Your experience with NFP

[Reena]

I noticed a post on this forum about keeping the spark and using NFP, and the sentiments by the few people who posted suggest to me that it’s hard to keep sex exciting with NFP.

What has your experience with it been?

 

[rayne89]

I used NFP for 9 years with no surprises. (Good thing or I wouldn’t be alive to tell you about it . )

Our sex life is very satisfying, fun but not always spontaneous -sometimes. Waiting seems to make it more exciting for us. It’s definately made us closer.

 

[mvinca]

A1 through A3 actually asks two things, leaving a lot of unavailable choices. (eg. NFP is great, but it has had no effect on our sex life).

 

[kage_ar]

Define Spontaneous - you mean that you look across the room any time, day or night - and are overcome with passion and just fall into each other’s arms right then and there? For most of us, day to day grown up life does not make that possible - those moments live in Romance Novels

NFP builds strong relationships, there is no better sex than sex in a strong marriage.

 

[Ham1]

I would say being “open to life” builds strong marriages. Whether that openness includes NFP or not is irrelevant.

NFP is not without it’s challenges. Truly it is a great gift for families to be able to space and limit children when necessary. But it certainly requires sacrifice and hardships which (along with any trials) can make a marriage stronger. It is, however, worthwhile to note that NFP is not always necessary and a great many people have wonderful marriages simply leaving such things in the hands of God. NFP should not be a way of life. It is a tool to be used when circumstances determine that it is necessary not something that should be used widely everywhere and at all times.

 

[Black_Jaque]

Yeah no kidding. Spontaneous is fun. But there’s other ways to measure a good sex life other than spontaneity. What about mutual climaxing? What about equal initiations? What about just a genuine sense that both partners are sincerely giving themselve entirely to each other?

 

[lifeisbeautiful]

Ham1:

I would say being “open to life” builds strong marriages. Whether that openness includes NFP or not is irrelevant.

NFP is not without it’s challenges. Truly it is a great gift for families to be able to space and limit children when necessary. But it certainly requires sacrifice and hardships which (along with any trials) can make a marriage stronger. It is, however, worthwhile to note that NFP is not always necessary and a great many people have wonderful marriages simply leaving such things in the hands of God. NFP should not be a way of life. It is a tool to be used when circumstances determine that it is necessary not something that should be used widely everywhere and at all times.

Excellent post!!! I did not vote because we are not using NFP and have never used it, yet our marriage is wonderful. I know our marriage would not benefit from NFP for avoiding children at this time (well aside from the fact that I am pregnant ) True, there are virtues that can be refined through periodic abstinence in NFP, but there are other ways to work on these virtues too. This was one of the concerns I asked about during marriage prep. I had heard so much about all the great things that come from NFP in marriage that I was worried we would miss out on them if we did not use NFP in some way. I wish I could repeat everything I was told, but it boiled down to: there are many benefits that strengthen your marriage in not using NFP also and the virtues that can be acquired through NFP can be acquired in other ways too. In other words, NFP is great when used for right reasons, it is a wonderful tool our Church (God) has given us, and it is always better than ABC, but if the right reasons are not there, then not using anything is better. I wish I could quote exactly what I was told, it was really interesting and made great sense.

 

[kage_ar]

Ham1:

I would say being “open to life” builds strong marriages. Whether that openness includes NFP or not is irrelevant.

Guess sometimes I forget that not everyone has the physical issues I have, for us it is NFP or abstain until menopause - unless I have a miracle healing