Culture of Life

[CoveredInBees]

On a bit of a tangent, but how much do contraceptives cost without insurance?

This is the kind of thing that goes above my head a little as we have the NHS (and all contraceptives are totally free here). 

[Pammy]

5 hours ago, Jug Band Baby said:

If she's against porn, do you think he's disclosing every tie he fantasizes about porn?  Even with her?  Her husband DOES NOT WANT ANOTHER CHILD, and is already unhappy with #4 existing.  Her going on birth control would lessen the chance of #5 by a lot, but her telling him about it would shut him off to her.  Their situation isn't a typical situation where both halves respect the other a whole lot.  He's putting religion ahead of her mental health, and his own mental health, and if he won't grow the hell up  and see that he's going to destroy them both, then she needs to, and the least destructive way is to do what she has to do to make sure there are no more pregnancies.

She's not telling him lies to get him to consent.  He's already only consenting when they both hope she won't conceive.  All she'd be doing is lessening that possibility.  How are you able to ignore that neither of them want more kids?

Manipulating with birth control would be telling someone you were taking it when you weren't, or being on it when the other person believes you're trying to conceive.  In this case, again, since you haven't gotten it yet, HE.  DOES.  NOT.  WANT.  ANOTHER.  Is that getting through to you yet?  

You are pretty anti-woman if you really believe a woman who is nearly at the edge of her sanity who is in a relationship where the last baby isn't wanted and another is desperately not wanted should continue to take a reckless chance at an outcome that HER HUSBAND DOES NOT WANT.

And further, her not telling him absolves him of religious responsibility since he had plausible denial.  This is an all-around WIN.  

I get that neither of them want another child. 

I just also noticed that her husband made a statement of non-consent to sex. Choosing no sex is a right. Being tricked into sex he doesn't want is not a "win" in my opinion.

I'm not suggesting anything like them having a child.

I'm suggesting that she do what she needs to do (get contraception) without the expectation that she thereafter has some sort of right to continue to have sex. If she gets contraception, *and tells him* and he chooses no sex... she doesn't get to have sex. This does not put her health at risk. I'm not suggesting that she put her health at risk or engage in risky sex.

Deceiving one's potential partner (after a clear disclosure of non consent) can not result in consentual sex -- even if it's in a marriage, even if it's 'for his own good'.

A previous poster was correct: if he does not consent to contracepted sex, and she does not consent to procreative sex, the result is NO SEX (married or divorced). It can not be solved by, "What he doesn't know won't hurt him." 

(If she chooses contraception and tells him, he might eventually or occasionally consent. Without disclosure this "win" would be impossible.)

[EowynW]

2 hours ago, CoveredInBees said:

On a bit of a tangent, but how much do contraceptives cost without insurance?

This is the kind of thing that goes above my head a little as we have the NHS (and all contraceptives are totally free here). 

Well for non hormonal you can easily pick up good condoms & spermicides at Walmart for about $20. I have a lot of friends who planned and spaced all their kids with just that. Without insurance,  a femcap or diaphragm is about $100 iirc. No clue about hormonal since it doesn't agree with me at all. 

[NotQuiteMotY]

No idea about hormonal (pill). IUDs are I think $1000 plus a doctor's visit, assuming you're not going someplace like Planned Parenthood, which works on a sliding scale.

[L1o2u3]

14 hours ago, Jug Band Baby said:

Did you miss how their #4 is the result of NFP failing?

We don't know what they did wrong or which method they used (symptothermal, calender method...). We don't know if "the method" failed or if in reality they failed to use the method correctly. We simply don't know that. She says that, but from what she writes about NFP, I don't think that she was properly educated about the method. 

Here in Germany, I payed 40€ for my diaphragm and 10€ for the spermicide gel thingy. You can get condoms for about 25 eurocents per piece (or even less). 

[Cleopatra7]

Something else to consider is that if you've been raised in a conservative Catholic bubble, where it's constantly being banged into your head that being "open to life" within marriage is what separates "real Catholics " from "cafeteria Catholics" it can be very hard to abandon that way of thinking. If you take the "open to life" view seriously, then there's really never a legitimate reason to not want to have a baby; not because you already have enough kids, not because you're too young or too old, not because of lack of resources, not for health reasons, and not because you've been raped. This to me is why there's such a huge disconnect between the vast majority of the laity and the hierarchy on this issue, because JPII priests can't fathom why anyone wouldn't want to have a bajillionty kids if they claim to be a Catholic married couple since there's no good reason to not be "open to life." So what we have is a sort of "don't ask, don't tell" situation where the laity pretends not to use birth control and the hierarchy in turn pretends to be celibate (the vast majority of priests engage in some degree of sexual activity, from mastrabation to clandestine relationships with consenting adult partners). Thus, the young adults who have been raised to be militantly "open to life" are essentially being suckers now a system of sexual ethics that most Catholics don't take seriously.

[SoybeanQueen]

IUD is about $1000 and hormonal birth control pills range from $25-$40/month.

I don't think it matters exactly why NFP failed as birth control for them. They have a child they didn't want, so it's obviously not a good birth control plan for them in the future. If she couldn't remember to take a birth control pill at the same time daily, that would be the same kind of human error, and would make it a poor choice for her. Everyone can defend their chosen BC method to the death as being nearly perfect as long as you use it right, but none of that matters when the couple in question has already shown that they *can't* use that method correctly.

[GeoBQn]

This part really jumps out at me.

Quote

Our birth control method now, given that NFP so obviously does not work, is abstinence. Every couple of weeks my husband can’t stand it anymore so we have non-PIV sex. Only there is zero communication about this. I think his perspective is that, if he’s got to “sin,” at least he’s not going to make it worse by premeditating it. The problem is that it’s obvious both of us want to take it further and I know from experience how hard it is to think clearly when you’re horny. I am terrified that sooner or later we’re going to get pregnant again.

They are already engaging in some sexual behaviors without them communicating their intentions to each other.  He seems to have the idea that as long as he doesn't plan to sin, then the sin somehow isn't as bad.  They've already had one unintended pregnancy as a result of not following NFP correctly (possibly from not waiting until "safe times" to have sex.)  He says now that he wants to stick to abstinence, even if she goes on birth control, but he regularly gets overwhelmed by hormones and acts on them.  To me, this isn't about the wife "luring" or "deceiving" her husband into a kind of sex that he doesn't want.  It's about protecting herself for the eventuality that he is going to let his hormones disrupt his plans to not have PIV sex.

[lawfulevil]

It's immoral to deprive someone of their freedom or property, but it doesn't follow that you have to let your drunk friend drive home, because taking their keys is depriving someone of their freedom (to drive) and property (their car). That's ludicrous. No real-life moral decision is made in a total vacuum, isolated from all other moral considerations.

Driving your car to a bar without a plan to get home (designated driver, taxi, etc) and then choosing to get drunk is in fact a decision to drive drunk. You don't get to claim that you made that decision in an altered state and it was an accident- you did not, and it was not. There are times when refusing to make a decision is a decision. This is one of those times- her husband made a decision, and that decision was to enjoy himself and offload all the consequences.

He's a grown man, and as hard as celibacy would be, he could have chosen that and stuck to it. Lots of people go through life without sex. He's not helpless here, and his feigned helplessness is some entitled manipulative bullshit.

[FakePigtails]

On 6/2/2017 at 9:13 PM, EowynW said:

I think it depends on the family. In the practice I work for we have many catholic clients who limited their family size and only use NFP + condoms. 

In that case they're not following Catholicism's rules. Condoms and other barrier methods are considered wrong because they make the sex non-procreative.

[Jug Band Baby]

On 6/3/2017 at 6:39 AM, Pammy said:

Being tricked into sex he doesn't want is not a "win" in my opinion.

You're thinking like a fundy, trying to make the woman who shoulders all the risks out to be the bad guy.  She wouldn't be tricking him.  He wants her to take risks with her body that she doesn't want.  He also doesn't want more kids.  She's taking some agency for herself, and would be giving him sex without the risk of kids, but eliminating the risks to her health.  If her husband didn't have his dead shoved firmly up his up-tight ass, she wouldn't even have to think about sneaking to take birth control.  She's reacting to his unreasonable demands.

Funny how there's been support for any fundy women who want to get on birth control to not pop out a dozen kids, but when it comes to a woman whose husband is tying to use his religion to control her, the options are to continue to take risks that could KILL HER, or divorcing.  Neither of those is exactly good.  Birth control is a middle ground that should be supported as much for her as for fundies.

[GeoBQn]

Captain Awkward posted an update of sorts.  She did not allow comments on the original post because she knew that moderating that comment section was going to be a warzone.  Instead, her inbox got flooded with people asking her to "set the record straight" on NFP and "give it a fair hearing."  She posted this in response.

https://captainawkward.com/2017/06/05/969-moderation-mop-up/

[Pammy]

1 hour ago, Jug Band Baby said:

You're thinking like a fundy, trying to make the woman who shoulders all the risks out to be the bad guy.  She wouldn't be tricking him.  He wants her to take risks with her body that she doesn't want.  He also doesn't want more kids.  She's taking some agency for herself, and would be giving him sex without the risk of kids, but eliminating the risks to her health.  If her husband didn't have his dead shoved firmly up his up-tight ass, she wouldn't even have to think about sneaking to take birth control.  She's reacting to his unreasonable demands.

Funny how there's been support for any fundy women who want to get on birth control to not pop out a dozen kids, but when it comes to a woman whose husband is tying to use his religion to control her, the options are to continue to take risks that could KILL HER, or divorcing.  Neither of those is exactly good.  Birth control is a middle ground that should be supported as much for her as for fundies.

You think *I* sound like a fundie...

You think it's a good idea for her to "give him sex" that she knows he would not willingly participate in if he knew all the information? 

There is no conceivable risk her body from abstinence while on birth control.

I fully support her right to get on birth control. I think she should get on birth control. Yay birth control! She should march right out and secure the birth control option of her choice -- asap! As long as she does that, she is safe and healthy. Yay agency! Birth control is the right decision. 

Lying about being on it so that she can continue to have a sex life with someone who doesn't want those encounters would be the wrong decision.

I don't see any indication that he is making any demands at all. He wants to avoid contracepted PiV sex *so* badly that even when he indulges (consentually) against his conscience, he doesn't do PiV. I don't think he is exercising any control at all (not even much self control).

If he changes his mind and decides that he will have contracepted PiV sex with her after all: yay! She gets a safe, consensual sex life. If he never has PiV sex with her again, that's hard, but at least she's safe. She doesn't have they right to "contraception and sex too" --because no one has a right to sex with an unwilling partner.

Why would you want her to lie? Just to spare his conscience while satisfying his urges? Just give him the info and let him mind his own urges. He's a grown up. Why shield him?

[lawfulevil]

It's also against his religion to get divorced. Does he need to consent to that or can she just go ahead and do it?

[Lurky]

The thing is, he's demonstrated he's not able to control himself.  Every so often he gets so damn horny and feels lke non-PiV isn't the same, and has sex.  Personally, I would tell him, but the chances are, he'll be doing the same damn thing.

I loved this part of Jennifer's response, which I will copy & paste for every time there's an NFP discussion, where people are *adamant* that women who say it doesn't work for them are wrong about it, and they should only use NFP
 

Quote

 

“NFP is not that hard” “It just takes a few seconds to take your temperature” “Efficacy raaaaaaaates!” Cool story. It’s not that hard, for you. It just takes a few seconds, for you. The efficacy rates vs. the tradeoff risk of human error are worth it, for you. You should continue to use any contraception method you want to use, for any reason. NFP could be the greatest method ever with absolutely zero drawbacks for anyone, and the Letter Writer could still not want to do it for reasons of her own.

And, why are you so up in this lady’s business, exactly? Why are you so threatened by the idea that she might make this decision on her own? One person with a uterus wants to get a tiny piece of plastic with some copper wire wrapped around it in her body and suddenly my inbox goes haywire with stranger-opinions about what that uterus-owner should do? Interesting.

 

 

[Pammy]

16 hours ago, lawfulevil said:

It's also against his religion to get divorced. Does he need to consent to that or can she just go ahead and do it?

Laws may vary by locaction, but, as far as I understand it -- both parties need to sign off on divorce papers in most ordinary cases of divorce.

Like all legal documents, divorce papers need to be "served" and due process has to be followed. His response to receiving divorce papers would be his own, obviously. I assume eventually she could divorce him against his wishes, but it would be a lot harder than an uncontested divorce.

I didn't see any indication that she wants a divorce though. So I don't know why you brought it up.

(These things are surprisingly dicey: I have one acquaintance that "can't" get divorced because her estranged husband is hiding from the papers. As I understand it, a person who is unwilling to receive and/or sign divorce papers can make a lot of trouble. She has to wait a certain time period until she is considered officially 'abandoned'.)

[Coconut Flan]

This is what happens where I live:

Quote

When one spouse doesn’t respond to a divorce petition, the spouse who filed for divorce can move forward anyway. If more than 30 days have passed since the non-filing spouse was served with papers, this is considered a “true default” situation.  The spouse who has not responded has given up his rights to have a say in the divorce case. The other spouse can move ahead to get the marriage dissolved.

 

[delphinium65]

The wife signed the letter as 'Offred (Just Kidding) (Mostly)' and that strikes me as sad, and in principle probably pretty close to the truth. 

I think that if she can her best bet is to tell him she's going to <insert choice of BC here> or get her tubes tied.  If he seriously considers that she could make her avoidance of pregnancy permanent it might put things into a (slightly) better perspective for him.  If he still has issues then I'd say go ahead and <insert BC choice>.  She is not responsible for how he reacts, and the fact that he gets all hormone-driven and has non-PIV sex anyway makes me think his 'no contracepted sex' thing wouldn't last forever.  

Alternatively she could flat-out ask him if he really does want to know what she is or isn't doing about pregnancy, and pay close attention to his expression and tone of voice when he answers.  I wouldn't generally suggest keeping something like this from a spouse, but some people want plausible deniability, even when deep down they know what's going on.  A crappy way to maintain a marriage?  You betcha.  Definitely not my first choice, but if it becomes clear that he just doesn't really want to know...well, sometimes you gotta do what you gotta do.  

[GeoBQn]

I agree with that section @Lurky.  I started taking a specific birth control pill when I was 17 for PCOS.  It's done wonders for me, but I know that other women who have taken it have gotten weight gain, mood swings, migraines, or even blood clots.  If one of my friends told me that taking that pill caused her to have those terrible side effects, my first reaction would not be to say, "Stick with it.  Just keep trying it.  You must be taking it wrong."

[Coconut Flan]

She could take the view of a good Catholic woman I know who had her tubes tied and went to confession afterward and said done and done.  It's better to commit one sin and confess it than to have to go every week and confess the same sin (BC) over and over.  As far as I know her husband never confessed it because he wasn't the one taking BC. 

[NachosFlandersStyle]

3 hours ago, Lurky said:

I loved this part of Jennifer's response, which I will copy & paste for every time there's an NFP discussion, where people are *adamant* that women who say it doesn't work for them are wrong about it, and they should only use NFP.

That was the part that jumped put at me too. "It just takes a few seconds..." "It's just a few simple steps..." "you just have to remember to do it every day..." These are some of my least favorite words in the English language. Like I said above, I have lifelong ADHD, and I've learned to accept that nothing in my life will ever be "just" simple. When somebody else tells me something is easy, I take it with a huge grain of salt. Because everyone has different skills and challenges, and what's trivially easy for one person can be a monumental task for the next. I get so frustrated with people who assume that because something is easy for them, anyone who struggles with it must not really be trying.

[church_of_dog]

1 hour ago, delphinium65 said:

Alternatively she could flat-out ask him if he really does want to know what she is or isn't doing about pregnancy, and pay close attention to his expression and tone of voice when he answers.  I wouldn't generally suggest keeping something like this from a spouse, but some people want plausible deniability, even when deep down they know what's going on.  A crappy way to maintain a marriage?  You betcha.  Definitely not my first choice, but if it becomes clear that he just doesn't really want to know...well, sometimes you gotta do what you gotta do

I agree with this and I think this would be my approach if I were in her shoes.  I would tell hubby "I think I need to get BC for my own reasons" (using the phrase "I think" strategically even if I'm not actively questioning it but have pretty much made the decision already).  Then I would ask hubby: "If I do get BC, do you want to know about it or would you prefer to "not be sure" whether I am or not?"

[FakePigtails]

I love Captain Awkward's response. There's little more painful than the "NFP is so easy and effective and perfect!" and (in reference to the pill for medical reasons) "The pill doesn't fix problems, it just masks them! NAPRO! NAPRO!" crowds.

That said, it's still not a sin for the husband to have sex with her regardless of what she does so IMO she should get whatever BC she wants and have the above-mentioned "Do you want to know or not?" type of conversation for his sake. I guess he could still intend to abstain if he's freaked out by the potential of a fertilized egg to not implant because of the BC but at least she won't have to worry about herself when he inevitably has those "oops" moments.

[SilverBeach]

This is the kind of shit that makes people run from religion. Couples, even married ones, cannot enjoy unfettered sex with each other without guilt and senseless complications.

Did Jesus make these rules? Nope. If sex was only for procreation folks would be unable to do it if they were infertile or postmenopausal like me. F that noise, I will enjoy sex as long ad I am able.

I truly believe God would not have made it so pleasurable, or required such closeness, if the act was for babies only. It is all so twisted by religious zealots, many who feel pleasure is just ungodly. 

The two great commandments  Jesus pronounced are about love in relation to God, ourselves, and our fellow man. All this endless focus on sex does nothing to make people better Christians. Sad that people twist themselves into knots to conform to religious legalism, missing the forest for the trees.

 

[delphinium65]

4 hours ago, FakePigtails said:

I love Captain Awkward's response. There's little more painful than the "NFP is so easy and effective and perfect!" and (in reference to the pill for medical reasons) "The pill doesn't fix problems, it just masks them! NAPRO! NAPRO!" crowds.

I love it too!  NFP isn't necessarily easy, or effective, depending on several factors. The pill isn't perfect either, and neither is any BC method. Every possible option has unwanted side effects or drawbacks, and failure rates. Each woman has to make her own choice, based on what works for her. NFP clearly hasn't worked for this poor woman, and Captain Awkward gets that.