I immediately identified with the man who is resentful about NFP. I have found it very challenging as a woman to not feel amorous in Phase I and Phase III, but feel very amorous in Phase II. Then if we go ahead and share the marital act in Phase II, I get pregnant and don’t feel amorous for nine months. Then I breastfeed and again have low libido for another 15 months due to that! When I finally get my cycle back I go back to the beginning and start the whole thing over again (four times so far!) So I really feel sexually excited and get to satisfy that feeling once every two years or so! It is VERY hard and frustrating! It is not what I imagined marriage to be! But several insights have occurred to me in my prayer and discussion with my spiritual director on this point.

1. God doesn’t owe me sexual gratification. Priests and nuns never get it! God didn’t even have to send me a spouse. I know single people older than I am who feel they are called to marriage but never found a spouse. They also get no sexual gratification. Or my spouse could have had an accident and be in a wheelchair for 40 years and again, I would get no sex, EVER! Actually, God has been pretty generous me to let me have the sexual pleasure I’ve enjoyed so far!

2. I enjoy sex with my husband even when I don’t feel amorous or excited beforehand and don’t reach climax during it. I like to be close with him, I like to please him and give him pleasure, I like to make him happy, I like to make him feel loved, because I love him! Just because I don’t feel amorous in Phase I and three doesn’t stop me from having sex. And he makes an extra special effort to make lots of foreplay and lots of sweet talk and take time to try to help me reach climax when it’s harder for me. I appreciate that so much!

3. Marilyn Shannon ’s advice really helps. Try some vitamins! She might have higher libido if she gets on Optivite and flax seed oil daily. He could buy a case of Optivite and flax seed oil and say, “Honey I love you so much that I am going to hand you six Optivite and some flax seed oil tablets EVERY day so that you can have more sexual pleasure. Sex is a gift God is giving to unify us in our marriage and I want to give YOU more pleasure in the next 18 years than you have had in the first.” Then he will be “romancing her” emotionally AND physically! It might help increase libido and lower PMS so that she feels like sex more often. And she is going to feel moved that he loves her so much that he will be FAITHFUL about helping her every day to take the vitamins! Vitamins have helped me a lot!

4. It sound like he may not need this because they have clear knowledge of her cycle, but temps were an issue for us. What if he came every day when he wakes up and hands her the thermometer? She takes her temp half asleep, hands him the thermometer when it beeps 15 seconds later and rolls over and goes back to sleep. Again it’s an opportunity to SHOW her the sacrifices he is willing to make to unify this marriage! Then his desire for sexual gratification doesn’t appear so selfish to her.

5. This man talked a lot about “without NFP.” But what is the real alternative available? What does “without NFP” mean? It could mean with contraception, or without any sex whatsoever, or with a baby conceived every time she gets a cycle. But probably none of those options are better than what he’s had so far. Contraception ruins her health and her soul AND ALSO her libido! Don’t fool yourself into thinking that if she were only on contraception then she’d always feel like it! Far from it! It’s possible that instead she’d be angry, feel used, resentful, and nauseous with the same low libido. Then possibly a blood clot would kill her and he’d get NO sex. Is that better?

Basically there is no marriage without the cross. I have been shocked at how I can’t avoid it! All my day dreams about how perfect and heavenly marriage would be were unrealistic and yet I have an excellent marriage! There is no solution to this that doesn’t involve the cross! The cross is no fun and this man is feeling its weight and its splinters in his back. But what a gift that is because when I am on the cross, that is where Christ is. Then I am with him, close to Him. The particular annoyances and frustrations that make up my crosses are awful, but the opportunity to bear them cheerfully is Christ’s gift to me to draw me closer to Him. Dream about heaven, when there will be no crosses and the union will be perfect and the joy will be deep!