I applaud CCL for publishing the painful letter from the gentleman complaining about the use of NFP within his marriage. It seems a fine act of charity to let him hear from others who have had a different experience with their sexual relationship, or in my case, a similar experience that has been turned around.   

My wife and I have been a Teaching Couple for almost four years and enjoy passing on the great news of NFP. Nevertheless, there are some curious parallels between our marriage and the one described by the author. We, too, were married 18 years ago and have used NFP from the start.  We also postponed consummation of our marriage for our entire honeymoon because my wife entered Phase II on our wedding day. Additionally, the author's description of his marital sex life is not too far from where ours was about a dozen years ago.   

At the time, I did not blame NFP for our frustration, but my wife's apparent lack of sexual desire. In the ensuing years, I have learned that her sex drive is not "lower" than mine, but simply slower to develop. That is a critical distinction. Nevertheless, at the time, I did not know how to resolve the matter. Without anywhere else to turn, my wife and I began to pray about it.     

Two years into our prayer, our sex life began to improve, somewhat dramatically. We tell people in retrospect that the improvement should not have been a surprise. Inviting an infinite God into any aspect of your life can improve it, infinitely. As a practical matter, I learned the importance of romance and sexual foreplay. It took several more years before I understood why this can be so important.     

Shortly after we became a Teaching Couple, we were introduced to Pope John Paul II's Theology of the Body. In his book, Love and Responsibility (L&R), the Holy Father explained how each person is of equal dignity and fully deserving of being treated as a subject and not an object.  John Paul noted that the sexual faculty is very capable of being misused, particularly by the man, because his time to arousal is shorter and more violent (L&R, p. 275). But permitting this biological fact to dominate the sexual relationship is extremely undesirable. The ideal is for both the husband and the wife to reach climax, the Pope said, "as far as possible, simultaneously"  (L&R p. 272) . 

While difficult to achieve in some relationships, the point is to make the effort, to a degree that can be described as “virtuous” (L&R p. 275). With this in mind, I have come to understand my role during sexual relations as one of service to my wife, where I become her gift. My objective is to help her feel as much a "subject" of sexual love as I am. The result has taken us from a sexual relationship we told engaged couples as recently as three years ago was "great," to one that offers a sense of the "sacred." Thinking more of her than myself, I now have a sense of reverence for my wife and awe about sex that was unimaginable even four years ago. 

Interestingly, Pope John Paul II's unique, almost ironic interpretation of Ephesians 5 (i.e., "[w]ives be subject to your husbands....") has been central to our renewed sexual relationship. As the Pope explained, the passage could not have meant that husbands should dominate their wives, because domination of the woman was a result of original sin (Gen 3:16). Instead, he believed that the reference to wives representing the Church and husbands representing Christ imposes an obligation on the HUSBAND to serve his wife first, as Christ first served the Church. And, as the Apostles were required to accept Jesus' service (e.g., allow Jesus to wash their feet at the Last Supper), so must wives learn to accept their husbands' service. e have found this has extraordinary meaning, not only for our married life as a whole, but for the bedroom. Obviously, we don't live this perfectly, but making the effort has been rather rewarding.      

I can't judge the hearts of this couple and do not intend to universalize my own positive experience, but it is a very good thing to move beyond simple obedience to the law to an understanding of the meaning behind the law. Considering their years of faithfulness, even in highly difficult times, God is more than ready to offer them a rich and meaningful sexual relationship, beyond anything they can imagine now. As I hope is true of my own, with God's grace and some effort on their part, the best years of their marriage should be ahead of them.