Marriage-Building Effects of NFP

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

1. NFP provides couples with a built-in way of keeping a cycle of courtship and honeymoon in their marriage. To put it most briefly, this prevents either spouse from taking their sexual relationship for granted. It also prevents them from putting their whole approach to intimacy in their marriage on one aspect of their relationship: their sexual love for each other.
2. Couples who practice NFP find that by discussing and prayerfully discerning their aspirations and concerns about the size of their family, they find it more easy to discuss and handle other issues in their marriages: finances, "in-law" strategies, how to rear their children, etc.
3. Wives tell us they experience increased satisfaction and greater appreciation for their husbands, who are practicing self-control and willingly sacrificing some pleasure for the sake of their beloved spouse. 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. Even if it seems more convenient for husbands to let their wives "take care of this women's business," most NFP-using husbands would rather have the true equality this knowledge introduces into their marriages, marriages that pay more than lip service to the "one flesh" that they have become through their marital vows. 

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