My wife and I were married six months ago and have been practicing NFP since then. My wife is in medical school and we want to have children, but these next few months in preparation for her boards, it would not be healthy for a baby ( constant studying, sleepless nights, coffee by the gallons) and her time is limited. Her complaints with NFP is that she says my semen burns her and causes great discomfort. She says it’s unberable and has she does not wish to continue. Has anyone experienced this?
On more of the theological and scientific side, she can not differentiate between NFP and ABC on the grounds that it accomplishes the same thing.
Thank you
Anthony
Semen should not burn. I definitely experience a mild sensation of some kind from it, but I wouldn’t call it burning. Its short lived and not a big deal. She should go to her doctor and should be very specific about the pain, where she experiences the pain and when she experiences it.
If its mild discomfort, I mean, that’s sex. It isn’t always perfect. But if its unbearible, that’s not normal. She needs to get herself checked out and seek a true resolution to this issue.
In regards to understanding the difference, NFP is periodically abstaining selectively during your fertile time. There is an element of actively choosing to have sex on your infertile time when you’re not necessarily in the mood, but that’s not done as a form of family planning. That is done because sex is important to a marriage. If you merely wait for the urge to mutually hit you, than you’ll end up abstaining far more than you need. But in regards to actual family planning, having sex on your infertile days is now what makes NFP effective. What makes NFP effective is the abstainence during the fertile days.
ABC exists to enable a couple to have sex whenever they feel like it without getting pregnant. It is something the couple does to divert the sexual act from one of its major purposes for even existing.
Its important to understand that each and every sexual act by its nature is oriented toward procreation, regardless of whether a woman is ovulating or not. Whether or not we get pregnant is not our choice. Sex is rather opening ourselves the gift of children. Sex is not fertilization. We have no control over whether fertilization occurs. But whenever we are engaging in sex, we have to accept the nature of sex. This is why NFP is moral - its abstainence. When a couple engages in sex in their infertile period, their act is still oriented toward procreation. The egg doesn’t have to be there for this orientation to exist. We’re not trying to get around our fertility to satisfy our carnal urges. We’re sacrificing sexual activity out of a since of responsibility.
That said, if the pain is really intense, I can understand why it’d be difficult to view sexual activity as something naturally oriented toward intercourse. Sexual pain (which I have a lot of experience with) can really mess up your sexuality. You want to avoid intercourse at all cost and yet you still have sexual urges. Intercourse for me did not seem to be where my desires could take me. In fact, my fear of the pain made it difficult to get aroused if I knew we were planning on attempting it. But I can say that once I overcame much of my experience with the pain, things started naturally orienting themselves more and more toward intercourse and it became less of a artifically forced activity I had to do to morally rationalize our other sexual behavior to something I actually looked forward to with my husband. But between those several months of not feeling that orientation was there, it did feel like that was an arbitary teaching the Church had. It didn’t feel real and it was very tempting to deny it.
I like that comparison.