There was a season when Sarah and I were basically roommates running a household together. Life got difficult. We got stressed. We let our marriage slip to the back burner without ever really deciding to.

In this chat, I'll share about the weekend that turned things around for us. I'll share what actually thawed the frost between us (including one rainy afternoon sitting in our parked car that I still remember vividly), why the warmth of your marriage is the soil that connection in the bedroom grows out of, and one small step you can take this week to add a little warmth at home. A marriage drifts toward cold on autopilot. The good news, the real good news, is that warmth can be rebuilt, in any season. Grab a cup of coffee and let's talk about it.

Resources mentioned in this episode:

🏖️ Abundant Live: For four weeks this July, Sarah and I walk with couples live through the most marriage-changing parts of our Abundant course. Enrollment is open through Sunday. www.canafeast.com/abundantlive

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🔥 Download my FREE guide for Catholic Husbands: 3 Secrets to Becoming the Lover of Her Dreams

Learn the 2 most common reasons wives don't enjoy sex, and what to do about it!

>>> Get it here: https://canafeast.com/holydesires-3secrets

There was a season when Sarah and I were basically roommates, running a household together.

Not fighting, not too often, not on the brink of anything terribly dramatic.

It was really frosty, it was cold.

We were busy, tired, stretched thin, stressed.

Life hit us pretty hard, and we had let our marriage slip to the back burner without really deciding to.

Does anyone decide to let their marriage slip to the back burner?

No.

If that's you right now, brother, you are not alone.

This is really, really common, and I want to tell you what changed it for Sarah and me.

So a quick callback for anyone who has been following along with my wife.

Sarah and I, we just finished a summer marriage getaway.

One of the things we talked about during this marriage getaway was how waves come into any marriage.

And any marriage has to learn how to ride the waves, the ups and the downs of marriage, right?

But sometimes some waves come, they're a little bigger and maybe a little closer together, and they can really pull you under or tumble you around in the surf.

You can learn to ride them.

But there was a time when we got hit with a bunch of waves and they were all pretty close together.

It was years ago and we had a death in the family.

Sarah's parents were in the middle of a pretty messy and dramatic divorce.

We had a cross country move with two young kids, and we didn't have a big social network in our new home.

And then I lost my job.

So we had that financial stress on top of things for a while.

Those waves, it really felt like we were getting pulled under.

Our home got cold.

Sarah and I don't fight in a big, dramatic, hot kind of, kind of way, but we get really icy and distant.

There's a frosty distance, a layer of unspoken resentment.

We shrank our marriage down to just the logistics.

Honestly, it was a retreat.

We retreated into the safety of just talking about where the kids are going, what's for dinner, did you pay the bills, etc.

And that was about all our relationship was for at that time.

Well, Sarah came out for air first.

She, God bless her, she recognized that this is just not sustainable.

It is not what we signed up for when we got married.

She signed us up for a marriage retreat that our local parish happened to be offering.

Honestly, I was a little like, maybe I want to go, maybe not.

But I'm so glad that I did.

That one marriage retreat that weekend became a pivotal turning point for our entire marriage.

So during that retreat, we sat with other couples who had weathered hard seasons, too.

They had their own waves that they had to get through.

And it gave us real hope, honestly.

It also put our own issues into perspective.

There were some other couples dealing with some waves that seemed a lot bigger than ours.

And to see how they were dealing with it and the hope and the faith that they brought to what they were dealing with really inspired us.

We also learned some very practical skills that we didn't have at the time.

We learned how to pray together really effectively, and we learned how to stay emotionally close to each other.

Really important.

We learned how to forgive each other and actually repair after we had hurt each other.

We learned a lot of other things, too.

We drove home from that weekend reminded of something that we had just lost sight of.

We are lovers on an adventure through life together.

Not just two roommates dividing up chores.

We're not co workers.

We are on an adventure.

That weekend reminded us of that.

And it reminded us that we have more control, more agency over our own marriage than we often like to think.

We, you know, let our marriage slip into the.

Onto the back burner.

It sounds very passive, like it happened to us.

It didn't happen to us.

We allowed it to happen.

We did it to ourselves.

Yes, we had a lot of stresses in our lives at that time.

But what this marriage retreat helped us to see was that in good times or bad, rich or poor, sickness or health, right, These are the marriage vows.

No matter what life throws our way, no matter which way life turns for us, whether the good or the bad, we really can lean upon each other.

We can share the good times with each other and make them better.

Because good times are always better when they're shared with people that you love.

Right.

And when the bad times come, we can lean on each other for strength and get through them together.

That weekend, like I said, it.

It changed the course of our marriage.

It changed the trajectory of our marriage.

That weekend is actually a big part of why Sarah and I do what we do through our Cana Feast ministry, through holy desires, through Sarah's My delight work.

It largely stems back from that experience on that weekend.

There's one thing I remember pretty vividly, actually.

Throughout the weekend, we wrote love letters to each other.

And one time, we wrote love letters to each other in which we told each other everything that we love about them.

It could be how they look, how beautiful or handsome they are, their character qualities, what they've accomplished, all the ways that we love and appreciate them, and how they inspire us.

Just an outpouring of goodness.

Well, during the retreat, we spread out.

When we read these letters, Aloud to each other.

Right.

So you could have some privacy for each couple.

Of course.

We're in the Pacific Northwest where it rains a lot.

So at this time we would.

Through the retreat, we'd sometimes go outside, but it was raining, so we actually went to our car.

And one of my favorite memories is sitting in our parked car with the rain drumming on the roof and hearing all the ways that Sarah appreciates me and then sharing all the ways that I appreciate her.

That moment was truly a moment of grace.

And I think that was a moment when the last vestiges of the frostiness, the tension, the.

The crackly resentment that we had been holding on to, that was one of the moments when it finally melted away and thawed and the sun came out in our own marriage.

You've heard me talk about the four lenses that I use to understand differences in desires within a couple's marriage.

And I have whole episodes on this.

So just very quickly, the four lenses are these.

It's the quality of your relationship, the quality of the love and connection and bond that you share.

It's the past, which can include wounds.

It can also include your formation and your beliefs about sex.

It is physical and mental stress and how your current lifestyle can affect your desire.

And the last one is satisfaction with sex itself.

So if you don't actually enjoy sex, it's would be no surprise that you wouldn't desire it.

So those are the four.

Here's the point that I want to make today.

Of those four, the first one, the warmth and quality of your marriage, the bond that you share, the connection that you have with your wife that is the most important.

It's the soil from which everything else grows.

It really is foundational.

And this connection, of course, it goes way, way beyond the bedroom connection, beyond.

I mean, connection inside the bedroom grows out of.

Is a fruit of the connection and bond and love that you share outside the bedroom.

I hope I said that right.

That is exactly what had broken down for us in that really cold, stressful season.

The closeness, the desire, all of it had thinned out because the warmth underneath had gone cold.

So a marriage can drift towards cold on autopilot.

But like I said, we don't have to let things be on autopilot and we don't have to be the victims of our situations here, of our circumstances.

We actually have a lot more control over these things than we sometimes care to admit.

Warmth has to be cultivated on purpose.

The love, the connection, the bond, all of that needs to be cultivated and tended and fed in order for it to grow.

The good news is, the real good news is that that warmth can be rebuilt, it can be rekindled in any season, at any point.

Sarah and I are living proof of this.

And so are hundreds and hundreds of couples that we have walked with and who have honestly inspired us like the other couples on that retreat.

This is, you know, just like the wedding at Cana.

Jesus shows up at this wedding and blesses the wedding with his presence.

When does Jesus act?

What miracle does he perform there?

Well, he turns the water into wine, right?

Why?

Because they had run out of wine.

Now this is so deeply, deeply meaningful.

And yes, its primary meaning here is as a foreshadowing of the wine of the Eucharist and the wedding feast of the Lamb, which is Christ's wedding to his church, his bride.

But secondarily, it is also, I believe, a beautiful symbol that Jesus does not want the wine in our lives, in our marriages, specifically to run out.

Wine at that time and even today is a joyful symbol of indeed, joycelebration.

We drink wine when we celebrate, like at a wedding feast.

And for that wine to run out is a symbol of our joy and passion and connection and love drying up, running out in our marriage.

Jesus doesn't want that.

Jesus's grace is there for us.

The grace of the sacrament of marriage is there for us.

And, and we can tap into it.

And he has ready for us an overflowing abundance of wine to pour into our own marriage.

Forgive the hash metaphor, but you understand what I'm saying.

This is what Jesus wants for us, and we need to participate in it.

We need to open our hands to it.

He won't force it on us.

We have to participate and, and open our own hearts and our marriages to receive those gifts.

So what's one thing we can do to do that you don't have to wait for a retreat?

You can pick one small thing this week to add a little warmth.

Try this.

Give your wife a well timed, sincere compliment or word of appreciation.

Just like that love letter that Sarah and I shared with each other in the car, in the rain during our retreat that turned our whole marriage around.

Try that.

Try to give your wife more compliments, more words of appreciation.

Let her know how much you love and appreciate her.

This is twofold.

One, it will be a balm to her own heart.

Second, it will help you see her with the eyes of Christ.

The more you notice what's great and wonderful and good about your wife, the more you see her with God's eyes.

Because God created your wife good.

He created your wife in his own image.

And we need to see that.

And the more we speak that truth, the more we can orient our own hearts to be filled to the brim with the wine that Jesus wants to give us from the wedding at Cana.

All right, more hash metaphors, but I'm going crazy with it today.

All right.

I want to leave you with this.

Also.

Be a student of your marriage.

Get curious about the warmth.

What helps you and your wife feel the warmth and joy and connection and love in your relationship?

Not just the problems.

Right?

We often fixate on the problems and on the challenges.

Those are there.

We need to deal with them, but we need to be even more attentive to the good through good things, the graces that God gives us in our lives.

This is also why Sarah and I are offering Abundant Life.

So what this is plainly and briefly.

This is going to be a group of warm Catholic couples walking together.

Not only is this the most effective program that we can possibly imagine, and therefore we think it is the most effective program for your marriage at this time, we also are going to make this really fun.

We're wrapping all of this up in a fun tropical summer getaway vibe.

So this is going to be a lot of fun and hugely transformative.

Just like Sarah and I look back at that retreat that we went on years ago.

We honestly believe we are creating Abundant Life to be that experience for every couple who joins us.

If you need that experience in your life right now, if you need that experience in your marriage right now, I warmly invite you to check it out and join us.

The door is open.

Through this coming Sunday.

I would love to have you and your wife with us on this journey.

Check it out the enrollment in the show notes and let me know what you think.

Let's grab a coffee and talk about it.

Take care of.