I want to clarify that my goal is to raise awareness of Natural Family Planning.  While I’d love for everyone to try it, I know that’s not realistic and it is never my aim.  I simply want there to be a general understanding of NFP as a viable option to artificial birth control.

If you missed it, I’ve previously written posts discussing what Natural Family Planning is and how it benefits marriage.

I was also proud to host an incredible post by Katheen Quiring of Project M called “An Educated, Artsy-Fartsy Protestant’s Thoughts on Natural Family Planning” and I guest posted on her site to answer some frequently asked questions about NFP.

However, I have never discussed our story as it relates to Natural Family Planning.

Before I begin, I want to say that our story includes a lot of religious influence, especially early on.  However, if that’s not your thing, I’d encourage you to go ahead and read with an open mind. And keep an eye out for a future post where I explain why NFP is relevant for a wide variety of lifestyles (non-religious included).

But for now, this is our story.

Our Long Path To Natural Family Planning Starts On the Pill

My wife Bethany grew up in the Catholic Church (I did not, not even close actually. But I joined in my college years). She knew as a teen that the church taught that birth control was wrong, but didn’t know why or what to do about it. As a young teenager, even though she wasn’t yet sexually active, Bethany went on the Pill to regulate her irregular and painful menstrual cycles.

When we got married, we continued to use artificial contraception to make sure we did not get pregnant for the first 3 ½ years of our marriage. At this point, we understood that the Pill could act as an abortifacient, so we actually tried to avoid any kind of pregnancy by using condoms as “extra protection.” Yeah, we were doubling-up on our birth control methods.

During this time, we were “uncomfortable” using our methods of birth control because we knew that the Church didn’t approve.  However, we didn’t understand the reasons why and everyone we knew used contraceptives. We were honestly unaware of any alternatives for planning our family. So, we decided to go ahead and continue using artificial birth control.

A Fateful Homily in Rural Illinois

Several years into our marriage, we went on a camping trip and visited the local Catholic church one Sunday morning.  It was here that we heard a serious homily (think fire and brimstone) about contraception that made us seriously question the moral consequences of the Pill. The homily explained the gravity of the sin of using birth control in very certain terms to the point that we questioned even receiving Holy Communion that Sunday.

At this time, we didn’t fully understand all of the reasons why the Church taught that contraception was wrong, but our experience in church that morning certainly made us want to seek out advice. We decided to talk to our priest when we returned home.

Father Doesn’t Know Best

Frankly, our priest at the time did not offer much help. He told us that since we weren’t using the Pill primarily as a means to not get pregnant, we were okay. After all, Bethany presumably would still have painful periods should she stop taking it.

We still didn’t feel like we were doing the right thing (as it turns out, his advice was way off-base). Through our own research, we were beginning to better understand the Church’s teachings on why contraception was wrong, but we still had no other alternatives.

Engineer Meet Teacher: Planners Delight

Happily, at this point, we decided that we wanted to start a family. In hindsight, this sure seems a lot like a call from God on our lives, though we didn’t see it that way at the time.

We are planners (that’s the engineer and teacher part) that like to research things, so we went looking for effective ways to achieve pregnancy in an effort to help us better time our baby’s birth.  We found some information on the latest methods of fertility care on the Internet and in particular something called “Natural Family Planning” or NFP.

From there, we were able to learn enough to help us get pregnant within the first month or two of trying.

Natural Family Planning, Officially

After our son was born, we then took an official NFP class to learn how to avoid pregnancy using the same scientific knowledge. Now that we knew NFP existed, it was effective, and we fully understood the Church’s teachings, there was no going back.

Although the published studies say that it is 97-99% effective, it still took a lot of trust in each other and in God to use Natural Family Planning when we wanted to avoid pregnancy. However, the benefits in our marriage are where we’ve really seen NFP impact our lives.

My Feelings on Why Natural Family Planning Matters For Us

Once we started practicing Natural Family Planning,we quickly realized that its benefits went way beyond family planning.  Outside of the bedroom, our communication is more open, the bond between us is incredible, and we have developed an appreciation of true intimacy that we didn’t realize was there before.  I’d encourage you to click that last link for more on these aspects.

Of course, Natural Family Planning has a big role in the bedroom as well.  For me, the difference in our actual lovemaking when we were using contraceptives and now that we use NFP is profound.  Every time we engage in sex, we are truly saying “I trust you” and “I trust God.”

There are no barriers between us whether they be chemical, physical or emotional.  When I make love to Bethany, we are experiencing everything that God hopes for us, and we have nothing to feel ashamed about and nothing to hold us back.  Sex has become an incredible gift from God, and we praise him every time we share his gift with each other.

Simply put, our use of Natural Family Planning and our realization that God wants us to have great sex are the best things that have happened to our marriage.

What’s the Takeaway Here?

Again, I don’t expect you to read our story and immediately go seek out a class on NFP.  However, I hope that the next time you hear the term Natural Family Planning, you remember our story, our struggle and our passion for the impact that this counter-cultural means of planning a family has had on our lives.

And I hope it doesn’t take another young couple years of confusion and uncomfortableness to discover that there are safe, natural and effective means of family planning.  If you meet one and they have questions, please send them my way.

Tags: Family Planning, Fertility, My Story, Natural Family Planning, Sex, Spirituality

Related posts:

1. What is Natural Family Planning?
2. Natural Family Planning Informational Video
3. How Does Natural Family Planning Benefit Marriage?

The votes are in, and the winner of Improve Yourself! 2010 is…[drumroll]…[loud cheering]…[unbridled anticipation]…

…Krystal!  Congratulations Krystal on your well-deserved title of Improve Yourself Champion.  I’ll be contacting you by email to get you your $100 Amazon gift card.

By the way, Krystal wasn’t the only $100 winner in this challenge.  Through the generosity and enthusiasm of my friend Brad Chaffee of Enemy of Debt, Sherry also won $100 for being one of those that joined the challenge from Enemy of Debt and stuck it through to the end.  Congratulations Sherry, and I hope you have enjoyed yourself enough to stick around at Engaged Marriage now that the challenge is over.

And the “Non-Winners” Are…

As the weeks wore on, many of those that began the challenge with such enthusiasm at the turn of the New Year began to drop out.  As promised in my announcement post, it is now time to post the names of the lost.  This is all in good fun of course, but if you find your name here, you have some explaining to do!

Amanda (Garibay Soup)

Aimee Williams

Ellyn

Kelly

Samantha

Kristin Gentry

Esteban

Mrs. Money

Tony

Stu Gray

Jackie

Corey – Simple Marriage

Carrie – Make Mine Happen

Louise

Daniele O’Toole

Hailey

Megan

Teresa

Chris Goforth

Andy Jobst

Lacey Sonderegger

NorCalRN

Cat

Golda

Divine and Debt Free

Julie

Krystle

Milk & Honey Mommy

Bucksome

SavingDiva

Jodi

Laetus

Shannon L.

Jeff

Amanda G

Kim

Michelle

Cynthia Gottfredson

Heather Silver

Cindy Taylor

FallBride

Melissa

Nick

bentwingedbird

Nina

Angie Mack

And yes…Dustin Riechmann of Engaged Marriage!

A Final Shout Out to Our Fantastic Sponsors

Finally, I want to take one last opportunity to thank our generous sponsors.  Without these fine folks, this challenge would not have been possible…or at least not nearly as cool.

Personal Finance Notebook is a great site created by Patrenia Spears after her family paid off an incredible $93,000 in debt! Her posts are intended to empower her readers to achieve their financial goals. Her tag line says it all: “A website that offers ideas, education and the motivation needed to create a personal finance portfolio to be proud of.”

Budgets are Sexy is simply awesome. J. Money provides a site that is packed with really useful info about the world of personal finance, and he does it in his own (pimpin’) way. Entertaining and informative.

MomStart is a fantastic resource created by a mother of two who provides an incredible amount of reviews, giveaways and writings related to all of the new things going on in the world of parenting.

Enemy of Debt is the place to be if you want to get out of debt or simply celebrate the goodness that your debt-freedom has brought to your life. Brad is a passionate and informative resource offering a unique perspective on the personal finance scene.

Make Mine Happen “Stop Dreaming and Start Doing” by putting the motivational and informational posts at this site to work in your life!

Until (maybe) next time, thanks again for supporting and participating in this challenge.  I hope you have learned something that will help you improve yourself and your marriage!

Blessings!

Dustin

Tags: Free Stuff, Improve Yourself!, Individual Fulfillment

Related posts:

1. Announcing “Improve Yourself! 2010″
2. Improve Yourself! Week 2: Baby Step Your Way to Success
3. Improve Yourself! Week 6: Stick With It!

Editor’s note: This is a guest post on conflict resolution from Stephanie Baffone.  I love the perspective that she brings as a trained professional therapist, talented writer and Aunt to 38!

First, let me say a big THANK YOU to Dustin for the opportunity to guest post here at Engaged Marriage! It’s a thrill to be a part of such a valuable blog and share some wisdom on effective conflict resolution, a topic near and dear to my heart. Thank you, Dustin!

For my husband and high school sweetheart, this past Valentine’s Day marked twenty-five years since our first date, and in August we will celebrate twenty years together passionately married.

Sometimes when we tell people we’ve been together for so long-and happy-we get looks like we are creatures from another planet.  Once people process our success, the next question we get asked is, “So, what’s the secret to a happy marriage?”

Classified Information

My husband and I don’t possess some highly guarded classified information, but if there is one thing I could point to that has contributed significantly to our harmonious existence, it would be that we learned early in our marriage how to resolve conflict effectively.

A few months back, Dustin wrote a post titled, Fight Fair! 6 Simple Conflict Resolution Skills for Your Marriage. It had surefire tips on how to fight fairly, and I’d encourage you to check it out if you haven’t already.  It’s an invaluable template.

But what if I told you that within 96% accuracy a group of psychologists has been able to scientifically predict, by simple observation, which couples will succeed and which ones are headed for trouble?

Hard to believe?

Well, it’s true.

Howard Markman, Scott Stanley and Susan Blumberg, in their ground breaking book, “Fighting For Your Marriage” share the results of their longitudinal study on what factors have the most predictive value in determining if a couple is headed for wedded bliss or deep trouble.  The “secret” is how couples resolve conflict.

Patterns to Avoid

By observing couples discussing an issue that is a bone of contention, Markman, et al, discovered that couples who engage in the following four patterns are destined for marital discord and quite often divorce:

• Invalidation

A perfect example of invalidation is the old stand by, “You shouldn’t feel that way.” or “That’s ridiculous.” When you tell someone how they feel is ridiculous, it is the equivalent of issuing a stop work order on your relationship.  Sure, it might not make sense to you or might even seem silly TO YOU, but to say that directly to someone else in a tone that invalidates their experience shuts them down. It’s much better to offer something like, “I understand that’s how you feel, but it doesn’t quite make sense to me. Help me understand.”

• Escalation

This is an oldie but goodie too. Example: “Your just like your mother/father!” We all fall into these traps, but the trick is not to keep them as a regular part of our conflict resolution rotations.

• Withdrawal and Avoidance

Two examples of this are:

1. The proverbial cold shoulder – eye-rolling, heavy-sigh, walk away in utter disgust move

2. “Yes, Dear” – the stay in the room but patronize and placate approach

Both of these examples communicate the message,” I am cutting you off.” Sometimes a timeout is necessary and even appropriate, but it’s better to say so.  The cold shoulder, placating and patronizing systematically break down intimacy.

• Negative Interpretations

Negative interpretations occur when one partner consistently believes that the motives of the other are more negative than they are in reality.

In the heat of the moment, the aforementioned pitfalls are easy to fall into. Grasping at what makes US feel good in the short-term and engaging in self-righteous behaviors might make us feel “right,” but remember the goal is not necessarily to be right but to live peacefully together.

When the temptation to fall into these traps intoxicates you, think of how intoxicating it is when you and your partner are connected and feel supported.  Allow yourself to be seduced by the delight that will follow when you use more effective tools to communicate. The payoff could very well be twenty-five or more years of wedded bliss.

Trust me, I know. (wink)

Readers: Do you have any conflict resolution “secrets” or strategies that you have found work well in your own marriage?

___________________________________________

Stephanie “Aunt Steph” Baffone, LPCMH, NCC is a licensed, board certified mental health therapist and writer whose guiding principle is if you have wisdom from which others might benefit you are obligated to pass it on.  She is in private practice and specializes in grief and loss, couples counseling and issues related to infertility.

By relation, thirty-eight nieces and nephews call Stephanie “Aunt Steph,” a role in which she takes pure delight. She writes a bi-monthly column at Savvy Auntie and blogs about love, loss and life at Aunt Steph’s Stoop. The consummate Italian hostess, she loves to have visitors on the stoop, so stop by and say, “Hello!”

Tags: Communication, Conflict Resolution, Marriage Preparation

Related posts:

1. Fight Fair! 6 Simple Conflict Resolution Skills for Your Marriage
2. Be Proactive: A Marriage Lesson From a Fat Smoker

With growth comes new readers, so I put together this post (which will become a permanent “tab” at the top of site) to give a quick overview of what we do here at Engaged Marriage.

Who Is Writing This and What’s This Site All About?

First of all, my name is Dustin Riechmann and I created Engaged Marriage.  That’s me pretending to be strong in the picture.  That’s actually not a photo of Illinois where I live.  It’s Cancun, Mexico where we vacationed for a week in August 2009.

This is sort of relevant because it was during that vacation that the idea for this site started stirring in my mind.  My wife thought it was just some sort of delirium brought on by too much cheap tequila, but it turns out that the idea stuck.

I would really encourage you to spend a few minutes reading the About page since it provides the best overview of what this site is, well, all about.

In a nutshell, a central theme of the posts here at Engaged Marriage is candid and practical advice that you can learn and put into action without a huge time commitment.  Alongside the “action items,” you’ll find healthy doses of motivation in the form of humor, personal stories and spiritual reflections.

This site is not a “typical” marriage resource like many books and even some other blogs.  I’m not a PhD or a counselor. And I’m not here to fix serious problems or provide therapy.  This site is for those that have good (or at least pretty good) marriages and want to make the most of it.

I’m living the crazy life of a husband and father with all of the demands that come with it.  I understand it’s a very real struggle to find time to devote to improving your married life.  I know how it feels to struggle to even keep up with the everyday requirements that we face as couples in the earlier years of our marriage. I know it’s hard.  But I also know that it’s totally worth it.

Here Is Some Suggested Reading

The best way to see if Engaged Marriage resonates with you is to read some of the posts here.  You can browse all of the posts if you’d like, but I’d suggest you begin by checking out a few of these:

Fight Fair! 6 Simple Conflict Resolution Skills for Your Marriage

Take 15 Minutes Each Day to Just Be a Couple

I Love My Wife Enough to Shop at Wal-Mart

Help! What Are Your Top Parenting Tips?

How Does Natural Family Planning Benefit Marriage?

Write an Awesome Romantic Love Letter: The Simple “5R” Approach

Should Married Couples Have Joint or Separate Bank Accounts?

How Marriage Helped Make Me a Christian

Love Everyday: Thoughts On Loving Amidst the Chaos of Life (an awesome and totally FREE collaborative e-book)

I’m Digging This Place, Now What?

If you think you’d fit in here and enjoy reading more stuff from me and some talented guest-posters, I’d strongly encourage you to sign up to have new posts sent to you (for free) to read at your convenience.  You can have these delivered right to your Email or RSS news feed reader.  You can read more about these options at our Don’t Miss a Thing page.

Aside from the blog, you can connect with me and other great members of our community on the Engaged Marriage Facebook page and on Twitter.

And always feel free to contact me at any time.  I love to receive feedback, suggestions, questions and proposals for high-quality and original guest posts.

Welcome to our community!  We are happy you are here.

Related posts:

1. Welcome to Engaged Marriage!
2. New Header for Engaged Marriage (I Hope You Can See It!)
3. Engaged Marriage has a Facebook Page!

Proactive.  Marriage.

Do you ever use those two words together in a sentence or in your thoughts?  I actually do, but I also often find myself trying to come up with more effective ways to express just what Engaged Marriage is all about.

I would expect that you don’t face this same issue, so you probably haven’t had a good reason to talk about a “proactive marriage.”  That’s cool.  The words aren’t important.

However, if you do not practice a proactive marriage, I sincerely think you are missing out on an incredible opportunity for improving your quality of life.  And more than that, you are quite possibly setting your relationship up for problems over time.

Don’t Take My Word For It

If you have been a reader here for a while, you know that I am a big fan of Seth Godin.  You may have also read some of my thoughts on a book called “The Big Moo,” which represents the collective writings of 33 of the best business writers (and thinkers) on Earth. Mr. Godin brought this “Group of 33″ together and edited this awesome compilation.

One of the stories in The Big Moo really resonated with me.  Here is an excerpt from a chapter entitled “Panic at Inappropriate Times:”

Imagine a potbellied, nervous, cigarette-smoking salesman, pacing back and forth in front of his office building. He’s annoyed to be outside, but they won’t let him smoke inside. He’s puffing as hard as he can, anxious about getting back to work.

This guy is focused on solving the urgent problems in his life. And all those problems are about today. He’s not focused one bit on losing weight or giving up cigarettes or understanding how tense he is. He figures that there will be time for that later.

Right now, he needs to panic about the sales numbers that are due tomorrow. He’ll have time to panic about his health when he’s in the hospital having bypass surgery.

The time to panic about his health is right now, of course, while he can still do something about it. Taking action today on a long-term problem is easier, cheaper, more effective, and far less time consuming than waiting for it to become an emergency. The time to panic about his health is today. The time to panic about the sales numbers was last week.

When I read these words, I immediately thought about my life and those areas where I have allowed my focus to turn to short-term, relatively meaningless concerns and, in the process, lost focus of the real priorities.

Don’t Wait for Panic Mode in Your Marriage

Take a lesson from the fat cigarette puffer in this story.  Don’t allow your focus to get out of whack.  And especially do not let the important things in life slide by on cruise control until it’s too late.

Be proactive in your marriage!  I urge you.  Do it for yourself, for your spouse, for your family and for our entire society.

Invest 15 minutes a day in your relationship, learn about your spouse and their love language, and just give a damn now.  Don’t wait until your faced with a loss of intimacy or a serious breakdown in your marriage.  Do not require problems to surface before you work on improving yourself and your relationship.

Engaged Marriage Is Here to Help

I give freely of my time to provide you with the information and motivation that you need to be proactive. I want you to have an extraordinary marriage.  I really do.

Of course your efforts have to go beyond reading a blog, but this is a reasonable place to start.  Spend some time browsing the existing posts to find something that resonates with you, and then share it with your spouse.  Pick one idea that you like and try to apply it in your life for a week.  Sign up for free updates so new posts are sent to you to read at your convenience.

The posts aren’t important.  It’s what you do with them that matters.

Be proactive and do things that matter…for your marriage.

Share Your Successes

I would love some feedback on this topic.  I am excited to let you know that I am working on a resource that I think is going to be very helpful in assisting couples to take a meaningful, proactive approach to their marriage.  And I understand the crazy lives that we all lead, so my focus is on high-value activities that can be done in around 15 minutes.  More on that later…

While I have my own ideas, I would really like to hear what works for you.

What is the best “exercise” or practical advice that you’ve used in your marriage to improve your communication, romance, intimacy, spirituality, finances or any other area related to your quality of life?

Tags: Communication, Finances, Fitness, Marriage Preparation

Related posts:

1. Marriage And Money: How To Improve Communication And Minimize Money Fights