3 Reasons You’re Wrong About Natural Family Planning

The following the first few paragraphs from a post I wrote over at Your Tango defending Natural Family Planning.  As you may know, NFP has meant a lot to our marriage, and I’m pretty passionate about clearing up misconceptions.  While I don’t try to convert people to practice NFP, I get a BIT upset when large websites publish blatantly false information.  Fortunately, in this case, I was given an opportunity to respond.  Enjoy!

If you’ve heard the term Natural Family Planning (NFP), there’s a very good chance, it’s probably almost a certainty actually, that you were given some bad information about it.

As someone who has practiced NFP with my wife for around six years, I know I’ve heard more than my fair share of misguidance from family, the media and even priests.  Sometimes it’s honest confusion or simply a passing along of misinformation, but other times it’s a blatant attack on a somewhat mysterious practice that many in our culture chalk-up to some form of crazy desire for 20 kids or an exercise in Pope-worshiping.

I’ve heard it all as a marriage blogger who writes openly about all aspects of NFP and healthy sexuality over at Engaged Marriage.  I’ve even written here at Your Tango about the challenges of Natural Family Planning.  



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Don’t Miss the Sexy Summit

If you’re looking to improve your sex life and ramp up the romance in your marriage, you won’t want to miss a special event that my friend Gina Parris is hosting next week.  I am honored to be one of ten experts featured in this interview series aimed at helping you enjoy the Sexy Marriage that God desires for you!

From June 13-17, you can learn from some of the best experts in the world on the topics of love, intimacy and sex.  And the best part is it’s totally free to attend.  Just click the link below for all the details:

Get the Details & Get Signed Up for the Sexy Summit

If you can’t catch all the interviews next week, no worrries. The transcripts and the audio recordings will be available to buy and listen to whenever you wish with a portion of the proceeds to benefit a very worthy charity.

I encourage you to do what it takes to be part of the Sexy Summit and put all of this amazing advice into action in your relationship.  After all, a healthy and thriving sex life is central to an extraordinary Christian marriage.  



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Finding Time for Sex

Today’s post is adapted from my upcoming book 15 Minute Marriage Makeover – Refresh Your Relationship, Add Sizzle to Your Sex Life & Be Happier in Just Minutes a Day.  Please check out the end of the post for more information.

Have you encountered times in your marriage where one or both of you wanted to have sex, but there just wasn’t time or energy for it?

I know that we used to face this realization way too often in our own marriage.  We would exchange some “indications” earlier in the day that we were looking forward to an intimate evening.

However, after a longer-than-usual time spent getting the kids to go to sleep, we would remember the need to straighten up the house for guests the next day or a work deadline would surface that needed immediate attention.  Before we knew it, one of us was busy working on a project while the other had fallen asleep on the couch.

At this point, it’s often easier to just say, “Let’s try again tomorrow.  Good night.”

Today’s Lesson

So, how can we avoid this recurring problem where we feel there’s no time to have a quality sexual relationship with our spouse?  



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Natural Family Planning: The Creighton Model

Note: This is a guest post from a researcher who is futhering the study of a particular type of Natural Family Planning.  There’s even a chance for you to take part in the study at the end of the post.  Enjoy!

Looking for a “greener” method for family planning? Tired of birth control pills? Ready to understand your body and cycle better? If you said yes to any of the above questions, then please read on!

Women have natural means to know when they are fertile and infertile. Specifically, by checking cervical secretions and charting the observations every day, a woman can take control and understand her cycle. This is called the Creighton Method, and it is even effective for women with abnormal menstrual cycles.

Trained practitioners at FertilityCare Centers (http://medicine.utah.edu/dfpm/Research/CEIBA/centers.htm) teach the method and help couples monitor the results of their charting. It is a safe and natural way to both achieve and prevent pregnancy.

But you don’t have to take my word for it. Check out the following testimonial of Sarah from Missouri, a current participant in an international Creighton Model study:  



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Living the Sacrament: A Catholic NFP Community

This guest post highlights a wonderful new online resource for women practicing NFP.  If you’ve been around Engaged Marriage very long, you’ll know that this topic is near and dear to me, and I love to share quality resources when I find them.

In the United States, only about 1.5% of women use a form of Natural Family Planning (see Reference 1 below).

Unfortunately, this often means that many of these women are isolated from others who use NFP. For instance, one of our council members, Larissa, drove over 60 miles to attend an NFP class with her fiancée.

Beyond family members, she did not know who else she could ask questions of, or share in the joys and struggles of practicing chastity within marriage. She often wondered:

• “Does NFP really work? “
• “How come nobody else is doing this?”
• “Abstinence is a lot harder than I anticipated, how do other women cope?”

As Catholic women, we need a support system. Often due to daily workload, family commitments, and physical distance from others with similar beliefs, we can often feel isolated.  



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