We are publishing the story of the married couple Ciro Piccolo and Raffaella Esposito Corcione, who are the joint authors of a handbook for young couples on the subject of courtship (Il Manuale del corteggiamento). They give us their testimony about the beauty and depth of their relationship with one another, and how the use of natural methods can be a great help in marriage. This is knowledge that every woman and every man should possess! Janet Smith says: "The fact that couples who use natural family planning almost never divorce reveals a great deal. Natural family planning is much more than abstinence. It is a method that requires a great deal of communication and shared values."

A woman is fertile for only a few days a month. A woman's body gives clear signs of when she is fertile. Natural family planning refers to the method of observing and recording these signs. Such a way of life brings many benefits, but is also demanding, since it involves periodic abstinence from the marital act. This should not be an insurmountable difficulty, since a married couple often encounters other reasons for sexual abstinence too, such as after childbirth, in the case of illness, or a spouse's temporary absence. In addition, there is, more often in women, a fear of pregnancy that is unrealistic and purely psychological in nature, because she secretly feels as though she is unprotected. For natural family planning to be practised successfully, the participation of both spouses is needed, along with an atmosphere of love and openness to life. The method can be applied in every period and circumstance of a woman's reproductive life: regular and irregular cycles, breastfeeding, the approach of menopause, stress, coming off the pill, etc.
After fourteen years of marriage, we firmly believe that sexuality and love are a path we must walk slowly, which requires willingness, patience and freedom. We think of it as a building we construct day by day, brick by brick.
We came to understand that natural methods are the GRAMMAR of sexuality: when we learn the grammar of a language, we learn to communicate, to express to another person, who is not in our shoes, what is within us. Over these years we have found that in dialogue with one another we open ourselves to each other and, accepting one another, reveal to each other who we really are.
If this is true of any kind of communication, which is always, in some sense, a sharing of what we have, what actually happens when the subject of the conversation is Love, and the organ through which it is spoken is sexuality, which sums up the whole person within itself and reveals what is most hidden and most intimate in them?
Before we met, I - Raffaella speaking - was able, thanks to a course offered to me by a group of missionaries, to get to know and appreciate the beauty of this method from an early age, and through it I came to know myself better too.
As a young girl, I gradually deepened my knowledge of natural methods and began to live this way of life with the desire to prepare myself for a husband and marriage, to which I felt called. This helped me understand what I needed to say to the man of my life, who I am, so that he could understand and accept me better.
Ciro, on the other hand, as an adolescent and young man, did not know this reality, which would have helped him open himself to this understanding and develop an awareness of it. At home they never talked about this subject, and his knowledge of "sexuality" was formed through conversations with his peers and through what he could pick up watching television or at school. He therefore says: "My upbringing, like that of many others, could roughly be defined like this: 'I hope I'll somehow manage to figure it out.'"
As an engaged couple we together chose the value of Purity as a time of preparation for a possible marriage. Ciro made up for lost time by reading books on natural methods and learning from couples who taught natural methods.
As a married couple we felt it was sacred and necessary to live the first period of marriage getting to know one another, so that we could prepare a place of welcome for the lives the Lord might entrust to us. We had relations on infertile days, and abstained on fertile days. After some time we began having relations on fertile days too, so as to be open to the gift of a child. We found that we could experience fullness on both fertile and infertile days, because we could give ourselves to each other completely, so that at the peak of the encounter soul, psyche and body experience fullness and are renewed.
Over the years, and this still holds true today, natural methods have enriched our love and our mutual attachment (belonging), and then our whole life together. The beautiful things we have experienced using natural methods are many...
"By respecting a woman's cycles and fertile days, natural methods allow us to be free," says Ciro, "there is no need for any external aid in the relationship or any barrier standing between us. We feel that we live true spontaneity by respecting the harmony of our bodies. Not as fast-food culture would have us believe, which forgets that a woman's body has its own timing and cannot always be ready, and above all needs time and space to express its sensuality in order to reach satisfaction and... forgive the expression, "without becoming an object." When I decided to master my sexual desire, I discovered that our bodies follow certain rules, and, once we recognised them, we were able to use them to let the sexual desire that is very much alive in our relationship guide us effortlessly, very often helping us find the most spontaneous, most fitting and most optimal sexual encounter, at just the right time."
Learning natural methods together with Ciro, I always felt respected by him, and by his acceptance of my natural cycles, in the fact that I am truly a woman with her monthly periods of euphoria full of oestrogen, but also periods when I want to cry, when I feel low, when all I want is tenderness, not just intimacy. Because let's be honest: we women are not always ready for the sexual act, but if we don't teach men that, who will?
If we women get to know ourselves better, we will be the first to respect ourselves. I'm sorry to have to tell you that we women often don't know ourselves at all. With these contraceptive devices, made available to us from an early age, we are not allowed to discover the beauty of our own bodies, and we are made to feel uncomfortable. We think we are always fertile, but in fact we are fertile for only a few days. We think it's a sin that cycles exist, but it can't be otherwise, because we are driven by our hormones.
Natural methods give you a NEW WAY OF LIFE; they give it to me first as a woman, and then I can pass it on to my beloved. It is a way of life that brings fullness not only in the sexual relationship, but in the whole marriage. It teaches you how good it is to abstain at a time when, for whatever reason, you are not ready for a child. It teaches you to name those emotions and feelings that you didn't know existed before. It also teaches you that putting something between you and him, like contraception, is a "separation"; it creates a barrier which you don't see at that moment, but which over time will show its weight, because as the "protected" act of love is repeated, the barrier grows ever greater. Natural methods place no obstacle at all. I have come to understand, and I would like to say to all women, how important it is when a man gives his seed. It is his whole being, it is all of his manhood, and that is why after intercourse he needs to "doze off"... he has given everything. And for the woman? How essential it is that the woman receive him, because it is life; even in the infertile period it means renewal.

Ciro, for his part, says: "learning how to love and respect the seasons of love that natural methods take into account, we discovered that this keeps us away from the risk of seeking the sexual act merely as an act of selfish pleasure.
It gives you the chance to understand even better the love the other person has for you in the gift of themselves, and in abstinence understood as a preparation for love. The methods also help you manage your energies: you love each other 360°, and in moments of waiting, besides loving each other in tenderness (as an engaged couple), you are also, in doing so, loving the person God has placed before you (as children of God).
When we were engaged, it was very helpful for us to live in a relationship of expectation regarding the sexual act; that waiting was not in vain, because in marriage there are always periods of abstinence, whether wanted or imposed by circumstances.
Practising this allows you to face the time of waiting with as little frustration as possible, while the abstinence during the cycle that the natural method calls for helps you recover the time of "courtship", which should never really come to an end.