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The following are a just a few of the many questions we've received the past few months:

How do NFP wives handle a husband who expects her to use birth control, or wants to use condoms?
First of all, the wife should refuse to participate in anything that could potentially harm the child. So that rules out any form of chemical birth control. She should also refuse to do anything to her body that will alter the way God created it. That rules out a tubal. Those two examples keep the wife "innocent" in the eyes of God.

Because using condoms does no harm to a child in utero, this is one area you probably have no choice. You can say that you disapprove, and I would still refuse to purchase the condoms, or in any way "help" him.

If there is any part of NFP that is "difficult" it is those situations where one spouse does not actively embrace Natural Family Planning. But keep praying for your husband and continue to be loving in all aspects of your marriage and your example may win him over.

My husband wants to have a vasectomy. I don't want anything to do with it, but am I supposed to submit?

No, because submission comes to God first. Remember Annanias and Saphiras who lied to the church about how much money they gave? The wife was not excused for her lying just because her husband led them there.

You obviously can't control what your husband does, but you can let your husband know you won't help him in going against the dignity of his body. Make it clear that this action is between him and God and you will have nothing to do with it: that means don't make the appointment, drive him to the hospital, or even pour the glass of water for him to take his pain meds.

Have you found that NFP has strengthened your marriage? And if so, why do you think that is? What would you say are the greatest benefits?

I've heard that NFP couples tend to have fewer divorces than the average Christian couple, etc. and I think it may *not necessarily* be because of the NFP itself, but because both the husband and wife are already 100% devoted to be self-less in their marriage, and Natural Family Planning is a natural contributor. By choosing NFP, they've already decided not to let popular culture (even popular Christian culture) dictate the way they handle their intimate lives. With NFP, the husband is "telling" his wife that he doesn't want any chemicals in her body for her own sake, as well as for the sake of a potential child... and he's willing to abstain from intercourse (when they want to postpone pregnancy) for a week or so. And the wife doesn't want a "rubber replica" of her husband. She wants him. That is all in addition to how God created us. If Monet gave us one of his paintings, would we hang it up in the attic where no one could see it? That's what couples who use artificial birth control are doing with God's creation. (Or worse, they're damaging the work of God.) For Jonathan and myself, the greatest benefit of NFP has been the "power" of it. It forces us to not be "comfortable" with our worldly plans when God wants more from us, when He has gifts he wants to give us. In other words, if you're on the Pill, every time you have intercourse, you're not thinking about the potential for bringing new life into the world. You've made up your mind that you want to wait "X" number of years until you get off, then you can have your 1.8 children, then get you or your spouse sterilized so you can go back to having your free smorgasbord of sex all the time. (The result? ... and this we've heard from the lips of couples who used birth control before NFP... the woman feels used, and the man feels "angry" - I wish there was a study on the effects of a vasectomy on men because my husband and I have found the anger issue to be pretty consistent with sterilized men - even my mechanic, who I don't even know, told me he had a vasectomy and deeply regrets it - partly blaming his wife who was overwhelmed with her small children and wanted him to do it. Much later in life, he now would rather have more children than a vasectomy. I don't even bring up the subject, but people start telling me of their regrets when they see me with my blessings.) With NFP, your "plans" are reversible. You might make up your minds that you'll wait 6 months before conceiving, then about 3 months into it, you change your minds and God blesses you with a child. No regrets there!

Here's another example of self-less love: a friend recently told me that after a very difficult pregnancy several years ago, her doctor *highly recommended* she get sterilized or risk major medical problems if she got pregnant again. She told her husband what the doctor said and her husband told her, "I'd rather live a life of abstinence before I let you do that to yourself." Now that is love, and that's the kind of husband I would want to have (and do have!). By the way, she and her husband made a "medical" decision and went on to have a few more healthy pregnancies after that.

In material critical of NFP, I've heard it said that NFP is in theory 99% effective, but in practice only about 75% effective. Have you heard anything from those 'on the inside' of NFP information to confirm or deny that? And would you say that the times that it didn't work would normally be because of error or not taking enough precaution?

I want to answer: "It doesn't matter! God is the Giver of life and He's bigger than statistics, especially when He purposes to give new life to a family"... but I'll answer your question: certainly, if a woman is motivated to not conceive, she won't conceive. And those women will have a 99% effectiveness rate for avoiding pregnancy. But for those who do conceive when they're trying to wait, it's due to "user error" to borrow a computer expression (but hopefully they won't call their baby an error).

If a person is trying to avoid pregnancy, about how many days of the month would abstinence be required? I know that there are only a few days that a woman is fertile, but the buffer zones and precautions that seem to be recommended during menstruation seem that there would be quite a lot of time to be abstaining. If we want to be very cautious about not conceiving, how many days of the month would we be talking about? I will give you a personal example: I had 4 days of heavy to moderate bleeding, so those are times to abstain (if my husband and I want to postpone, although I'm sure we'd be abstaining anyway at that time!). Then, I had 10 days in a row of infertility. Once you're a seasoned NFP-er, you can certainly use these days although most of the methods advise not to during the first month or more, until you feel confident with your signs. After that, I began showing signs of fertility coming, so the next 9 days I considered myself "fertile." Looking back, I could actually probably count two or three of those as infertile because I was spotting one day, and spotting must be considered fertile for that day, plus three more days (due to the possibility of breakthrough bleeding associated with ovulation). I tend to spot on days that I have an intense workout at the gym, something I have yet to figure out. So, if I was to be "conservative" (99% vs. 75% that you asked about above), I would count 9 days in a row of fertility. After that I had 7 days of infertility again. In case the above was confusing: 4 days of menstruation + 9 days (most conservative) total of fertility or abstinence if we wanted to postpone, and 17 days where intercourse would not result in a pregnancy. Remember, this is my example and each woman's cycle is different. My "luteal" phase tends to be shorter than the average, and during the luteal, or last phase before your period starts, a woman is infertile.

I'll add something else here - woman to woman -on another benefit of NFP: when I'm breastfeeding, I'm mostly infertile (until fertility returns several months after the birth of the baby, and those signs are detectable). So during that time every day is infertile, and we can have intercourse every day if we wanted to. As a woman, I welcomed the return of my cycles because after a few days of not having intercourse (due to period or fertile times and we were postponing pregnancy), I looked forward to it again. Not that we had all kinds of intercourse during those breastfeeding months, but it was somewhat frustrating going to bed "wondering" if we would, especially when I was tired. Now I look forward to sexual intimacy much more, and it's probably more fun for my husband, to have me actually be the one to initiate it. I guess I can see how a woman on birth control feels: there's no guaranteed time of abstinence and that's probably where the "headache" lie started :)

Hello. My wife is arguing that her medical condition (some heart issues which have caused her a lot of anxiety) makes the (even remote - read NFP - and we know the statistics) possibility of another pregnancy unacceptable. I am promoting the Creighton model NFP. She told me the other day that her mother cares about her health and I don't. She is worried about taking care of our existing kids. Assuming she does have a medical condition that could threaten her life is she were again to become pregnant, how do I respond in a way that shows her I love her body and soul? Thank you.

Actually, this probably belongs under "Man to Man" but I included it here to show the stress we as women can put on our husbands. This man has a heart of gold and his love for his wife is obvious. Ladies, put more faith in your man, treat him with utmost respect, and don't put your mother before your husband.