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Posted by Sara Fox Peterson in Marriage on Monday, October 05, 2009 2:30 PM
Ideally a Catholic’s obligation never to use contraception or be sterilized would be something discussed, understood and agreed upon before the couple was married—while there was still time to call off the wedding if it became obvious that remaining faithful to Church teaching and marrying this particular person would be incompatible.
It often happens, however, that people marry and one experiences a conversion some years later, either to Catholicism from another faith or to a fully-lived Catholic faith from one that was less serious. Conversions are always difficult and converting to whole-hearted acceptance of the Church’s teachings on sex and family planning can be a source of a great deal of tension between spouses.
Harmony within marriage is very important and marriage works best when each spouse is willing to compromise a great deal, but the end can never justify the means and “one may not do evil that good may result from it” (CCC 1756). Because contraception and sterilization are always evil and always damaging, it is never acceptable for me to cooperate with either, even if refusing to do so causes a great deal of disharmony in my marriage.
Likewise a wife is never obligated to use contraception or agree to sterilization out of obedience or in submission to her husband. No authority can ever be higher than God and we are never obligated to obey anyone who instructs us to disobey God or His Church.
Fortunately disagreements over the means of avoding pregnancy can usually be overcome by a combination of prayer, education about the scientific basis and effectiveness of NFP and a (sometimes sacrificial - particularly for exhausted, breastfeeding moms) willingess to use as many infertile days as is possible.
But what if despite your best efforts you cannot reach an agreement? Well, this remains one of the most difficult and painful marital situations that there is and there is no easy answer. The Pontifical Council for the Family’s Vademecum for Confessors Concerning Some Aspects of the Morality of Conjugal Life tells us that a Catholic does not sin in continuing to have marital relations with a spouse who uses contraceptives or is sterilized provided that the he or she:
On the other hand one is not morally obligated to continue to have marital relations under these conditions and “it is necessary to distinguish cooperation [with contraception] in the proper sense, from violence or unjust imposition on the part of one of the spouses, which the other spouse in fact cannot resist”.
Hesitancy, concerns, anxiety and questions are normal when one spouse is convinced that NFP is the only morally acceptable option and the other is not, but outright refusal to discuss NFP, hurtful sarcasm, derision or coercive insistence on the continued use of contraceptives are neither normal nor healthy.
There is something very wrong in a marriage where one’s beliefs are not respected or where one is not free to say, ‘no’ to sexual relations for a week or so each month. If you find yourself in either of these situations, marriage counseling is definitely called for.
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While both my spouse and i agree to use nfp , we disagree on the seriousness of the reasons to avoid . I would like us to wait a bit more ( we have a 10mth old and have to support my mother and siblings not to mentioin my job is no where near family friendlY).
MY DH on the other hand says we should just go ahead and trust God and not let nfp bring disharmony… I think he is maybe tired of all the postpartum no periods phase abstaining
The issue of whether or not to avoid pregnancy (as opposed to *how* to avoid pregnancy) is a different issue that I didn’t have space to address here. I did, however, publish a column on the subject a few years ago and you can read that column here: http://www.catholicmom.com/nfp02.05.htm
As for the postpartum thing: If you are regularly abstaining for more than a week or two at time PLEASE get in touch with an NFP teacher (feel free to email me if you like). Months upon months of abstinence just isn’t necessary, even during the time before your cycles return, but most people really do need the help of an experienced teacher to sort it all out.
Fertility declines with age, and sometimes at a younger than average age. When you choose to abstain and say “not now” you need to realize that what you are really saying is “better never than right now.” That’s how serious it is. It’s hard to accept that truth in today’s world where so many people do have children exactly when they want to due to the pill or IVF, etc. But the truth is, only God gives life. I think couples need to say to themselves, “if this cycle was our last chance to have a child, would we still abstain?
Wendy,
I think it’s a bit extreme to use your suggestion. There are many, many cases of families who desire more children but for whom it would be imprudent to conceive “right now.” The physical health of the mother, the financial health of the family, the effort demanded in caring for a special needs child and a whole host of other reasons are perfectly sufficient for using NFP. The reasons need not be life or death, though they certainly shouldn’t be trivial. I hope you had the chance to read Sara’s article “Thy Will Be Done,” which beautifully expresses the proper attitude toward reasons to avoid conception.
what to do if one’s spouse has inheritied a major devastating genetic issue that was realized after getting married, all children have a 50% chance of inheriting—this is something that would shorten one’s life by a great amount and would need extensive care while living?
Please help with any suggestions,
Sara does address the “hard cases” in this CatholicMom.com column. Prayers for you in your difficult situation.
I would be careful about assuming that, because there is a strong possibility that any children would have a much shorter than normal life, there is an obligation not to have children (or at least not many). There are many saints who died before the age of 30, including at least one doctor of the Church (St. Therese). The length of one’s life and the significance of that life aren’t really related.
It may be, however, that because the additional responsibility of caring for your spouse and any children with the disorder (or for other reasons), God does call you to limit your family size and that would be exactly the kind of situation that calls for NFP.
The idea is not that NFP is fine for most people, but when there is a *really* serious reason to avoid pregnancy then it is OK to resort to contraception or sterilization. NFP is specifically for - and only supposed to be used - when there exist truly serious reasons to avoid pregnancy.
My prayers for you and your family in what sounds like a very difficult situation.
Dear Mrs. Fox Peterson,
I clicked on the link to the column you wrote and read it through to the end. Several of the points you made were great to hear, even thought I have heard many of them before. It is great to know that my vocation is *first* as a wife…. because many of the times that we argue/fight over whether we should have more kids (we currently have 4 with another little one on the way) I have been feeling betrayed or that I am not being *open enough* to another life. So, in your column when you wrote that if one spouse doesn’t feel ready, (my take on it), that it can lead to :”(feeling betrayed or disrespected, the belief that NFP is unreliable or unrealistic and increased temptations to contraception or sterilization), and God would never will for anyone to deliberately lead his or her spouse into temptation.”— I breathed a deep sigh, because I have felt in the past that I was being *selfish* just because I need to breathe and try to organize my crazy, chaotic, disorganized life before I could openly welcome another little blessing with a big smile and a smidge of energy.
I know a lot of holy, prayerful women who just let God decide how many children they will have. I guess I have a long way to go if I am to ever reach that prayerful place.
I just worry that I may not be ALL I want to be, all GOD wants me to be, for any more little darlings unless I make some huge changes to be better. I often feel like I’m “going down for the last time” or at the end of my rope, and the knot I have tied is beginning to fray.
How exactly I can do more with less time and energy——that is rather a mystery to me right now.
Thanks for letting me comment
We’ve struggled with a similar issue, but with genetic psychiatric issues that have been more clearly identified since our marriage. This limits one parent’s capacity to deal with many children (as well as other challenges) and had already impacted at least one child (with risks for more). We have—very prayerfully—determined that God’s plan for our family accounts for the extra problems, the child’s needs, and diminished parental abilities. This means that our best parental plan for our welfare and for prudent parenting of our children is to limit our family size. It is difficult for many reasons, but we’ve been led to accept it.
Keep it simple…Jesus blessed children, loved and welcomed them…but he loved everyone…tired women and men stretched way beyond their comfort zone. Look in Church History…once having sex during lent was considered mortal sin…like eating meat on Friday. Church teaching is not the same as the Gospel. We use all kinds of medicine which is artificial. We don’t just pray and let life happen. God gave us brains and bodies.
Jesus taught “Call no man ‘father’ except your Father in heaven. Often people leave the church because of what a priest says that is unreasonable. Ask “What would Jesus do?”
Treat church teaching respectfully but not slaveishly. Jesus came to free us from the Law of men. Peace and blessings, Carol
Thank you for this - my husband agrees to use NFP but is not entirely convinced that non-abortifacient contraception is wrong. He is basically fine with NFP as long as it works. The thing is, I have PCOS, which makes my cycles very confusing. Both of our kids were surprises. It has caused a lot of tension in our marriage.
I had a very scary complication last time (severe preeclampsia) and consequently don’t want any more kids. My husband is convinced that if we continue to use NFP we’ll have another surprise eventually. I guess he’s sort of resigned to it now – he’s not pressuring me to use birth control or anything, at least not yet. I go to an NFP-only Dr. who fixed an erosion on my cervix, which was causing constant discharge that led to some of the confusion, and diagnosed the PCOS. I am on medication for PCOS (metformin), which has made my cycles shorter than the 50-90 days they used to be. I am still terrified of pregnancy because of what happened last time, plus my husband doesn’t want any more kids anyway.
I have kept very careful charts from the beginning and honestly, in the cycles we conceived unexpectedly, which were about 50 days long (give or take), it looked like we would have had to abstain for about a month in order to make sure we avoided pregnancy in those cycles. We learned NFP through CCL, and the Dr. I go to recommended that I take a Creighton class. Is that something you would recommend? Is it better for people with PCOS? I’m hesitant because it’s mucus-only and my mucus is very confusing. I really like to have the temperature sign. I’ve considered learning Creighton observations for my mucus but still taking my temperature to confirm ovulation. Do you think that would work?
Mucus-only methods do tend to be better for women who have long cycles and a lot of discharge and you will probably find that your mucus patterns aren’t so confusing as they seem now once you have learned a bit more. Because with the symptothermal method one relies so heavily on the temperature shift to determine when fertility is over with, there isn’t much emphasis on the significance of different patterns of discharge that can occur in the part of the cycle before ovulation - most people are just taught to assume that anything and everything indicates fertility. This is mostly true, and so isn’t a problem for women with normal length cycles, but when there are several weeks between the end of your period and ovulation it does result in a lot of unnecessary abstinence.
Learning a mucus-only method will let you distinguish between the real cervical mucus that indicates fertility and the ‘background’ discharge that often occurs in long cycles and is not directly related to fertility.
And if you like the temperature sign you can certainly continue with it. Temperature-charting isn’t necessary with a mucus-only method, but it doesn’t conflict with it either as long as you follow the guidelines of the mucus-only method as they are written.
Do you have any suggestions for a husband who is unwilling to learn anything about NFP? I am pregnant with our 4th child, to my husband’s chagrin. I have studied some about NFP but have not learned enough to prevent pregnancy. My non-Catholic husband is VERY skeptical. He will not read about NFP or go to a class, and would much rather go back to a barrier method. I am a recent convert who threw the BC away when I joined RCIA and have had two children since then. We don’t have room or financial ability to support more children at this time (when this little one is born we will be a family of four children in a very small two bedroom home). He was raised in a family where the kids were abused and sex became something you didn’t talk about. He also will not listen to me even mention my cycle. To him it is disgusting and very private. He has also refused the idea of ever going to counseling. He is not selfish or demanding and would respect me if I said “this is a day when I could conceive, so let’s abstain” but would never participate in anyway with the signs or symptoms that would lead me to say so. Is it possible to go to class without your husband? I do have a good Catholic health provider who I am sure could refer me to a class, but I am nervous to do so when my husband would be completely involved.
Oh yes it is fine to learn NFP without your husband. Every couple works things out a little bit differently and while some husbands are very involved in charting and interpretting the chart, many others aren’t (including mine). It’s a little bit like labor and delivery; some fathers catch the baby and cut the cord and some stand way back and do their best not to pass out. When I wrote that complete refusal to discuss NFP is abnormal and unhealthy I meant refusal to discuss it as a family planning option - not refusal to discuss the details of the physical signs of fertility.
If your husband is willing to abstain during potentially fertile times when it is necessary for you to avoid pregnancy, then count your blessings and go with that!
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