Natural Family Planning
is Good for Marriage
Natural family planning is more than just a safe and effective form of birth control - it can be a blessing to your marriage.
NFP can be a great source of joy and love in your marriage. NFP respects the natural cycles of your body, and it respects you as a person and your soul.
Do you ever feel that your spouse is 'using' you for sex? Do you long to feel loved, cherished, and totally accepted by your spouse when you make love?
Sex is a gift, meant to be the very source of life and love in a marriage. When you practice natural family planning as natural birth control, you will abstain from sex during the fertile phase. But this isn't bad - in fact
periodic abstinence can actually be good for marriages.
Learning about NFP is a way to plan your family, but it is also a way to strengthen your marriage through love, respect, and communication.
Sex is a Gift
Sex is a beautiful gift from God. It is the physical renewal of your wedding vows.
You take your spouse, for better or worse, completely and without holding back. Your spouse takes you and accepts you, totally - with no holding back.
Sex is meant to be a foretaste of heaven. It is the ultimate expression of love and acceptance between spouses.
There are two important elements of sex. First, sex is meant to be a renewal of wedding vows between spouses. Second, sex must be open to life.
These ideas are the cornerstone of the Catholic Church's teaching on sex. Let's look at each one a bit more...
Sex is for Marriage
You are living your wedding vows through sex with your spouse. You are telling them that you would - that you are - marrying them all over again.
The reason that sex before marriage is so destructive is that it is you are not renewing your wedding vows. There are no vows to renew. Premarital sex exchanges truth for a lie.
In premarital sex - there is no gift of self. There is only taking. Instead of giving to each other, couples having sex before marriage are simply using each other.
Being Open to Life
The second important element is being open to life. This is the critical difference between natural family planning and contraception.
Many people hear the term 'Natural Family Planning' and are confused. They assume that the reason the Church opposes contraception is because it isn't natural.
The Church opposes contraception because it takes away one of most important parts of sex: being open to life.
Being open to life does not mean that the only time you should have sex is to have a baby. Being open to life requires you to respect God's plan for sex.
God made woman to be fertile and infertile at different times in her cycle. NFP respects the natural cycles of fertility and infertility.
Contraception gets in the way of God's plan. It tries to separate sex from openness to life.
It is a big difference that people try to overlook.
Some people say, "What's the big difference? Isn't it all the same in the end?"
It is a big difference.
It is the difference between a miscarriage and abortion.
The difference between natural death and suicide.
The difference between someone who purchased a car and someone who stole a car. They both end up with a car in the end - but one did it through hard work and the other through evil.
Sex: Two Main Purposes
Sex is meant to be your body's way of physically renewing your marital vows; and to be open to new life. When spouses try to avoid these purposes, it hurts marriages.
Understanding these two key purposes are the cornerstone of the Catholic Church's teaching on sex. They are the cornerstone of natural family planning.
Now that you are familiar with the teachings behind natural family planning, let's discuss the ways you can learn NFP...
Advance from Good For Marriage to Learn Natural Family Planning
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