s rights couldn’t go against culture. To get anything done, they would have had to appeal to large numbers of people. Back then, nearly everyone was against contraception as it was considered a sin by Protestant churches as well as the Catholic Church.

You couldn’t very well advocate something nearly everyone was against and expect to get support for your already fringe idea of rights for women.

It has been said before and I will say it again. Smaller families are not the great thing that revisionist history has made you believe. Having a smaller family is not what enabled women to be outside the home. Getting equal pay for equal work is what allowed women freedom. Being viewed as just as intelligent as their male counterparts and able to enroll in college instead of finishing school has made them free. Getting good prenatal and postpartum care has made them free.

I would not agree with this. How many successful women with large families do you know? (And Saint Gianna Molla while an example is only one woman.) If you look at statistics, most successful professional women have small families.

To be successful you need to be able to devote a lot of time and energy to your career. It’s not something you can do if you have to look after many children while having your body and mind go through hell as a result of pregnancies. Pregnancies can be very taxing on many women.

Tell me one law that Sanger helped pass that bettered women. Legalizing the distribution of contraception? Well if NFP and contraception have “exactly the same effect” why did women need contraception since NFP works? And furthermore, if they have “exactly the same effect” why was NFP legal and contraception was not? After all it was *Protestants *who passed the Comstock laws declaring contraception ‘obscene material.’ The temperature method of NFP was introduced in the 1930s. The Comstock laws date from the 1800s.

When were effective methods of NFP invented?

Contraception is *still *about eugenics. It is still the “poor, uneducated woman who *needs *access to contraception.” Margaret Sanger and her fellow eugenicists decided based on skewed I.Q. tests who was “feeble-minded,” and declared them “human weeds.” That thinking hasn’t changed.

I don’t think most people consider eugenics when it comes to contraception. Successful and highly educated people today largely tend to have small families, and I don’t see anyone except some fringe elements of society advocating that they start having more children. People who have large families today are mostly in the third world, and activists advocate that they use methods to reduce family size for their own benefit as they often don’t have enough food to feed all their children and live in abysmal conditions.

 

[LittleDeb]

James,
I am so glad you are back! I was praying hard for you last night.

Ask her to take the class and give it a real effort. If she will do that, you will let the subject go.

She is buried in shame. That is one of the ironies of contraception. They think it is all about “free sex,” but it actually leads to more ignorance and more shame. Since they have convinced themselves that sex doesn’t make babies, when it does they are embarrassed. What bigger sign do you need than a pregnant belly that says, “Look what I’ve been doing!” Many people who use contraception are embarrassed that people know they have sex. The rest of the contracepting community wants the world to know their every sexual action, in detail. Those of us who are free from contraception have no trouble discussing it and have no trouble keeping it private.

The most ardent contraception supporters are usually the ones using euphemisms for sex. Why? Shame. The one I personally find peculiar is, “making love.” I know that one is common now even in non-contracepting circles too. But my thought always is, “Unless you’re planning on naming the baby, ‘Love,’ what you are doing is makin’ babies!” I think they have taken to calling it “making love” because of the separation of procreation and unity.

Couple to Couple league has a wonderful phrase to help people stop using euphemisms. We say, “Where is the best place to make love?” Answer: “In the kitchen in front of your kids.” Making love is what you do outside of the bedroom. CCL calls the marriage act ‘coitus’ from the Latin ‘to copulate.’ There is no mistaking the term there.

Your wife is right. The Pill is so much more convenient than temping and mucous checks. But only because that is what she has been trained to believe. Charting becomes second nature eventually. Remind her that she is worth more than the Pill has to offer her. It is a steroid. Her body stops doing what it is supposed to do and a random level of hormone takes over. It might be too much or not enough for her body, but the Pill doesn’t care. It is ‘one size fits none.’ She is *supposed *to flow from phases of strong estrogen to strong progesterone. That is a very good thing!

Ask her to take the class. Ask her to really try to get into it. If she will at least do that you will know she has met you halfway. Then we will all pray very hard for an awesome teaching couple who can speak to her heart.

 

[ac_claire]

It wasn’t until the early 50’s that the RCC even o.k.ed the rythm method. ** It seems they wanted couples to have as many children as they could.**

I don’t think this is true. Rather, the Church is just against using artificial means to stop or subvert the primary purpose of the marital act, which has always been pro-creation. Even the other purposes of sex-- the loving and unitive bond between the spouse-- is frustrated when you bring ABC into the picture. You’re not truly giving yourself 100% to your spouse if you’re holding back any one thing through artificial means. To me that seems like disrespecting God, looking at this beautiful gifts He gave us…(sex, marriage, etc.) and changing fundamental aspects of them to suit our own desires. It’s my will, not Thy will be done.

All these arguments and discussions aside, the issue is very simple. Using ABC or mis-using NFP (for any reason) is trying to prevent God’s will from been done in favor of your own will, in the hope that you can achieve a higher standard of living and happines than God would give you and your children. This displays a blatant lack of trust and faith in Divine Providence.

Like I said before, living a leap of faith isn’t easy but it’s what God asks of us.

 

[LittleDeb]

Hi Flying Fish,

What would you say if I told you that the development of effective NFP methods have been neck and neck with the development of effective contraception? In fact, the Billings Ovulation Method, the gold standard of NFP for ease of use and effectiveness, predates the production of the Pill by an entire decade. The temperature method was the only reliable form of family planning in the thirties, but most people (Catholic and not) were still using calendar rhythm.

This debate began in the 1920s, but it didn’t really take off until the development of the Pill in the 1960s since contraception was so unreliable until then. Contraception supporters from the 1920s and 30s said the idea that contraception would be used outside of marriage, or for nefarious purposes was “ridiculous.” The Church said otherwise. Our Holy Father wrote a document in 1930 that has proven to be prophetic. (Hint: It is referenced in my signature line.)

The modern condom design is only a few decades old.  Old style condoms had all of the comfort of wearing a bicycle's inner tube, and all of the reliability of a kid's water balloon.  In short, only the most desperate actually used them, and they frequently broke anyway.

It isn’t failure or success rates that make NFP different from contraception. NFP is different because it requires one thing, sacrifice. Contraception is a broken act. With NFP, there is no act to break, because there is no act. What contraception takes away is abstinence.

 

[flyingfish]

Hi Flying Fish,

What would you say if I told you that the development of effective NFP methods have been neck and neck with the development of effective contraception? In fact, the Billings Ovulation Method, the gold standard of NFP for ease of use and effectiveness, predates the production of the Pill by an entire decade. The temperature method was the only reliable form of family planning in the thirties, but most people (Catholic and not) were still using calendar rhythm.

From Wiki: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_family_planning

The 1950s also saw another major advance in fertility awareness knowledge: Dr. John Billings discovered the relationship between cervical mucus and fertility while working for the Melbourne Catholic Family Welfare Bureau. Dr. Billings and several other physicians studied this sign for a number of years, and by the late 1960s had performed clinical trials and begun to set up teaching centers around the world.[12]

 

[ac_claire]

NFP still separates sex from fertility, it just does it with timing instead of mechanical or chemical intervention. I know officially a couple using NFP is supposed to be open to life, but I don’t see how anyone who goes to great lengths to take all sorts of measurements and abstain when pregnancy is possible is open to life.

The Church teaches differently about NFP, that there is a huge difference between NFP and ABC. Which is why one is allowed and one is forbidden.

NFP can be abused, and many Catholics do abuse it and pursue the whole thing with a contraceptive mentality…Practicing NFP indefinitely and seeing the Church-mandated “just reasons” for using it to be pretty much any reason they want.

But practiced as it should be, as the Church intends it to be, it’s not an impediment to being open to life.

 

[flyingfish]

The Church teaches differently about NFP, that there is a huge difference between NFP and ABC. Which is why one is allowed and one is forbidden.

NFP can be abused, and many Catholics do abuse it and pursue the whole thing with a contraceptive mentality…Practicing NFP indefinitely and seeing the Church-mandated “just reasons” for using it to be pretty much any reason they want.

But practiced as it should be, as the Church intends it to be, it’s not an impediment to being open to life.

But even when there are just reasons, if the goal wasn’t to have sex without being open to life the couple might just abstain from sex altogether until they were ready to have another child.

The couple that uses NFP for just reasons does so so that they can have sex without having babies.

Don’t get me wrong, I am not against NFP. I am just skeptical about how it is supposed to be this amazing thing for the health of a marriage while ABC is supposed to destroy marriages. The kind of reasoning people tend to give has to do with couples starting to treat each other like sex objects, start using each other for sexual pleasure things like that. All those things are just as possible with NFP. That is my point.

 

[surritter]

FlyingFish–

Read my previous post about bulimia. The mentality of NFP users can be just as off-base as those practicing contraception (and it could even be sinful for the NFP couple, but that’s a different story that the posts above have addressed). But the big difference is that the contracepting couple still goes ahead with the act. The NFP couple abstains.

It’s an all-or-nothing deal. The contracepting couple is like the bulimic who doesn’t want to get fat so throws up the meal. The NFP folks are like those don’t want to get fat but simply forego the meal.

Perhaps it’s sinful for both if they are depriving their bodies of needed nutrition. But don’t you see that the bulimic’s sin is twice as bad because he or she still goes ahead with the meal?

 

[flyingfish]

FlyingFish–

Read my previous post about bulimia. The mentality of NFP users can be just as off-base as those practicing contraception (and it could even be sinful for the NFP couple, but that’s a different story that the posts above have addressed). But the big difference is that the contracepting couple still goes ahead with the act. The NFP couple abstains.

It’s an all-or-nothing deal. The contracepting couple is like the bulimic who doesn’t want to get fat so throws up the meal. The NFP folks are like those don’t want to get fat but simply forego the meal.

Perhaps it’s sinful for both if they are depriving their bodies of needed nutrition. But don’t you see that the bulimic’s sin is twice as bad because he or she still goes ahead with the meal?

Oh I see that difference, I understand the natural law reasoning about why one is moral and the other immoral. I’m not talking about morality, but the effect both methods have on a marriage.

 

[ryecroft]

So we just stopped doing NFP and went blind. Both of our girls are "oops"es, though blessings for sure.

So these are some of objections my wife has. And I’m sure if you asked her she’d probably have more to add or maybe her view may be a little different from my observations.

My wife’s pregnancies seem to never make it full term. We have two little girls. Our first girl, who is two now, came 5 weeks early. And our new blessing is around 3 months old. She came 4 weeks early. For her my wife had to go on bedrest for 8 weeks to avoid her cervix from opening up. We went in for her routine check-up to find her cervix dilated 2cm’s. They immediately put her on medication and a permanent IV, all of which to stop dilation of the cervix and also complete bedrest to take pressure off it. She was MISERABLE to say the least.
She has never miscarried, that we know of, and she’s worried that her pregnancies will keep getting worse. My wife’s mom had the same thing happen, they only had 3 kids. My wife is also not looking forward to having to be on bed rest if we do have more. She’s a kindergarten teacher and is used to the active lifestyle. She didn’t have a very good attitude about the bed rest either. She found it a burden (I did nearly everything around the house) rather than something sacrificial she was doing for our baby. That seems to be her mentality with a lot of things. One time she remarked after our new born had puked late at night in our bed, that it “sucks to be a parent sometimes”. I know she was saying it out of frustration, but it makes me angry because she complains a lot and I think she doesn’t have the best attitude.

So she has said she doesn’t know if she wants any more children. I obviously do. I would like to have a boy sometime. She says we can adopt. I say adoption is fine and dandy for unfertile couples, but we can produce our own children. The doctors never labeled my wife with an “incompentant cervix”, which would only allow her to carry a child until 18-20 weeks or so. She can get to 35-37, but she just needs help.

She’s of the contraceptive mentality the rest of society is under. Doesn’t help with her parents, siblings and friends all using it and seeing nothing wrong with the pill or barrier methods. Whenever her parents and sister hears someone has gotten pregnant again, it’s most certain they’ll reply with “again!” My wife’s dad will often say “don’t they know how to use contraception!”. She WILL NOT read the literature I’ve read, she WILL NOT follow me because my way is the “Catholic way”. It’s quite frustrating from my end.
She also thinks I want like 20 kids because I quote the Scripture verse “It is God who opens and closes the womb”. And I say how if God wants to bless us with a child He will. She’s against all that becaue of her pregnancies getting worse and also because she looks at it financially wondering if we can afford another child.

This is most of the story.

-James

Hi - I don’t mean to be an advocate for your wife, but she has some pretty good reasonings. After all, it is she who has to carry the baby and go onto bed rest (likely it seems) if she conceives again. And no offence, but it does seem like it was you that chnged horses mid stream (not that I think there’s anything bad with becoming Catholic - on the contrary)-I mean is this something that was discussed prior to getting married? And I know I’m probably going to get yelled at on here, but each side (pro and anti contraception both kind of “pad” the results. I have looked at multiple non Catholic bsed sites and even some like Catholics for Choice (granted pro contraception) and just studies with no affiliation and I have not found one concrete study that links birth control to people getting breast cancer - let me take that back there was one with something like 12 participants -hardly a correct sampling of the larger group. But I digress - what were you guys doing prior to you becoming Catholic? That’s kind of what you need to look at and I’m sorry if this sounds harsh, but it seems to me (unless you mentioned when you guys got married that you were interested in changing faiths) that your the one to switch on her - I understand her anger and how she’s upset - she thought she was marrying someone who was one faith and now he’s changed to a different faith and is expecting me (your wife) to bend to his new faith. I know I wouldn’t handle it well if that ever happened to me! Bottom line is if you disagree with her using the pill or whatever than let her know then drop it - it’s been referenced enough on here that if the contracepting spouse refuses to quit contracepting (unless there is some kind of medical reason) then the sin is on the contracepting spouse. You guys can have sex or not and you are not doing anything wrong, so I’d drop it for a while and see if she calms down. Honestly, I might feel like I was being persecuted - and also - 2 babies in 2 years - that’s ALOT to deal with - cut her a break! She’s got 2 babies to deal with and a husband who is already hounding her about trying to have a son and not even open to adoption. Please give her a break - i’ve seen marriages implode for far lesser reasons. Again sorry if this came off harsh but I have a friend in your wifes situation (very similar anyway) so I get to see it from her side. I don’t know what will help you with your former addiction which I assume refers to masturbation - I don’t know of a man who has not dealt with this. More sex usually helps if your willing to be with your wife - prayer also hopefully may help. Try to remember the reasons you guys fell in love. Maybe that will remind you why you got married instead of seeing her as constantly blocking or keeping from embracing your new faith completely.
God Bless you and I hope things get better regardless of how.
Ryecroft

 

[surritter]

Oh I see that difference, I understand the natural law reasoning about why one is moral and the other immoral. I’m not talking about morality, but the effect both methods have on a marriage.

So shouldn’t that be enough? You say that you understand that contraception is sinful. If something is sinful, it must be because it is harmful for us in some way. God’s laws aren’t arbitrary.

We don’t know what the apple in the Garden of Eden was exactly, but we know that it was harmful. So even if you can’t explain the scientific “formula” for why contraception harms marriages, it just does.

Once that maxim is in place, then it’s OK to discuss possible theories about why it is harmful. I guess that’s where you are, and that kind of speculation is fine. I just wanted to make sure you weren’t saying that failure to explain why it’s harmful means that it isn’t wrong.

 

[LittleDeb]

Oh I see that difference, I understand the natural law reasoning about why one is moral and the other immoral. I’m not talking about morality, but the effect both methods have on a marriage.

Periodic abstinence is just plain good for marriage, for one. The Eastern Catholic rites still have abstinence as part of their fasting sacrifice. I know of multiple couples who abstain during Lent and periodically throughout the year, whether they are spacing babies or not.

One of the things you brought up before is important here. We NFP couples who have very serious reason to prevent pregnancies have to seriously consider total abstinence. I am one half of such a couple. If we were contracepting we would have to more seriously consider it since contraception fails too, and with even less forewarning.

But the difference with NFP has to do with what I said in my very first post to the OP. With NFP we *know *we are doing the very act that makes babies. We are putting our trust in Him, not a method. God has left that door open for us. We still do the act. We are submitting to God’s design. If he allows a baby to be made then He has blessed us in ways that only He understands. But if we were to embrace total abstinence, for us it would mean that we are saying that we *absolutely *know that God doesn’t want more for us. I don’t know that anyone knows that for sure, ever.

The goal of NFP is to get as close as possible to letting babies come as they may. That is the ideal. That was His perfect design. It is about understanding our sexual desires and bringing them to union God for His greater glory.The marriage act is a pure act. The fertility cycle is designed, fertile and infertile. That is the difference it makes in marriage. That *design *is respected as a very good thing. Breaking something that already works perfectly, has consequences.

Contraception breaks the design. It is a pure design. It doesn’t need fixing. Contraception adds things to the marriage act, none of them good. It becomes stale when polluted. Contraception doesn’t add spice or spontaneity. It takes that away. Contraception is about acting on whatever impulse that comes your way, no matter what the cost. Contraception is like leaving your pets unattended to take a trip out of town. NFP is like finding a pet sitter and taking the trip just a little later. The ends were the same, but the first has consequences that are damaging. Both trips were spontaneous, but the latter timed it better.

The effect on marriage is in the numbers. 50% of contraceptive marriages end in divorce. Less than 5% of non-contracepting marriages do. This is regardless of religious beliefs. (I have seen this in action. My non-contracepting “hippie” friends have a lower divorce rate than my contracepting church-going Evangelical friends.)

PS. Flying fish, you were having a case of selective reading. The Billings method went world-wide and was proven by the scientific method during the 60s. My mom learned about it during high school, in the 50s. Again, I hope you asked that question in genuine misreading and not in an attempt to misrepresent.

 

[flyingfish]

My wife’s pregnancies seem to never make it full term. We have two little girls. Our first girl, who is two now, came 5 weeks early. And our new blessing is around 3 months old. She came 4 weeks early. For her my wife had to go on bedrest for 8 weeks to avoid her cervix from opening up. We went in for her routine check-up to find her cervix dilated 2cm’s. They immediately put her on medication and a permanent IV, all of which to stop dilation of the cervix and also complete bedrest to take pressure off it. She was MISERABLE to say the least.

I think you should be very grateful to your wife for giving you two wonderful little girls that you have.

If I were in her place and knew I had those kinds of health issues, I would view that as sufficient reason to never get pregnant.

I’m sorry but 8 weeks bed rest and a permanent IV is not trivial stuff. It seems like you are trivializing the severe health event that your wife went through to have your second child. Count yourself lucky that she chose to get pregnant at all IMO.

Why are you so against adoption? If you so desperately want a male child, you could guarantee that by adopting. Otherwise your wife might have to take another severe hit to her health and give birth to another girl.

 

[ryecroft]

But the difference with NFP has to do with what I said in my very first post to the OP. With NFP we *know *we are doing the very act that makes babies. We are putting our trust in Him, not a method. God has left that door open for us. We still do the act. We are submitting to God’s design. If he allows a baby to be made then He has blessed us in ways that only He understands. But if we were to embrace total abstinence, for us it would mean that we are saying that we *absolutely *know that God doesn’t want more for us. I don’t know that anyone knows that for sure, ever.

The goal of NFP is to get as close as possible to letting babies come as they may. That is the ideal. That was His perfect design. It is about understanding our sexual desires and bringing them to union God for His greater glory.The marriage act is a pure act. The fertility cycle is designed, fertile and infertile. That is the difference it makes in marriage. That *design *is respected as a very good thing. Breaking something that already works perfectly, has consequences.

Contraception breaks the design. It is a pure design. It doesn’t need fixing. Contraception adds things to the marriage act, none of them good. It becomes stale when polluted. Contraception doesn’t add spice or spontaneity. It takes that away. Contraception is about acting on whatever impulse that comes your way, no matter what the cost. Contraception is like leaving your pets unattended to take a trip out of town. NFP is like finding a pet sitter and taking the trip just a little later. The ends were the same, but the first has consequences that are damaging. Both trips were spontaneous, but the latter timed it better.

The effect on marriage is in the numbers. 50% of contraceptive marriages end in divorce. Less than 5% of non-contracepting marriages do. This is regardless of religious beliefs. (I have seen this in action. My non-contracepting “hippie” friends have a lower divorce rate than my contracepting church-going Evangelical friends.)

I am seriously not bringing this up to cause problem, I seriously would like to know. Having used both methods- nfp and contraception, I can honestly say that neither my husband and I felt differently with either one. I take that back - he was NOT really thrilled with having to use a condom or abstain. In all honesty, contraception was more spontaneous- it didn’t matter when we wanted to make love, we were free to do so. With NFP, if it was in the early moring hours, I still had to check - it was always checking and hoping I did it correctly. I so whole heartedly agree with whoever said that many don’t like NFP because they’re unsure of themselves when they check - there was no way to double check (granted with some of the electronic ways that are out now - although pricey, it does back up what you’ve gotten when you tested). Please, for God’s sake literally, tell me what this huge difference is that so many NFP couple talk about. What is this huge difference that people sense/feel or believe they feel when using NFP instead of the pill or other contraceptive. (I don’t want to be answered about the condom, because honestly, I think we all know that you can feel the literal barrier and I’m not a big fan of that way but if you don’t want to get pregnant and your doing NFP and you don’t want to abstain it’s one of the only alternatives.) Please know I’m not asking this facesiously at all. I really want to know what this wonderful thing that’s supposed to save many marriages is. And I want to make one more note- this past Sunday during the Homily, the priest mentioned that one of the reasons for trusting God and having kids was that if a couple has a child/children, they’re less likely to get a divorce. That really bugged me - I was always brought up that children wern’t supposed to be a reason for a marriage to continue if there were serious problems - they are not a form of tape or glue to keep stuff going. I’ll get off of my soap box.
God Bless
Rye

 

[flyingfish]

Periodic abstinence is just plain good for marriage

Is this really true? Why is periodic abstinence good for a marriage?

But the difference with NFP has to do with what I said in my very first post to the OP. With NFP we *know *we are doing the very act that makes babies. We are putting our trust in Him, not a method. God has left that door open for us. We still do the act. We are submitting to God’s design. If he allows a baby to be made then He has blessed us in ways that only He understands. But if we were to embrace total abstinence, for us it would mean that we are saying that we *absolutely *know that God doesn’t want more for us. I don’t know that anyone knows that for sure, ever.

It just seems that this is more a feature of imperfections in a method than any will of God. If God is going to interfere with nature in a couple using NFP to create a baby, why couldn’t God similarly interfere with a condom or the pill to create a baby?

If the goal of NFP were to get as close as possible to letting babies come as they may, then what is the point of going through so much work, with doing so much research and trials to find precisely those times of the month when the woman is infertile and have sex only during those times?

The goal of NFP (unless someone is using it to conceive) is to have sex without bringing additional babies into the family.

The effect on marriage is in the numbers. 50% of contraceptive marriages end in divorce. Less than 5% of non-contracepting marriages do. This is regardless of religious beliefs. (I have seen this in action. My non-contracepting “hippie” friends have a lower divorce rate than my contracepting church-going Evangelical friends.)

Do you have studies to back up that it works regardless of religious beliefs? I would imagine that most people who don’t contracept are conservatively religious and the same faith that forbids contraception also forbids divorce.

PS. Flying fish, you were having a case of selective reading. The Billings method went world-wide and was proven by the scientific method during the 60s. My mom learned about it during high school, in the 50s. Again, I hope you asked that question in genuine misreading and not in an attempt to misrepresent.

I had no intention to misrepresent, I don’t think when the Billings method became popular is important to the discussion, aside from being curious about history.

 

[Secret_Square]

“Why is periodic abstinence good for a marriage?”

Because it keeps sex from becoming routine or taken for granted. Sex, like food, drink or any other bodily pleasure, can quickly become boring or dull when overindulged in; and becomes more of an anticipated “treat” when one cannot have it all the time.

In fact I have seen SECULAR magazine articles, written by bona fide sex therapists, suggest a period of mutually agreed abstinence – during which a couple concentrates on rebuilding their relationship and waits with anticipation for a resumption of sexual intimacy – as an effective means of “spicing up” or reviving a sex life that has become boring or dull

By the way, observant Orthodox Jews also practice periodic abstinence in accordance with Old Testament law. Husbands and wives abstain during the wife’s menstrual period and for 7 days after her flow stops. At the end of this time, she bathes in a ritual pool known as a “mikvah”, after which, she and her husband may resume sexual relations. The Jewish rule of periodic abstinence, however, generally results in the husband and wife resuming relations right before or during the fertile phase of her cycle.