Sex Matters and Other NFP Thoughts

Next week is NFP Awareness Week. Yes, again. But before we do that, I want to talk about sex and marriage, and why abstinence is a struggle for many (if not most) NFP practicing couples.

The most consistent critique that comes up whenever this topic is discussed is: "Shhhhh, if you're too negative no one will even try to live out the teachings!" Or it's, "There's nothing we can do about it, so why talk about it?"

Well I believe you are smarter than that, dear readers!

I believe you can handle hard topics, and nuance, and uncertainty.

Sex matters for marriages

There's a reason sex is "renewing your marriage vows" and date night isn't. Sex is so fundamental to a marriage, that a marriage is not valid until it is consummated (CCC 1640). Then why is it that we try to excuse away the importance of sex when it comes to selling NFP? If sex matters to begin a marriage, it must continue to matter within a marriage.

Sex is Emotional

We have this idea that there is sex on hand and emotional closeness on the other. I think this is a false separation. Sex is inherently emotional. Physical connection and emotional connection are joined, just as sex and marriage are joined. I will even go so far as to argue that sex is the ultimate emotional connection.


So now we get that sex matters in a marriage, and that there is not exact substitute. How do we go about discussing the frustrations of abstinence without just wanting to throw in the towel for NFP as a whole?

Let's not invalidate each other or ourselves

"It's not that bad."

"Other people have it so much worse."

"It's just for a while."

These are all statements meant to comfort but function to invalidate the person who has just confided their pain. Often, they are what we tell ourselves in order to get through a tough place - even when there is no end in sight to the tough place. Let's stop trying to tell ourselves that pain doesn't hurt and that struggles are negligible!
If we cannot accurately talk about the problem, how are we ever going to deal with it?

There are some serious holes in NFP methods and in medical knowledge

Let's just get it out there - women's reproductive medicine is woefully behind when it comes to the deeper biological understanding needed to have NFP methods that can work for everyone with minimal abstinence. I personally experienced many months where no NFP method could describe what I was seeing, and none of the multiple doctors (both GP and specialists) could work with me in understanding why my body wasn't functioning properly.

The more I've talked to other women using NFP, the more I hear about these situations where methods did not describe a woman's fertility accurately enough.
Where doctors labeled a woman requesting not to have to discuss birth control again as "non-compliant."
Where couples spend months on end unable to find available days when they have discerned a need to avoid pregnancy.

None of this means NFP is completely impossible or a bad idea, but it does mean that couples are experiencing some legitimate struggles and that struggling with NFP is not a rare experience.

It's not just you

You are not the only person frustrated with NFP!
You are not the only couple to feel the ache of having to hold back from the ultimate sign of the sacrament of marriage.
You are not a masochist for still adhering to the teachings of the Church, even when you feel the weight of the teaching.

We need to include the peripheries

If you are someone who has never struggled with abstinence, always had textbook cycles, conceived right away, breastfed and had 6 months of LAM infertility with no problem - congratulations you won the biological lottery.

The rest of us will have some struggles with this part of our lives at some point. We need to include everyone in the further development of NFP, including the afore mentioned lottery winners.
But also the subfertile, infertile, hyperfertile.
The women having to take birth control for legitimate medical reasons.
The women who can't/don't breastfeed.
The women who have mental or physical reproductive trauma.
The couples dealing with long term abstinence.
The couples struggling to discern what God is asking of their family.
The couples who have large families and the faithful parents of small families.


Struggles with NFP are not rare, unique, or even unusual.

Having struggles doesn't mean there isn't a beauty to NFP. Hard things can still be beautiful things.

What matters to me is that beautiful things are not unnecessarily hard. That we communicate honestly our struggles, and our joys, so that as a whole the practice of NFP can be a more practical tool for everyone.

What have you wanted to see in discussions of NFP? How could it better include your experience?