Does My Husband Have to Be There?

Nine times out of ten, it is the woman who makes that first call to me, inquiring about NFP. (Frankly, when it is the man who inquires, it is often a red flag that the woman is, shall we say, a little resistant to the whole concept.) And if I have neglected during the call to proactively emphasize the importance of the couple attending the appointments together, and invite his participation, she often will show up alone, or tentatively inquire, “does my husband have to be there?” Being literal to a fault, my response is usually “No, he does not HAVE to be there, but it is definitely preferable, for your sake, and for his” and I proceed to explain the advantages of learning—and living—NFP together, as a couple.

We can all understand the importance of a husband’s active involvement in the couple’s use of NFP. We do not always see the importance of learning it together as well. We all live very busy lives, and division of duties is just a survival technique, and so sometimes the husband has not even been invited to attend, as it is just easier that way. While it may not be easy to commit to attending together, with work schedules and child care issues, and even occasionally downright impossible, when it is possible, learning NFP together is a very important foundation to living NFP together.

There is just a totally different dynamic to the appointment when both the man and woman attend and participate together. On a very basic level, there are two people there hearing the information, and one being male, and one female, they often hear the information differently. This creates opportunity for clarifying, and in the end results in much clearer presentation and integration of the concepts.

The couple, together, receive the information, and apply it. When she attends alone, it is just too easy, despite the best of intentions, for her to be the “expert” and him the student, or excluded entirely, creating an imbalance of power and responsibility that neither desires nor flourishes in.

The man and woman have different roles in the process. While the comfort level with mucus discussion vary from excited (that was that really stretchy one you showed me, remember honey—that was impressive!) to reluctant, (one very young man actually covered his eyes the first time the pictures of mucus were shown). That is ok! Because the reality is it is the woman who will become the expert at observing the mucus. The man, particularly if he is doing the charting each night, will fulfill a very different, very important role. Over and over again, I have seen how helpful it is to the wife when he, in his attempt to obtain the concise information he needs for the chart, through his questioning (was it clear, how many times did you observe it), helps her focus her evaluation, and translate her experience of the observations into a language they can both access and quantify. The end result is not only greater accuracy, they become partners and share in important decision making. Without that, the dynamic can often be reduced to “just tell me when you are fertile”—or infertile—depending on their intention.

These points just barely scratch the surface of the advantages of the couple learning NFP together, advantages so important, that one major NFP methodology is called Couple to Couple League!