Natural family planning and telling the truth
Last weekend J and I attended an all day marriage preparation forum at a local Catholic Church. Despite the fact that it was a very nice day full of interesting exercises that helped us learn a lot about one another, what we're most likely to tell you about is the segment on natural family planning, or NFP, as it is affectionately called by those who practice it. The thing is, it makes sense. The girl takes her temperature every morning and studies her cervical mucus. By paying attention to varying factors the married couple figures out when she is ovulating and don't have sex during those days if they don't want to get pregnant, or do have sex then if they do.
But let's say you and your beloved have driven to a nice church and are sitting munching on grapes and having your second cup of coffee, all graciously provided by the planners of said event, saying hi to other excited couples and then these two get up there and start to talk about "why we use NFP" and then the male in the couple starts talking about, you know, the mucus, and the female body. Let's just say that happens one innocent Saturday morning. That's a good story.
It's even got some excellent Jesus-Christ-based philosophy which is that, as it states in the Bible, when you make love with your husband or wife you should give your whole self and how can you give your whole self when you are taking a pill that prohibits a fertile egg from being released and prohibits the sperm from getting as far as they'd like.
That's why there are so many couples out there saying "Christ. That was amazing, but you know what? I could really feel the absence of your reproductive seedlings," after they get it on.
I'm being a little hard on it all, really. It was - and I'm not lying - a good day. J and I wrote love letters to one another during one exercise. During another we picked out words from a list of hundreds to describe ourselves, and one another. None of the speakers were boring and a few were really impressive. That's why at the end of it all, when it came time to take the "FOCUS" standardized test, the results of which, unknown to us yet, are haunting me now as I realize we must go over our individual answers together with a church representative in the upcoming weeks(example of FOCUS easy question: I feel I will be uncomfortable nude in front of my future spouse, answer - agree, disagree, or don't know. Difficult question: any that had to do with Jesus Christ), I decided that J and I needed to tell the truth to these nice people. We needed to fill out the special section for cohabitating couples. And we did. And I am ready for the lectures.
We'll be fine, however. One of the most interesting things we learned about during the session was to relate to and comfort one another using our five love languages. We looked at a series of statements and picked one out of two that best described us. "I feel loved when you tell me you are proud of me. vs. I feel loved when you give me a hug." That kind of thing. We both enjoy quality time, it turns out. I like words of affirmation. J likes physical touch. I was glancing over his worksheet during one of the presentations and noticed the entry, "I like it when you sit close to me. vs. I like it when you tell me I am handsome/attractive." J had picked the latter.
My future spouse: I will not feel uncomfortable in any state of undress when I am with you, I'm glad we told Jesus and all the judgmental Catholics the truth about our living situation and I think you are very, very handsome.
But let's say you and your beloved have driven to a nice church and are sitting munching on grapes and having your second cup of coffee, all graciously provided by the planners of said event, saying hi to other excited couples and then these two get up there and start to talk about "why we use NFP" and then the male in the couple starts talking about, you know, the mucus, and the female body. Let's just say that happens one innocent Saturday morning. That's a good story.
It's even got some excellent Jesus-Christ-based philosophy which is that, as it states in the Bible, when you make love with your husband or wife you should give your whole self and how can you give your whole self when you are taking a pill that prohibits a fertile egg from being released and prohibits the sperm from getting as far as they'd like.
That's why there are so many couples out there saying "Christ. That was amazing, but you know what? I could really feel the absence of your reproductive seedlings," after they get it on.
I'm being a little hard on it all, really. It was - and I'm not lying - a good day. J and I wrote love letters to one another during one exercise. During another we picked out words from a list of hundreds to describe ourselves, and one another. None of the speakers were boring and a few were really impressive. That's why at the end of it all, when it came time to take the "FOCUS" standardized test, the results of which, unknown to us yet, are haunting me now as I realize we must go over our individual answers together with a church representative in the upcoming weeks(example of FOCUS easy question: I feel I will be uncomfortable nude in front of my future spouse, answer - agree, disagree, or don't know. Difficult question: any that had to do with Jesus Christ), I decided that J and I needed to tell the truth to these nice people. We needed to fill out the special section for cohabitating couples. And we did. And I am ready for the lectures.
We'll be fine, however. One of the most interesting things we learned about during the session was to relate to and comfort one another using our five love languages. We looked at a series of statements and picked one out of two that best described us. "I feel loved when you tell me you are proud of me. vs. I feel loved when you give me a hug." That kind of thing. We both enjoy quality time, it turns out. I like words of affirmation. J likes physical touch. I was glancing over his worksheet during one of the presentations and noticed the entry, "I like it when you sit close to me. vs. I like it when you tell me I am handsome/attractive." J had picked the latter.
My future spouse: I will not feel uncomfortable in any state of undress when I am with you, I'm glad we told Jesus and all the judgmental Catholics the truth about our living situation and I think you are very, very handsome.
posted by Cara Maria McDonough at 9:39 AM
3 Comments:
Watching the story unfold really makes me think back on what we went through when we got married. My wife is Catholic, so that's where we were going to get married...in a Catholic church 3000 miles away. I'm well, not Catholic. But we had been living together for three years! So her home priest basically said, no way. So we had to keep driving south on the NJ shore until we found a priest who said he had no problem...on one condition: Take a four-day retreat. He would have no problem doing a full mass for everyone if we did the retreat. So, off into the woods we went and, truth be told, it was a pretty cool experience (even though I didn't agree with some of the theological stuff), but the excercises they put you through were interesting; and actually beneficial enough that I would recommend pre-marriage Catholic boot camp to anyone. Good luck.
hey cara!
i stumbled across your blog. woo hoo. just to let you know that my husband and i had to go through Pre-Cana as well. when we got to the sex section we were hysterically laughing...nothing like old people talking about their personal sex issues....we laughed to the point that everyone else in the room turned down their noses to us. sometimes people take themselves to seriously.
good luck with your wedding planning!
Maureen (formerly Salmon)
30 years ago we were told we didn't have to do "pre Cana" classes since my husband to be was/is a doctor and I wasn't a Catholic. I was a Methodist(have since converted to catholicism these past 20 years)but we had to meet with the priest seperately. My fiancee went in first and then I was invited in after he was escorted out. Not knowing what to expect I was very nervous. Imagine my surprise when he(priest) asked me if I knew the difference between impotent and sterile. Now, I ask you, could you have answered that with a staight face????? and that was my first experience with the Catholic church.....hard to believe I converted, am now a lector and a eucharistic minister and WORK at a cathoic high school.....but I must have answered correctly cause we were married in the catholic church(sans Mass). To this day, my husband swears I made that story up and again I ask you....how could you make stuff like that up????
I am glad your experience was good in spite of the living together!!!Good catholic guilt ...not for me!!
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