Sometimes you hear that NFP is too hard; that it puts too much stress on one’s marriage; that it’s unfair. One former champion of the ‘open embrace’ (who is now on the pill) went so far as to call NFP a ‘theological attack on women’.
And they’re right. NFP is a threat; and practising NFP can be dangerous to your marriage, but not for the reasons its critics imagine.
The Narrow Way of NFP
Abstaining is hard. Really hard. It’s means choosing the truth over the flesh. It means forcing the tyranny of our sensuality to obey truth and reason. Practicing NFP is therefore part of a couples pursuit of virtue—the virtue of chastity. The context of NFP is spiritual and moral. It becomes an intrinsic part of our spiritual life as we die to sin and strive to live according to the demands of authentic love. It’s part of our cross, and we must not pretend that it isn’t also present in the bedroom.
Redemption is Risky
NFP is dangerous because it is the pursuit of virtue. NFP is dangerous because chastity is a threat to our fallen selves. It’s dangerous being fallen human beings in a fallen world dominated by sin and weakness. Bring a fallen man to live together with a fallen women, and you get one very perilous situation. Marriage is a moral tinder-box just waiting to burst into flames and ashes as soon as some sparks fly.
NFP just happens to act sometimes as the sharp knife of virtue scraping against the rough flint of our weaknesses and creating those sparks. The ensuing fire–if it gets out of control– could destroy your marriage, just as that fire could destroy your religious vocation, or your job, or your relationships with your family or best friend. That’s the danger that is inherent to being human beings on the road of redemption. There’s always the possibility of our sin ruining what is good around us. Should we then not pursue virtue?
The Demons Within
The reason that NFP can be so explosive is because—for men especially—it forces them to confront their demons. It’s not until one has to abstain—without relying on contraception to mask one’s weaknesses—that a person comes face to face with his or her chastity demons. It is unsettling to have to look in the mirror of truth and see how needy you are. But that’s the beginning of humility, which is the source of conversion.
Humility is to see and to know the truth about ourselves, to acknowledge our true poverty of spirit and need for God. Confronting one’s weakness does lead to a crisis of sorts. But it can go either way. It could ruin you if you let it, but it can also be the first step on the path to becoming the saint God created you to be.
Those who use contraception, however, are masking their vices. They aren’t just blocking their own fertility, they are creating a barrier to the grace of conversion by refusing to look in that mirror of truth.
If NFP is a loud, explosive confrontation with ones demons, then contraception is the passive aggressive sweeping those demons under the rug until they come out in some other form to wreak havoc. At least with NFP, after all the ‘yelling and screaming’ is over, health and healing can be begin. But there is no yelling and screaming with contraception. It’s all smiles until something implodes.
Wrestling with God
Struggle is not something alien to our faith or our spiritual life. Those who struggle with practicing NFP might look at the wrestling match between Jacob and the angel in the Old Testament.
The blessing Jacob recieved had to be won. He had to work for it and prove his mettle. Only at dawn, after struggling with the angel all night, did the angel give in and give Jacob the blessing from God. Stuggling with ourselves is good. It’s healthy. Is one’s marriage really safe by running away from all struggle?
The Hidden Costs of Contraception
Resorting to contraception seems like an easier road than NFP. In many ways it is. But it’s naive to think that it does not come with its own problems. That ability to indulge yourself comes with a price. Conceding to weakness and throwing in the towel to vice has consequences. Fifty percent of marriages end in divorce. Almost every single one of those marriages included a contraceptive sexual relationship. If contraception is supposed to be a positive solution to the hardships of chastity, it’s not at all clear that it’s doing a good job.
So yes, confronting one’s demons and vices, the strain of abstinence, the stress of acquiring virtue, the struggle with the angels of the Lord, these things could ruin your marriage. I’m not denying it. They could ruin you.
But the spiritual life is a battle, and battles are always dangerous. And when it comes to virtue it’s better to fight than to be conquered.




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