I couldn’t help but laugh when I read the letter from the "Resentful Man." Not to mock or belittle the man who wrote it, but because my husband and I have definitely been there! In fact, I showed the article to my husband after supper and jokingly asked him if he wrote it! Many of his complaints have been echoed in our household at some point in time since our 2000 wedding. We definitely felt that we didn’t know what we were getting into when we made the NFP decision. However, our marriage so far has been a lot about dealing with issues we felt prepared for in theory that were somehow more complicated in reality.

My husband was raised Catholic; I was raised Protestant. I had been on the Pill since my early high school days, although I wasn’t sexually active then. By the time we married at 21, both of us had used different forms of contraception. Our NFP class was part of our pre-Cana requirements. By that time I had decided to become Catholic and we both felt that to truly be practicing Catholics, we needed to follow Church teaching on all things, including – gulp! – contraception. It all seemed to make such sense in the classes, although I was somewhat skeptical about the efficiency of the method and kept picturing myself as this run-down mother of 15 by the age of 36. But NFP and the Church’s teaching about it is something that, once hearing and understanding it, you cannot cast aside lightly and go on with your life as before.

My husband was still in college and we were both working when we married, and we had decided for various reasons to try to postpone pregnancy for at least a year. I was “just off the Pill” and my cycles were so odd. They kept getting longer and longer, and eventually I had a cycle that lasted over 100 days! Talk about painful abstinence! We weren’t into “taking chances” then and suffered much stress in our marriage at that time. Suddenly NFP didn’t sound so great.

But we gave it the benefit of the doubt and eventually my cycles got somewhat shorter (still 40 or so days) and we were on pins and needles every month (-and-a-half) waiting for that 4/10 shift. By then there was so much pressure to have coitus that I often felt that I couldn’t really enjoy it as being spontaneous. It felt like we were simply performing an act that was required because it was “scheduled” and we’d been waiting so long for it. I soon was dreading Phase III because of the pressure and guilt involved, and I felt that I couldn’t complain too much because every discussion about it ended up with my husband feeling bad about himself.

Then when we were ready to try to conceive a child, I didn’t get pregnant right away and that added stress to the situation. Looking back on that period of our marriage, our most enjoyable sexual experiences were actually after I was pregnant, when the pressure was off and we were simply able to enjoy each other. Neither of us was happy with the situation, but we didn’t know how to fix it, either.  We both knew we could never go back to contraception in good conscience, but we didn’t want 20 kids, either.

After our daughter was born in 2003, we went through the typical six-week waiting period. By the time we had gotten the go-ahead from my doctor, we were still so exhausted from caring for our daughter and I was still wrestling with my unsteady emotions that our sex life didn’t really take off. I kept thinking, “Maybe it’ll get better after she’s six months old,” and then, “Okay, maybe a year,” etc. A lifetime of unenjoyable, routine sex stretched out before me in my mind. By that point we had both decided to be open and honest with each other about our feelings. If I said, “NFP stinks,” it was okay because my husband felt the same way. We tried to support each other.

That communication opened the door for us. The more we talked about our feelings regarding our intimacy and NFP we realized that the problem was not NFP. Both of us had been in relationships before that were not helped by contracepted, anytime sex. The problem was the tone of our intimate overtures. There wasn’t really any “romance,” although my husband did try anything and everything I suggested as romantic, from buying a romantic card to scrubbing toilets. The problem for me was the pressure, the expectations. Many men cannot “perform” under too much pressure and it is no different for women. So what to do?

Well, for us what worked was a change of attitude. Instead of just “getting it over with,” I had to allow myself to forget what time it is or how tired I am and just enjoy it. We both try to make an effort to get our daughter to bed early if we plan a romantic evening so that we aren’t exhausted and in a hurry to get to bed. And instead of those football-player swipes at my behind, my husband tries to control himself and channel his sexual energy into doing dishes or complimenting my looks. Communication is the key. When he asks what he can do to help me out the most, I tell him, “Take our daughter out to play in the yard for a while so I can take a long quiet bath,” or, “Fold the clean clothes piled in the laundry basket.” Sometimes that will precede an evening of sexual intimacy, and sometimes it won’t. Instead of blaming me, my husband lets it go, knowing that there’s always tomorrow. That, in turn, makes me even more willing, knowing that he is mastering his urges out of love and respect for me. As I tell him, I “treasure all these things in my heart.”

As tempting as it may sound sometimes, contraception does not make for happier marriages. Look around you. So many of our non-Catholic, contracepting friends have at least contemplated divorce, if they haven’t gone through with it already. “Free, unlimited sex” does not make a marriage better. It can lead to resentment, guilt, and make for a boring routine. Honestly looking at my marriage, I know that had we never learned about NFP and continued to use contraception, we would be facing the exact same issues we are now. The difference is in the way you face it: working against each other, or working together. I don’t pretend to have all the answers or to have the “perfect marriage.” Far from it.  We are just like any other couple, struggling to live a marriage that has its exhilaratingly thrilling moments as well as its depressingly heartrending ones.

My heart and prayer goes out to the couple who sent in the letter, along with all couples who are struggling with NFP. Although I laughed while reading the letter, I felt so much pain from its author. Just know you can overcome your problems! 18 years is a long time to struggle with NFP, but there is always hope. I would suggest that anyone facing the same issues take a good look at your relationship with your spouse and with God. You need cooperation and communication with both to have a successful marriage.

And for any new NFP users, know that NFP won’t magically solve your marital issues. It is only a part of an open mindset that will help you and your spouse face the difficult issues that inevitably will arise throughout your marriage. After almost five years of marriage I can say in all honesty that God blessed us when he introduced us to NFP because it opened the floor for discussion of many issues, sexual and otherwise.