Category

Sexual Intimacy and NFP

Nov 28
0

Critical Issues

By | Communication, Family Life, Finances, Finding Joy, Sexual Intimacy and NFP | No Comments

By the end of Margie’s life, Margie and I still had many unresolved conflicts between us, though we grew tremendously over the years in our ability to honor and respect each other despite these many differences. Some of our conflicts originated in personality differences, some in gender differences, and others from different values and lifestyle choices. Underlying all these were our “deeper hidden issues,” which Gottman identifies as the most critical in marriage. These deeper hidden issues included our respective areas of selfishness, sins, and wounds. These underlying issues fueled the surface conflicts and made them far more intense and hurtful. Most couples have difficulty accepting, honoring, and negotiating differences when it comes to these “deeper hidden issues.” Our fallen nature has a basic core of self-centeredness that hinders our capacity to reconcile our differences and become more unified. We also bring into marriage a whole lifetime of accumulated vices…

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Aug 18
0

The Power of Touch

By | Communication, Finding Joy, Marriage Enrichment, Romance, Sexual Intimacy and NFP | No Comments

By John Bosio  A few years ago while in Rome, Teri and I visited the Vatican Museums. We had been there before, and on that day our primary objective was to spend time in the Sistine Chapel. We got up early to be first in line, and soon after the Museum opened, we entered its gate and darted across halls and chambers toward the famous chapel.   We finally arrived and we were able to find a seat on one of the benches located on the periphery of the room. It is difficult to appreciate Michelangelo’s masterpiece, painted on the ceiling of the chapel, when standing and looking up surrounded by a crowd. So we were fortunate to find a seat.  My eyes were drawn to a panel in the center of the ceiling, full of light and with a simple composition.  On the right, a dignified and energetic image of the Creator reaching…

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Jul 27
0

Family Planning the Natural Way

By | Catholic Weddings, Communication, Family Life, Marriage Enrichment, Sexual Intimacy and NFP | No Comments

By John Bosio  Do you remember private conversations before your wedding about how many children you wanted? I remember Teri dreaming out loud that she wanted to have six, just like her mother, but coming from a family of three I was secretly hoping it would not be so. I would say, “let’s start with one at a time.”   The conversation about children and when to have them is one that leads couples to choose a method for managing their fertility. Many women today choose to manage their fertility through some form of hormonal contraception—a method that has many side effects and risks. The Catholic Church considers all methods of artificial contraception as misguided. Let me explain.  In a Catholic wedding, just before reciting the vows, the priest asks the couple: “Are you prepared to accept children lovingly from God and to bring them up according to the law of Christ and his Church?”   According…

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May 01
4
Total Gift of Self

Sexual Intimacy: Becoming A Total Gift of Self

By | Meaning of Marriage, Sexual Intimacy and NFP | No Comments

Engaged couples give themselves to one another in countless ways. Sharing a schedule, prioritizing meals and other leisure time together, merging finances and developing a budget, planning the wedding, and preparing a new home are all ways in which an engaged couples give themselves to one another. When they could each be spending time with friends, they instead commit their time to their shared future. This is becoming a total gift of self is a great practice for the married life. Self-giving Love: A Total Gift of Self Sex is another one of those actions by which a husband and wife give themselves to one another completely. Sex differs from all other acts of love because God has created it to be a sharing of one’s entire self—body, mind, and spirit. As such, intercourse expresses not simply the love spouses have for one another, but also the sacramental union into which…

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Mar 25
0
Josh and Stacey Noem, Married Couple

The Gifts and Challenges of Practicing NFP

By | Sexual Intimacy and NFP | One Comment

We are pleased, once again, to welcome Josh and Stacey Noem as guests at Together for Life Online. Building on their brief introduction to Natural Family Planning, the Noems dive a little deeper, sharing the realities and the gifts that come with practicing NFP. When we were preparing to get married, we told our parents we would be practicing Natural Family Planning (NFP). Doubting the effectiveness of the method, Stacey’s mother made a good-natured, but serious bet with us that we would be pregnant within the first year—and the money that was on the line was not insignificant. Collecting on the bet was the icing on a very happy first year of marriage. We used the money for a mini-vacation on the beach in Florida and celebrated our anniversary in style. We began practicing NFP about six months before our marriage when we took classes and began to chart Stacey’s…

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Feb 11
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Introduction to Natural Family Planning

What Everybody Ought to Know About Natural Family Planning

By | Family Life, Sexual Intimacy and NFP | No Comments

We are happy to welcome Josh and Stacey Noem as guests at Together for Life Online. Here they share a brief introduction to Natural Family Planning (NFP) based on their experience working with couples preparing for marriage. Working with couples in marriage preparation, we always get to the conversation about how the couple intends to plan their family. More often than not, the man goes silent and looks at the woman to see how she will respond. Kind of odd. It’s not as though women are capable of fertility alone. Quite the contrary, the gift of fertility in marriage, by its very nature, is shared. We can have no fertility without our spouses. It is not my fertility or your fertility. There is only our fertility. So, why should a man leave all of the planning about fertility to the woman? It is hard to blame the men. So much…

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Jul 10
1
Couple to Couple League

8 Websites and Blogs to Help You Learn More About Natural Family Planning (NFP)

By | Family Life, Marriage Enrichment, Sexual Intimacy and NFP | 6 Comments

Having prepared for a marriage in the Catholic Church, you are likely to be familiar with the Church’s teachings about contraception and Natural Family Planning (NFP). For many couples, their marriage preparation sessions are their first introduction to these teachings causing them to look for more information. The websites listed below should help couples gain a deeper understanding of why the Church supports NFP and how couples can integrate it into their lives. Couple to Couple League For years the Couple to Couple League (CCL) has been the leading organization for promoting the proper use of Natural Family Planning. Their website includes a host of resources to explore including the opportunity to sign up for CCL classes. CreightonModel.com The Creighton Model is a popular NFP method used by many Natural Family Planning practitioners. Their website gives a nice overview of the details of the Creighton Model and how to use it. The key, however, is…

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Apr 03
0
Catholic Infertility Webinar

Catholic Infertility Webinar

By | Family Life, Sexual Intimacy and NFP | No Comments

When entering into marriage, many couples do not realize the challenges of trying to have a child. Infertility is a cross that affects one in six couples in the United States. Amid all of the emotions that come with experiencing infertility, Catholic couples face additional confusion, worry, and frustration as they explore the medical options available to them. Recently Ave Maria Press hosted a webinar featuring authors Angelique Ruhi-López and Carmen Santamaría, who experienced firsthand the challenges of infertility. Angelique Ruhi-López and Carmen Santamaría are the authors of the new book The Infertility Companion for Catholics: Spiritual and Practical Support for Couples. This resource is the first book to address the medical, emotional, and spiritual dimensions of infertility, but also focuses on the particular needs of Catholic couples who want to understand and follow the Church’s teaching on the use of assisted reproductive technology, the most common of which is in…

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