An engaged couple recently asked me, "What's the biggest danger we should avoid in marriage?" My answer: the slow drift apart.

In this episode, I'll walk you through what I call the green, yellow, and red zones of emotional connection. We'll talk about what it looks like when things are going well, what it feels like when you start treating each other more like colleagues than lovers, and what happens when the warmth fades altogether. I'll also share three simple, practical ways to keep your connection with your wife strong.

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One of the things that my wife and I do for our parish is to help prepare engaged couples for the sacrament of marriage.

At some point before their wedding, every engaged couple in our parish meets with us.

Typically, they come to our home, we feed them dinner, and after getting.

Getting to know them, we send our kids upstairs to watch a movie, and we invite them into our living room to talk about theology.

Just recently, one of these couples asked a really great question.

They said, what is the biggest danger or problem that we should avoid in marriage?

What a great thing for an engaged couple to ask, right?

My answer, the slow drift apart.

Keep your connection strong.

So let's talk about emotional connection.

We hear this phrase quite a bit.

What does that even mean to be emotionally connected?

And how are we supposed to do it?

I would like to propose, like, three basic stages or categories that you can fall into in emotional connection.

And here's the thing.

It's often a really slow drift going up or down between these levels of connection.

It's not a dramatic One day you're green and great, and the next day you're red.

I mean, sometimes there can be a fight or something.

Yeah, that can happen.

Most of the time, it's a really slow drift from one to the other.

I can remember plenty of times in my own marriage when things got really busy.

I'm stressed out with work.

The kids have a lot of activities.

Maybe we're trying to get some projects done around the house.

Maybe we're just trying to survive day by day.

Right?

And those are the times when this drift apart can occur.

And.

And that's, in a way, that's a little bit of the natural ebb and flow of marriage.

But we need to be very intentional about fostering our marriage, about keeping close to our wives, making that connection with our wives really strong so that we can recover from times like that.

Okay, so here, let me.

Let me talk about three levels, if you will, of emotional connection.

And this will help clarify what this even is that we're talking about.

When you have really good emotional connection, you encourage each other.

You're a strength to each other.

When you speak to each other, you naturally use terms of endearment, and you mean it.

So you say things like love or honey or sweetheart or dear, and you mean that in a completely sincere way.

Those terms can also be used sarcastically or somewhat critically.

I'm not talking about that.

I mean very sincerely.

You make good eye contact.

You thank each other naturally.

Thank you so much for this and that and the other thing, your tone of voice is friendly and loving and warm.

You talk about a wide variety of topics beyond just logistics.

Keeping the household running, getting the kids where they need to go, and all of that stuff.

And this is really key.

Your interior thoughts, men, your interior thoughts about your wife are positive.

They're grateful.

This is the green zone.

This is where we all want to be all the time, right?

This is why we got married.

This is things just working great.

We're feeling really happy with each other, okay?

When the emotional connection starts to slide, then you start to treat each other more like colleagues.

They can still be respectful, but there's distance.

You're not as warm, you're not as friendly.

Your interactions start to lose passion.

They start to lose affection.

This is the yellow zone, gentlemen.

This is when you find yourself making less eye contact.

When you do talk, you touch each other less.

You know, just a hand on the shoulder or holding hands or, you know, touching your wife's forearm or putting your arm around her waist.

That doesn't happen as spontaneously anymore.

Your interactions are more and more limited to the logistics discussions, getting things done, keeping the household going, getting everyone where they need to be, talking about the budget, whatever it is, right?

And that's all important.

But when you're in the yellow zone, it's like almost all that you ever talk about.

And here is the really critical part.

Your interior thoughts about your wife are more concerned with how she is performing, how she's doing her part of the tasks, right?

This is where you might start subtly keeping score about who's doing what, who's working harder, who should be more tired than the other person, who deserves that nap more than the other person, right?

This is the yellow zone.

And when you find yourself in the yellow zone, you need to inject a big dose of love and affection and gratitude into your interactions and get yourself back up to green.

And we're going to talk more about, you know, how to do that later on.

But, okay, so if that's green, everything is great.

Yellow, there's some distance, and we're starting to keep score.

We're starting to think about, you know, the logistics more.

What does red look like?

Okay, red is we don't want to be here.

This is when your interactions have lost most of their warmth and affection.

Your interactions are more neutral or negative and critical than they are positive.

Small things can trigger big reactions from either of you, right?

Fights can be triggered by what objectively is probably minor things, but you both are just way too willing to jump on every little excuse to disagree and argue.

Your Thoughts about your wife, your interior thoughts are mostly critical.

You or she are starting to check out from your marriage.

This can be a survival mechanism because if you're in the red zone, you, most likely you and she have been hurt more than once.

And checking out of your marriage, putting distance between you is a way to protect yourself from that hurt.

Unfortunately, it just continues the cycle down into the red zone.

The red zone is a sad and lonely place to be.

Nobody gets married hoping to end up here in the red zone.

But it happens.

It happens all the time.

Men.

In working with Catholic couples over the past many years, with my wife, I see it over and over and over again.

Couples allow themselves to drift apart.

And remember what I said, it's often a slow drift.

It usually doesn't go from green to red overnight.

It goes from green to red over the course of years.

But if you aren't aware of this drift, or if you aren't aware of the trajectory of your marriage as a marriage, how well it's doing and is it.

Is it improving or is it coasting or is it drifting down, you can find yourself in the red zone before you even know it.

You get so busy with life, suddenly you look up and you're like, oh, my gosh, who am I married to?

In my course, Holy desires for Catholic husbands to become better lovers to their wives.

And yes, I specifically mean their sexual encounters and their love lives.

One of the first and biggest pieces of advice is to improve the emotional connection within their marriage.

And this shouldn't be thought of in a transactional way.

And it sometimes gets presented that way in the advice.

And I really dislike that.

It is not the case that you're nice to your wife so that your wife will sleep with you.

It is not a transaction.

You know, we're not in that business here.

Here's the truth.

Your sexual relationship with your wife is a reflection of the connection and love that you have for each other.

So when this is going well, when you're in the green zone, right, Your physical connection in lovemaking should be a reflection of that, and it should deepen and strengthen it at the same time.

So your bond, your connection, the love that you feel, the affection for each other, that all gets brought together and finds its.

Its deepest expression physically in the act of making love.

And this just makes sense, right?

So if.

If you're in the red zone, is it any wonder that your love life is suffering too?

Of course not.

But you don't change it by having this transactional mindset or attitude where While I was nice to my wife for 24 hours, so she got to sleep with me.

No, no, no.

Just like, it's a slow drift to the red zone.

It's also, you know, it can take some time to come back out of the red zone.

But as you do and as the trajectory of your marriage goes on the upswing, you'll see over, you know, that impact will ripple out into all aspects of your marriage, including your love life.

So for husbands who feel like they're struggling in their love lives with their wives, this is one of the first things to look at.

How is your emotional connection?

Okay, so we've.

We've talked about, like, this green zone, yellow zone, red zone.

Can we define emotional connection?

What is this thing that we're talking about?

Here's a simple way to think about it.

You both feel loved by the other.

You both feel it.

Of course, love is more than a feeling.

Don't get me wrong.

I'm not saying that.

But there is an aspect of the human person which is emotional, right?

We're not just intellect and will.

We are intellect and will and emotions.

And those emotions are really important.

That's why we're talking about emotional connection.

So we need to honor those emotions.

We have them as men, and we need to be better, generally speaking, as men, about recognizing our honest emotions and articulating them and sharing them with our wives.

That's part of emotional connection.

And we need to honor the emotions of our wives, too.

So part of creating and cultivating an emotional connection is trying to make my wife feel loved by me, not just know intellectually that I love her, but she should feel it.

We once went on a marriage retreat, my wife and I, that we weren't leading, which was really nice.

We were just attending it.

And one of the main things that they wanted everyone to take away from their treat was that your job is to make your spouse feel loved and lovable.

That's not a bad description of emotional connection.

It's not a bad job description for, you know, one aspect of marriage here, to honor and cherish, right?

That's what we vow.

I will love you and honor you and cherish you all the days of my life.

That's different words, right?

It's right there in the wedding vows.

We need to honor the totality of our wives, including their hearts.

So let's say this emotional connection.

Let's use a slightly different word.

Maybe it's more like the emotional temperature of your relationship.

The green zone, right, is likely warm, fun, filled with laughter, energy, Peace, joy, that's what we want.

That's what we got married for.

And here's the thing.

You can actually be in the green zone of emotional connection, even if your life is really hard or difficult or crazy in the rest of your life.

And in fact, that's what we should aim for.

Because when you're deeply connected and warmly connected with your spouse, that gives you energy and optimism and hope and drive to get through those difficult times.

And may I just say, here there is an absolute, direct corollary to our spiritual lives here.

When our lives get really crazy, you better believe that we should lean into our prayer and our spirituality and lean into God, lean into Jesus, lean on him, lean on that faith.

And the harder our lives get, the deeper our faith should be to give us that strength and power and ability to cope with whatever life is throwing our way.

Well, this speaks directly to the sacrament of marriage.

The sacrament of marriage has within it sacramental grace, just like all sacraments do.

There is sacramental grace available to us in our marriage.

And regardless of how difficult or stressful or crazy our lives are, we can call upon that sacramental grace through our marriage to help us through it.

And keeping this emotional temperature, the emotional connection with our spouse, with our wives, really warm and front and center, that can open us up, that opens our hearts up to receive that grace.

Both the supernatural grace from God which we access through our marriage, through the sacrament of our marriage, but also just the.

The purely human level help and affection and camaraderie and togetherness of being married, having someone to go through life with.

Okay, so that's the green zone.

It doesn't mean our lives are perfect.

It means that our connection with our wives is really great.

All right.

The emotional temperature of the yellow zone is probably a mixed bag, right?

It's somewhat neutral.

Maybe there's not as much excitement or joy as you'd like, but it's not necessarily horrible.

Basically, in the yellow zone, you're kind of coasting.

Beware of coasting.

Don't coast too long.

You can coast slowly into the red zone, right?

Think of literally coasting in your car, right?

Sometimes you might be going downhill, and you can literally coast and take your foot off the gas and you're still going the same speed.

And sometimes life is kind of like that, and sometimes our marriage is kind of like that, and that's okay for a while, but you have to be aware of what's going on.

You have to keep your eyes on that dashboard.

You have to keep your eyes on the Marriage and know that when the end of that hill comes and you start going on the flat, flat road, or maybe the road goes back uphill, you better be ready with the gas to get over that next hill.

Okay?

So that's the yellow zone.

Don't.

Don't stay there.

Be very aware if you're in the yellow zone.

And do what you can to put your foot on the gas and.

And put some more effort into your marriage, into your wife's heart.

Okay?

And then, of course, the emotional temperature check on the red zone.

It's usually either cold or hot.

Um, it's cold or distance filled with icy tension.

That's how the red zone shows up for Sarah and I, to be honest.

We get icy, we get distant.

There's crackly tension.

But we.

We usually don't flare into big yelling fights every now and then.

Maybe I'll share some of those with you in the course of this podcast.

But most of the time, we get really icy, and it's.

It's awful.

We both hate it.

That's how the red zone shows up for us.

For other couples, it's the other way.

They do get really loud, and there's a lot of disagreements, there's fighting.

The other way that the red zone can show up though men is that it could just be dead.

Maybe you've withdrawn from each other so much after so many years.

There's so much water under the bridge that there's little or nothing left.

And that is so sad.

There's still hope if you find yourself in the red zone.

There's absolutely.

There's always hope.

Always hope.

If you find yourself going toward the red zone, do something now.

The sooner you can, you know, get your marriage going back up towards yellow and back to green, the better.

Right?

Okay.

Think back to when you were dating.

You likely thought about your bride constantly.

You talked about her, all.

Talked with her all the time about everything.

You couldn't spend enough time with her.

You're incredibly attracted to her.

Maybe you couldn't keep your hands off of her.

You were building a strong emotional connection.

Everything was, you know, your whole life, your days, your weeks were all planned around this woman whom you loved.

How do you recapture some of that?

Your marriage is more mature now.

You are more mature now.

Your wife is more mature now.

But your connection should actually be stronger, not weaker.

Jesus saves the best wine for last in marriage.

And that should be true in your connection.

The shared experiences that you have, the shared life that you have lived together for however many years you've Been together, all of those, all of that living, all of that sharing, that should all make your emotional connection and your bond stronger, not weaker.

So I'm going to end here with three very practical tips for how to start fostering emotional connection with your wife.

The first one is be intentional with hellos and goodbyes.

This is a lot of these.

These tips are pretty simple.

And the.

The battle for marriage is won or lost in the little moments.

The little things carry so much weight in marriage.

I'll.

Maybe I'll share in another episode about the research behind this, but it is well researched, well documented, that it's not the big mountaintop peak experiences.

It's not going on a fancy vacation every year for your anniversary or doing a really fancy thing once or twice a year.

It's about your daily life.

And if you can create some habits, some practices in your daily life as a man, as a husband that will intentionally foster a connection with your wife's heart, then that will do more for your marriage than almost anything else.

Praying.

Invite Jesus and God into all of these things, right?

So pray for your marriage.

And then, practically speaking, try these three things.

The first thing I said, intentional hellos and goodbyes.

That's just what it sounds like when you are together and then you leave the room.

Maybe not leave the room, but when you leave the house.

When you, when you part ways, say goodbye.

But don't just say bye with a wave of the hand, like turn, turn around, make eye contact and say goodbye.

Or say, you know, whatever comes natural to you.

Say, I'll see you later.

Say, can't wait to come back.

Say whatever.

Just make it a specific moment of connection.

Give her a kiss, hold her hand, touch her shoulder, put your hand around her waist and give her a little squeeze.

Whatever it is, make it a moment of connection.

Make it a positive moment of connection.

And if you can get eye contact during this, this connection point, even better.

Same thing when you come back together, right?

If you were out of the house and you come home, go find your wife.

You know, maybe she's upstairs.

Maybe she's in another room and you come in the front door instead of just silently drifting into the house, go seek her out, Say, hello, say, hey, good to see you, I'm back.

And then again, give her a kiss, squeeze her hand.

Like, say, it's great to see you.

Those little moments of connection, that is what we're talking about, that fosters a deeper connection with your wife.

All right, what's another one?

Give your wife gratitude and affirmation.

Daily, even if you don't feel like it.

Make it truthful, make it sincere, and make it specific.

So at least once a day you should be telling your wife something that you're proud of her for, that she has done or accomplished.

Tell her something that you're thankful to her for.

I am sure that your wife does all sorts of things all the time.

For the house, for the kids, for you, for other people, for her friends, for her family.

Just express gratitude for all the ways that she serves all those around her all the time.

I'm sure she is.

It's so helpful for her as a woman to be seen that what she does is noticed and it matters and is appreciated.

And then give her affirmation.

Affirmation is simply compliments.

Compliment her appearance, compliment her outfit, you look great today.

Compliment her hair, compliment what she does or how she does it, how she parents, how she, you know, anything.

My wife and I often teach this tip when we give marriage talks.

And what we say is it's looking for things to appreciate and thank your spouse for is something like looking at the stars at night, right?

When you look at the stars at night, you immediately see the few brightest stars that are shining very brightly.

But the longer you look, the more your eyes adjust to the night sky and the longer you stare and search and seek out what it is you can see, the more stars you will realize appear.

You'll see more and more and more.

So look for the good things in your life because they're there.

They're there.

We're all created in the image and likeness of God.

We are all good and there is goodness in all of us.

So look for the good and recognize it and speak it and say it to your wife.

She needs to hear those words from you, her husband.

And that is incredibly powerful.

Okay, here's a third tip.

Highs, lows and thank yous at dinner, at bedtime.

Highs, lows and thank yous is something that our family has been doing for years.

And we originally adopted it as a way to help make the dinner time conversation more structured and less crazy.

Because we had a bunch of kids at the time and the conversation was very frequently inane.

It was all crazy.

And our kids were talking about what if that, what if that?

And they have very active imaginations and talked about all sorts of crazy stuff.

And honestly, we just needed to bring some sanity to our dinner conversation.

And so we adopted this practice of highs, lows and thank yous.

What we realized was it's also a really great way to connect with Our family, with our children, and with each other as husband and wife.

And what it is very easy.

Each person takes a turn at the table and you say what your high was from the day.

Like, what was the highlight of the day?

What was the low point of the day?

Because we want to acknowledge that we have highs and we have lows, right?

There could be difficult things, there could be frustrating things.

So share, share the frustrating, the frustrations too.

And then also the thank you.

What are you grateful for during this day?

And you simply take turns answering those three questions.

What was your high?

What was your low?

What was your thank you?

And you know, as a side note, this is about emotional connection with your wife, but this is also a really great way to connect with your kids and it's a great way to teach your kids that in a adult conversation and an adult setting.

We're training our kids to participate in these.

You listen more than you speak.

You listen more than you speak.

So that's really helpful for a lot of kids, but equally helpful for some kids who are not big talkers.

You do have to speak, right?

There is a turn for you to share.

So it's both.

And honestly, for us men, many men have a difficult time sharing anything emotional or sharing what we're really thinking or feeling with our wives, with anyone else for that matter.

This structure makes it easier.

It's very approachable.

And with that structure, we can, we can begin to train ourselves as men also to be in touch with what was the highest point of my day?

Like, how did I feel throughout the day?

And what was the best part of it?

What was the low point?

What was I frustrated with?

Or what was difficult or was a challenge that I faced?

And then what am I grateful for?

That gratitude is really, really important.

That deserves a whole podcast episode on its own.

But those are three tips.

There are many, many more tips that if you keep listening to, will inevitably come out in this podcast.

Sarah and I also have a free workshop called Little Way of Marriage, which is based on the spirituality of St. Therese.

And it's all about doing little things with great love in your marriage.

You will hear some of these tips in that workshop.

You will also hear a great way to pray with each other, which is phenomenal.

So I'll probably do a podcast episode about that too.

But you don't have to wait for the podcast episode.

You can go to littlewayofmarriage.com, sign up for that free four part workshop and get even more inspiration and suggestions and practical ways that you can foster and cultivate a strong emotional connection with your wife every day.

So with that, I am going to close.

I wish each of you a blessed day, and I am praying for everyone who listens to this podcast.

And I pray that every marriage will be blessed with a deep, strong connection between husband and wife, and that God's grace will work through you to bring peace to your wife, bring peace to your children, bring peace and faith and joy and light to all of everyone around you.

God bless you.