Holy Desires

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 s...

Imagine taking your wife out to a beautiful dinner. You finish your appetizer, your entrée, and dessert while she has barely touched her first course. Then you sit back, satisfied, while she stays at the table hungry and unfulfilled. St. Francis de Sales once used an extended dining metaphor to talk about married love, and I think it can teach us husbands something we really need to hear. In this...

This is a touchy subject, and I almost didn't record it. What do you do when you have real feelings about your wife's changing body? Maybe it's weight. Maybe it's the way pregnancy, stress, illness, or just the years have changed her. Maybe you feel guilty for even noticing. This conversation is not about your wife. This is about what's happening in our own hearts as husbands. In this discussion,...

Here's something that might surprise you. Some of the most common themes in my Holy Desires coaching calls, both group and one-on-one, have very little to do with sex itself. Three out of the four biggest brakes on a couple's sex life actually live outside the bedroom. Sometimes a struggling sex life is the canary in the coal mine, an early signal that something else in your marriage needs your at...

82% of the men in my current Holy Desires class are dealing with some kind of difference in desire with their wives. If you are in that 82%, brother, you are in good company. I want you to know that there is real hope here. In this conversation, I'll share the four lenses I use to understand what's actually going on underneath low or mismatched desire: 1) the quality of your relationship, 2) wound...

Confession time. For years, my first instinct when something felt off in my marriage was to fix it. Diagnose the problem, apply a solution, move on. Turns out I was using the wrong mental model. Most of us have inherited a mechanical way of thinking about marriage. Your marriage needs fuel. It needs a tune-up. If something is wrong, find the broken part (or the broken person) and fix it. Although...

If things feel distant in your marriage right now, I want you to remember something really important: you already know what it feels like to be close to your wife. It's in your memory. A specific night, a specific look on her face, a moment when everything felt right. In this conversation, I'll share what happened when I asked a group of Catholic husbands to recall their best dates with their wive...

Today, I'll share three things I've learned about what it actually looks like to prioritize your marriage. First, I think most of us need to get curious again. We're resourceful in every other area of life, but when it comes to marriage, we wing it. Second, I'll talk about humility, the willingness to look in the mirror and ask the hard questions about what I need to change, not what my wife needs...

I was on the Doug Hinderer Show this week talking about physical intimacy from the husband's perspective. It was a great conversation. But a woman called in and shared something that's been weighing on me since. She said she avoids sex with her husband because it feels purely physical. I gave her an okay response, but I didn't go far enough. She deserved more. So I'm recording what I wish I would...

This is the replay of Day 4 of the Dealing with Differences in Desire challenge — a workshop for Catholic husbands. Over 300 men registered for this four-day experience, and Day 4 was different from the rest. After receiving vulnerable, honest feedback from the brothers in the workshop, I threw out my prepared script and dedicated the session to addressing the real themes that came up throughout t...

We've talked about the foundation. You understand some of the dynamics beneath the surface. Now what do you actually do ? This is Day 3 of the Dealing with Differences in Desire workshop, and it's the most practical session of the series. I walk through four things you can start doing right away to improve intimacy with your wife. First, slow down. Most men have no idea how much time their wives a...

You know there's a gap between you and your wife when it comes to desire. But have you ever stopped to ask why it's there? This is Day 2 of the Dealing with Differences in Desires workshop. I dig into the real dynamics beneath the surface, on both sides. For the lower-desire spouse, we look at things like emotional disconnection, life stress, not actually enjoying sex (more common than most husban...

I just kicked off a live 4-day challenge with a group of Catholic husbands on how to lovingly deal with differences in sexual desire. This is the first session. I share why the usual approach of "let's just compromise on a number" doesn't actually solve anything. It opens the door to a conversation, which is a good first step, but it keeps things on the surface. We need to go deeper in order to id...

Almost every Catholic husband I've talked to wrestles with this one: you want more intimacy, she seems content with less, and you're stuck wondering if this is just the way it's going to be. I get it. I hear it all the time. In this episode, I'll share why compromise is actually the enemy of a thriving intimate life, what's really going on beneath the surface for both the higher-desire and lower-d...

Most of us have encountered two very different attitudes toward sex in Catholic circles. On one side, there's the culture's message that sex is basically recreation. On the other, there's a hyper-restrictive view that treats almost everything beyond the bare minimum as suspect. In this discussion, I'll share why I think both of these miss the mark, and that the Catholic tradition actually calls us...

Confession time: I am not always easy to live with. A few days ago, I caught myself being grumpy with Sarah and the kids, and it turned out the whole thing was rooted in a frustration at work that had nothing to do with them. That moment of self-awareness led me back to one of the great gems of our Catholic spiritual tradition: the Discernment of Spirits from St. Ignatius of Loyola. In this chat,...

The whole reason I got into this ministry is because my wife Sarah started one first. Her program, My Delight, helps Catholic wives discover more intimacy, joy, and pleasure in sex within their marriages. In this episode, I'll talk about some of the real challenges women face that we as husbands may not fully understand, from the lasting effects of purity culture to pain during intercourse. I'll s...

Hollywood has sold us a fantasy: two people lock eyes, and suddenly they're having the most passionate night of their lives. No effort, no planning, no awkwardness. Just effortlessly amazing sex. But here's the thing: nobody's life looks like that. And believing this myth can set us up for disappointment, frustration, and resentment. In this episode, I'll unpack why this myth is so sneaky, what it...

You want something more in your love life with your wife. Maybe more frequent, more passionate, more connected. But sometimes she feels like a mystery to you. How do you figure out where she's coming from? Here's the secret: you have to talk to her. Yes, even about sex. In this episode, I'll share why this conversation matters, what your goal should be for that first conversation (hint: it's not t...

We all love a good fight between good and evil. Whether it's Aragorn in Lord of the Rings or Luke Skywalker in Star Wars, there's something deep in us that responds to these epic battles. Spiritual warfare is real, but it usually doesn't look like what we imagine. The Catechism tells us that the first fight is against ourselves. In this episode, I'll share some of my own interior battles (like who...

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 hap...

In this first chat, I wanted to share a bit about myself and why I started this community called Holy Desires. I'll tell you how it all began, what this space is about (and what it's not), and I'll leave you with a perspective on marriage that changed how I show up as a husband. Here's a hint: your marriage isn't actually about you. It's about being a witness of God's love. When your kids and the...