Dear Captain Awkward,
I don't know how many of your readers are committed Catholic moms of many, but I suspect that the sliver is small. When you write about how a person can navigate a relationship with someone who used to be partnered with his polyamorous boss before she realized that she actually needed monogamy only now she's questioning again whether she might want to open things up and could they consider a threesome with the boss? -- in those situations I acknowledge that I'm out of my depth. (Though my short answer would be: run away. Just say no to the threesome with the boss.) But that letter you just answered, about the couple who shared a strong Catholic identity when they were married, only now the wife is an atheist afraid of becoming pregnant? That's a situation where I'd encourage you to take a broader perspective.
One of the things I appreciate about your site, Captain, is your ability to see the big picture: to recognize how mental health issues can color the whole landscape of a life, to think about ways that work problems can be partially addressed by non-work solutions. In this case, though, I think you've narrowed your focus too far, as if acquisition of an IUD (an Internal Un-angrifying Device?) will solve the problem for the letter-writer (the LW, as the Awkwardeers say). In almost 24 years as a married Catholic, I've heard from a lot of people who were unhappy with NFP. But NFP, in my experience, is only ever one piece of the puzzle.
In this case, I'm wondering about the LW's postpartum mental health. While the hazards of internet mental health diagnoses are legion, I have to say that I hope she's been screened for postpartum depression and anxiety. I hope she's taking good care of herself; I hope she's keeping in mind that pregnancies in rapid succession can deplete maternal stores of long-chain fatty acids like DHA. Babies need them for building brains, but moms need them too to help them stay on an even keel. An IUD will not address the reality that it is just plain hard to care for a passel of young kids.
Usually you have a lot to say about the importance of social connections, but you didn't really tackle that this time beyond "a friend could drive you to the clinic to get your IUD." I wonder if the LW, as a stay-at-home mom who has recently decided to leave her religious community, is feeling isolated. There's a lot of overlap between people with big families and people with strong religious beliefs, and that could make it hard for her to find mom connections who get the demands of her day-to-day life and also accept her newfound convictions. I met a ton of non-religious moms with large families through La Leche League, and it was invaluable for me to be connected to women who could help me see the many good things in my chaotic life even as they sympathized with the "but chaotic! so chaotic!" part.
Here begins the section where you might think I'm a loon, Captain, but I want to encourage you to learn a little more about NFP. It's not a single ineffective strategy for spacing babies; it's a collection of methods. Some of them work better than others in an empirical sense (for instance, anything that's based on cycle history rather than current observations is going to have lower method effectiveness). Some of them work better for some couples than other couples (for instance, some women are wigged out by the idea of monitoring daily cervical changes). I myself am a fan of the sympto-thermal method. I mention this for two reasons. One is for the LW's benefit specifically: she didn't say that she objected to the abstinence required by NFP, but to its perceived ineffectiveness. A different form of NFP could offer a straightforward solution for this couple: she doesn't get pregnant, and he doesn't acquiesce to a decision that clearly feels wrong to him.
Here's the second reason, Captain: your response propagates a myth that I find destructive. There's this prevailing idea-- women's fertility is a sneaky beast that can only be wrangled into submission by Big Pharma with perhaps a side of surgery. The idea that women could observe what their bodies are telling them, and use the information accordingly to make reproductive decisions -- that idea is 100% compatible with feminist principles (more so, I would argue, than the narrative in which fertility must be subdued despite the economic and environmental costs of doing so), and yet it strikes many feminists as preposterous. I learned NFP in 1993 in obedience to the Catholic hierarchy, and it has been one of the most empowering decisions I ever made. I don't lose my ability to plan my family if I lose my insurance coverage, or my job, or if the Comstock laws return. No one can ever take that knowledge from me. Thanks, Papa!
Finally, Captain, there's one more thing. You were pretty hard on the LW's husband. And I can see how your point of view would lead you to be hard on him: in the version of the story where LARC access is an absolute requirement for optimal management of women's health, then the husband is being cavalier about his wife's well-being. As I've mentioned already, though, I reject the idea that optimal management of women's health absolutely requires us to medicate a healthy functioning system into inactivity. In my view of the world, that fuels the Women Are Inconvenient And Also, If You Think About It, Kind of Broken crap that is pretty much a hallmark of any flavor of misogyny. I am confident that fertility does not make me inconvenient or broken; fertility is awesome, in the old-fashioned sense of the word. I'm coming from a perspective in which fertility is regarded as a shared gift, and decisions about fertility as a shared responsibility. If someone is looking through that lens, unilateral and potentially irreversible decisions about contraception are highly problematic. Imagine that on my wedding day my husband said, "Here, I've got this $20K inheritance* and now it belongs to both of us. Someday we'll use it to buy a house together." Ten years later, if he said, "Oh, you know, actually I'm giving that money to the NRA and there's nothing you can do about it," I would feel betrayed. Sucker-punched. Lied to. I want to suggest, gently, that the husband deserves more of a voice in this conversation than you are inclined to accord him. (We can certainly agree, 100% super-agree, that he has his work cut out for him. In addition to better decision-making skills, he might also benefit from further catechesis.) I want to mention, gently, that lately I've been talking to a friend who felt bullied into sterilization years ago and is still grappling with regrets. The short-term fix -- let's make sure you don't get pregnant with a 4-month-old -- should also support the long-term fix -- where is your marriage going, and how can you work together to get there?
*The inheritance my husband actually brought to our marriage was a 15-year-old Dodge Aspen.
I would bet that the husband is not in great shape himself right now. Your response didn't really address the issues that come up when people think about leaving behind the faith that's shaped their identities-- the loss of certainty, solace, community, and more. I would be devastated if my husband announced that he had become an atheist. It would be hard for me to make good decisions with him until I had processed the change. And it would be pretty hard for me to process the change if I had four little kids and we were both chronically sleep-deprived.
I've read plenty of online I HATE NFP stories in which commenters have one-remedy-fits-all responses. Sometimes they're certain, as you are, that the Pill hath charms to soothe the savage ovaries. Sometimes they're certain that a better prayer life is the golden key. I'm suggesting that there might not be a single golden key here. And because you're usually on top of the fact that relationship problems often require complex solutions, I wanted to mention -- again, gently -- that I think a bigger-picture response is in order. I appreciate your concern for this woman in distress. Thanks for considering my point of view.
Yours awkwardly,
Jamie
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