Better marriages

Many couples find that learning NFP together and living the NFP lifestyle strengthens their marriage. There are many reasons for this:

• NFP provides couples with a built-in way of keeping a cycle of courtship and honeymoon in their marriage, and it helps keep spouses from taking their sexual relationship for granted.
• Couples who practice NFP find that by discussing and prayerfully discerning their aspirations and concerns about the size of their family, they find it easier to address issues in other critical areas of their marriages: finances, “in-law” strategies, how to rear their children, and many other issues.
• Wives have expressed to us the great appreciation they feel for their husbands, who exhibit self-control and a willingness to sacrifice pleasure for the sake of mutually agreed values — truly impressive character traits in our self-centered culture. Husbands tell us of feeling a sense of privilege in being let into knowledge of their wives’ fertility, an understanding few other men can claim to have.

NFP couples are truly able to live as the “one flesh” that they have become through their marital vows, and they usually find that this impacts their relationship for the better on many levels. Read some of their stories or this account of one couple who experienced a profound difference after leaving contraception behind.

See also:

Does NFP Put a Strain on Marriage? by Herbert F. Smith, S.J.