It’s not misogynistic to use it and anyone who says that is is probably more motivated by Misandry than any high ideal of justice.

If you have good reason to space children or want to increase your chances of conceiving a child, consider using it – but follow the rules.

The Rules:

1. The science is pretty good but not perfect, and often times leaves you wondering whether you’re still fertile or not. Don’t be anxious over it, wait a day or not, the worse thing that can happen is you get a little earlier than you were planning.

2. Ignore Internet pontificators like myself. You know that whole opinions are like a-holes thing. It’s your life, your marriage, and your soul. God knows what “serious reasons” are and aren’t even if you’re unsure or mistaken. He will determine whether you’re culpable and to what degree. Besides, even if you are mistaken in thinking your reasons for spacing are valid, your desire to do it through NFP means you’re open to God’s grace, He will inform your conscience long before some guy on the Internet with his snarky comments or feeble attempts at Thomistic extrapolation.

3. There are a lot of important things on a personal/marital level to consider as well, but those are as varied as each couple and I won’t mention them because you’d be a fool to think some dude on the Internet should have a role in your marital relationship – and you should be leery of anyone who insert themselves there.

– Wives love your husbands and husbands love your wives.

Also, not every couple who has student loan debt necessarily incurred it BEFORE they got married or had children. My own husband had to go back to college in his early 40s due to the fact that he could no longer get work in his chosen field without such a degree. Fortunately, he had veteran’s benefits that enabled him to do so without incurring a huge amount of debt.

1. Knowing NFP, whether one uses it or not is a good thing. Why? It teaches the guy something about women that he may not know. that is always a good thing = especially in a marriage.

2. When God made us, he did not make the woman fertile every single day of the month. Yet he gave the desire to the guy all the time. And we guys know when our wives are most desirous. so this means a couple of things. Either the couple talks, or someone is not going to be happy. Early in my marriage, I encountered a powerful truth, and I know that it was a grace, to wit, the marriage embrace is not satisfying in the fullest sense if the beloved is not satisfied. That insight opened the door to a deeper understanding of God’s involvement in marriage and the freedom He gives to couple to work out in His presence the timing, placement and number of children for that family. Again we approach in wonder and awe, hoping to cooperate and open to God’s “blessing” which may or may not be “planned” or desired. given the limited time frame for such blessings, an openness to the self giving of the spouse to the other allows for the marital embrace to be a communion of souls in the mystery of the sacrament of matrimony. Simply enjoying the pleasure of one’s spouse in the beauty of the sacrament is in itself one of the blessings of marriage.

3. for some this may mean great sacrifice given their personal situation: health factors, financial difficulties, stress, job loss, temperament, etc. God invites us to include him in dealing with any difficult situation. He gives us the freedom in the marital relationship to make the concrete decisions. He only asks us to respect the sacrament and mot violate the natural order. to consider this takes a certain maturity and understanding. This is what is hopefully taught to us both through family life and by the church.

Finally after all is said and done, one may simply decide to chuck the whole thing and let God be the family planner. It takes a lot of faith or perhaps it is laziness. But in the end if we seek to do His will, we should be okay.

Which raises the question why the couple should marry into such a state in the first place. If you aren’t ready to raise a family, don’t get married.

I remember reading a book on Catholic marriage that had belonged to my parents — written in the early 1950s — that had a chapter devoted to “periodic continence” (which, back then, meant calendar rhythm) and a discussion of various medical, economic, and social reasons that justified the use of the rhythm method.

Having large amounts of debt (payment of which is an obligation in justice to one’s creditors) WAS listed as a justifiable reason to postpone pregnancy. However, trying to save money toward a child’s college education (which parents are not obligated to provide for their children, and was not an absolute necessity for their future well-being, at least not in the 1950s) was not considered a serious enough reason. Obviously, trading up to a better car or better house (assuming the house the family currently occupies is reasonably safe and sanitary) would not qualify either.