Marriage
Organic Child Planning is Sexy
Contraception is a lie.
The pitch is simple. You’re a young, hip, independent woman. You have the right to have sex with anyone that you want, at any time. However, pregnancy is a mistake and will put a damper on your fun. So, take these pills, and you won’t have to worry.
The problem is, you’re doing more damage than you know.
I have no experience with artificial contraceptives. My wife and I decided that they aren’t for us. You see, I love my wife. I’m of the opinion that she is simply above them. She’s too good for pumping her body full of hormones and chemicals. The decision is much easier when we can go organic.
Natural Family Planning (NFP) is the antidote to the Contraception Generation. NFP is actually even more simple than contraceptives. Your wife pays attention to her naturally occurring fertility signs, logs them into a chart, and you’re done. That chart will tell you when you can actually achieve pregnancy and when you can’t. NFP is 99% effective and completely science-based.
NFP is 100% organic. There is nothing to take. Nothing to put into your wife’s system. There are no side effects to NFP and, unlike contraceptives on the market today, she can’t die from it.
NFP actually works to enhance the dignity of the human person. Instead of reducing your wife to a sexual object, NFP respects the role of human sexuality in a marriage. If you are not trying to achieve a pregnancy, you abstain from sex during a period of time during your wife’s cycle. That abstaining causes you to long for her even more, making sex that much more fulfilling.
Divorce is sadly very prevalent these days. In the United States, the average divorce rate is 50%. Do you know what the divorce rate is among couples practicing NFP? According to Dr. Denise Hunnell, the divorce rate among couple who practice NFP is around 5%. 5%?! Clearly, there is something deeper at play here.
Natural Family Planning is organic child planning. Organic child planning is sexy. It celebrates who you are as a human person and respects your sexuality. It respects your dignity by presenting an opportunity for you to act like an adult in control, not an animal out of control.
Side effects of NFP may include stronger marital bond, increased marital harmony, increased sense of self-worth. Side effects of contraceptives may include nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, constipation, gingivitis, increased or decreased appetite, weight gain or loss, brown or black skin patches, acne, hair growth in unusual places, painful or missed periods, severe headache, speech problems, dizziness, weakness or numbness of an arm or leg, crushing chest pain, coughing up blood, shortness of breath, leg pain, partial or complete loss of vision, double vision, bulging eyes, severe stomach pain, yellowing of the skin or eyes, extreme tiredness, weakness, or lack of energy, fever, depression, unusual bleeding, or rash.
Your call.
Can She Really Always Be Right
I am not a prideful man. Whenever I must observe myself or a behavior, if the answer is that I am in the right, I instantly question that judgement. I want to make sure that my judgement calls do not cause me appear foolish.
One of the biggest concepts that I struggle with is, “Your wife is always right.” I make plenty of mistakes, I recognize that. Yet, such an absolute statement must have a flaw somewhere. After all, if the wife is always right, what value does the husband bring to the table?
As men, we face a crisis in Society. We are at the butt of jokes in movies and sitcoms. The father is an idiot and the mother and children are always wise. This is not who we are called to be! We are called to be the hero of our family. We aren’t the court jester, we are the head of the household, charged with the care and protection of those under our roof.
How do we reconcile this saying over what our role truly is? I think that we should first understand that the statement should not be seen as an absolute. Again, if the husband is always wrong, what value does he bring to the relationship? We have let this one run a little too far.
The heart of the phrase, “The wife is always right” is actually hidden just behind the words. I believe the real meaning is that husbands should defer to their wives, except in situations where they are clearly acting contrary to faith or morals.
I think it is more an act of love to defer to your wife, when appropriate. We have allowed the phrase to be hijacked and turned into a bully pulpit, as opposed to what it actually is. It is an opportunity to show deference to the cradle of life. As husbands, we are called to love our wives as Christ loved the Church. (Eph 5:25) Absolute. Unquestioning. Always working in Her best interest, even when it is not always convenient for her.
Men, we need to grow a backbone. We need to take our pride down a notch (or three). We need to love our wives heroically daily. Don’t roll over like a possum, fight for your wife and for your marriage as St. Joseph fought for his!
Two Areas of Your Life You Cannot Afford to Neglect
Time is our most precious commodity. For so many things in life, we can change the circumstances and regain what we have lost. Yet, with time, once it is spent, it is gone forever. When transitioning into the married life, you will now have new unique demands on your time.
When I was dating my wife and we were living several hundred miles away. We would have time each evening, about an hour, set aside to talk on the phone. It would typically happen during my evening commute, so there wasn’t really any time “lost.” When we got married, I realized that I would need to carve about that same amount of time daily, if not more, to spend physically together.
As men, we have many demands on our time. Our relationships, our families, and our work. We oftentimes are forced to make a decision about what activities get cut and which stay in. Of course, we could always change the rules by going to bed later or waking up earlier. Yet, it seems that the first two activities to get cut are prayer and exercise.
For many of us, myself included, we view both prayer and exercise as “luxury” time items. In other words, we do them when we have extra time. We could not be more mistaken. Prayer and exercise are not luxury items, they are essential to manhood today.
As married men, we are the head of our “Domestic Church.” It is our primary responsibility to care for those entrusted to us. It is a job too big for us to carry by ourselves. We are foolish if we do not keep the lines of communication wide open with our Creator. An investment of time into prayer can pay off dividends. We turn away from ourselves and our own needs and are more in tune with the Divine.
It takes a lot of energy to do all of the things that we have to do today. We need to leverage our bodies to be excellent partners in our great mission. If your body is tired, then you won’t have the strength to carry on, even if your mind is strong. Exercise can tap into that pool of energy that lurks right below the surface. Ask anyone who lived a sedentary life and then began an exercise program.
We recognize that we need to get back in the game and factor these two important activities back into our lives. How do we do that? Before we begin, this is going to take discipline. Use this quote from the Bible to help you stay motivated, “At the time, all discipline seems a cause not for joy but for pain, yet later it brings the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who are trained by it.” (Heb 12:11)
First, determine what your prayer regimen will be. Will you pray a structured prayer like the Liturgy of the Hours (Divine Office)? You could pray the full Office (5 times daily) or just a few, such as Morning and Evening Prayer. Will your prayer just be time set aside for a variety of prayer? No matter what you decide, make a decision and stick to it. Second, determine what exercise you will engage in. You don’t have to go out and buy a gym membership, but make sure there is a mix of activity so that you don’t get bored. Boredom in either of these activities will be the main threat you have to deal with, after laziness.
It is time for us to be men again. It is time for us to give ourselves the tools and advantages that we need in order to live as Catholic Men should.
Welcome to the Beginning
Welcome, friend!
Well, there I am on my wedding day. A spry young man. As a friend would say, “Just a pup.” Ready to set off on the journey of a lifetime.
Just like that fine young couple in the picture, we are about to embark on a journey. Together, we are going to go on a great quest. We are going to seek out what it means to live an authentically Catholic marriage.
My name is Chet. It’s a pleasure to have you!
I’ve been married for just over six months now. It is has been unlike anything that I could have ever expected. The truth is, before I got married, I didn’t know much about what it means to be married. In fact, I still don’t.
The problem is, there isn’t a good source of information out there. There isn’t a good place to go and gain insight into a vocation to the married life. I’m hoping to change that here.
You see, if you ask married people what being married is like, you don’t get a complete answer. How could any one person sum up the Sacrament? How could any one person use language to help you emotionally and intellectually grasp what is means to be married? Yet, it is vitally important that you understand it.
We have a distressing lack of solid Catholic marriages, rooted in faith and love. There are many good marriages, in fact, I bet you can name quite a few right now. Sadly, for every good marriage that you think of, there is probably another that is not experiencing a fruitful time right now. I believe that knowledge can change that.
We need to reshape the narrative on Marriage. Marriage isn’t a chore, isn’t a prison, and it isn’t a job. We need to regain the realization that marriage is a blessing and a gift, and for many of us, the vocation to which we were uniquely created.
From the beginning of time, I was created with my gifts, talents, abilities, and experiences to live in covenant and community with my wife and together to know, love, and serve God.
So begins this journey; this journey of writing. This journey of sharing a story, the story of a Catholic Husband; exploring, learning and failing forward.
Through this blog, I seek to gain a deeper knowledge of what it means to live an authentically Catholic Marriage. I seek to challenge you to reflect more deeply on who you are as a person and on your faith. I seek to to encourage both the married and the single to look more deeply at what Marriage is and means.
This is going to be a conversation. I don’t know a lot about marriage. I’m looking forward to learning and growing with you. I’m glad that you’re here.