My Delight with Sarah Bartel

Catholic married women, have you ever thought that you might have limiting beliefs about sex in your marriage?  Have you ever envisioned that you could experience sex with your husband as nourishing comforting rejuvenating delightful playful tender sweet wild and so much more!  What gets in the way of these positive types of experiences? Obstacles can include an obligation sex mindset, lack of emo...

Recently, Sarah invited her marriage ministry followers to reply to a simple question: "What Does Your Marriage Need Right Now"? She offered to take their marriage prayer intentions before Jesus in Adoration. Over 59 women and men answered. There was a common thread running through most of them.  In today's episode, Sarah shares fifteen responses from Catholic wives and husbands. Th...

Maybe you don't need to work on your marriage right now. Maybe you need to rest, play, and relax more together. This creates a lush space for connection to naturally flourish. In this episode, Sarah explores why so many couples feel emotionally exhausted. They're in the daily grind, slowly drifting apart as they handle the real-world responsibilities of work, kids, household, and social...

It helps the bad times feel more bearable.  It makes the good times even more joyful. Encouragement is magic for your marriage relationship.  In this episode, Sarah shares how Nathan's encouragement transformed her late nights staying up creating her Catholic French language course, French with St. Thérèse.  Learn five aspects to becoming a better encourager in your marriage, and learn what N...

"I felt like I was embraced by St. Thérèse."🌹 What happened on the May 2026 women's pilgrimage to France?  So many gifts, graces, encounters, and special moments! Even though Sarah got Covid on the way home, she would do it again in a heartbeat.  In this episode she shares many of the highlights of the experience, along with the following links for you to explore further: 1. T he S...

If you want a good foundation in your marriage for those problem-solving, conflict-solving, tension-resolving conversations, you need to build rapport and connection first with AWE: A ffection W armth  E ncouragement This concept is developed in Jim Burns' book  Creating and Intimate Marriage: Rekindle Romance through Affection, Warmth, and Encouragement. In this episode, you'll learn ex...

Is it sinful for a wife to withhold sex when she's upset at her husband? Is it unfair if they've planned to make love, but then he does something to upset her, so she doesn't want to anymore? The truth is, emotional connection is the foundation for good lovemaking in marriage. If a wife is upset, she is not in a good place to make love. She shouldn't try to force her body to co...

Here's the episode with all the things married women wish someone had told them when they first got married. Maybe you've been married a while, and no one ever told you . It's not too late to learn! Maybe you're a newlywed, or about to get married. You're in a great place to learn good habits early, before you settle into practices in your marriage that work against good l...

Your brain is your most important sexual organ. As you go through your days, weeks, months, and years, you need to make space in your brain for relaxation, creativity, fun, and pleasure... if you want to have those in lovemaking. You have to learn to periodically value other things more than productivity. -Connection -Rest -Play -Delight A woman in a chronic stress state is not going to be able to...

When Megan Gephart first signed up for the My Delight course, her husband was deployed. She and her husband were both active duty military, and they wouldn't be together for months, but she was decided to use the time while he was away to start work on herself before. Years later, Megan is still seeing the fruits unfold in her marriage.  She shares her story of the tremendous changes she made...

Most marriages have one spouse who is more interested in sex, and another who is less interested. This is desire difference. While this is normal-- most marriages have a desire difference one way or another--it causes a lot of tension in marriages. Sarah brings on her husband, Nathan, to talk about understanding desire difference from a husband's point of view at a deeper level. Beyond just p...

When we fast, we can expect a pattern of five spiritual attacks--whether the fast is from food, behaviors like scrolling, people-pleasing, or other comforts. The enemy works in our false attachments: to things, to false gods, and to false comforts. He likes to get us to put something above God in our life, and that creates disorder. Fasting restores order. It puts God back as the center of our lif...

It's almost Lent! Listen to the voice of the Lord speak: "I will lead her into the desert, and there I will speak to her heart." Hos 2:14 So many good Catholic married women feel like there's a desert of some kind in their love life. Maybe it's a libido desert, or a postpartum desert, or a menopause desert. Maybe it's the ache of not feeling as desired by your husband...

Making you feel guilty for saying "no." Wearing you down with asking over and over. You just want to get some sleep... the babies will be up at 5 am, so you just give in to get it over with. ...These are all examples of sexual coercion, which is a form of emotional abuse.  Sarah is joined by Jenny DuBay, a certified trauma-informed Catholic coach, certified deconstructing gaslighting spe...

How does nutrition impact our hormones for libido and perimenopause thriving?  Sarah is joined by Catholic nutritionist Rita Johnson of the Health and Hormones podcast to chat about how what you eat can impact your libido and perimenopause hormones.  Along the way they chat about the power of dreaming, mindset shifts, and four high-protein breakfast ideas to anchor your blood sugar and set you up...

Ladies, this is your invitation from Sarah to join her on a "Daughters of Grace" Women's pilgrimage to France in May 2026! It's this May 4-13th, in the footsteps of St. Thérèse, her mama St. Zélie, St. Joan of Arc ("I was born to do this!"), and of course, all guided, inspired, and devoted to Our Lady. You'll pray at Notre Dame cathedral, the Chapel of the Miracu...

What should you wear as you climb into bed with your husband for a lovemaking night? Sarah invites you to consider: Wearing something that makes you feel good.  1. It might feel good in terms of comfort . It might feel cozy and comforting on your skin and keep you warm.  2. It might make you feel good because it looks good on you . It's your color. The cut and fit suit you and flatter you. Th...

What is a sex sabbatical? How do you know if you need one? What do you do during it, and how do you change up your dynamic afterwards? In this episode, Sarah shares how a sex sabbatical can be a helpful way to reset your love life in marriage. If you're in a cycle of obligation sex, forcing yourself to have painful sex, or just feeling burnt out, used, or resentful about sex in your marriage,...

What does the Blessed Virgin Mary have to do with your love life as a Catholic wife? Is it even appropriate to turn to her for help in this area, seeing as she is a virgin-- the Virgin of virgins, in fact? Yes! She is the passionate spouse of the Holy Spirit, and you do not need to be shy of asking her help with this intimate sanctuary of your marriage.  -Mary is the perfect model of active recept...

So many moms feel touched out by the end of the day and don't want their husband to touch them, especially not in lovemaking.  How do you handle this? In this episode, Sarah shares 4 tips for handling that touched-out feeling that affects moms with young kids as well as other hands-on caregivers. 1. Set boundaries with your kids to save yourself from some of the unwanted touches throughout th...

Mary Bruno wrote Missing Pieces: Female Perspectives on Sex for Catholic Women in response to a lack of women's voices among the popular speakers and authors who are most well-known for bringing messages about theology of the body and Catholic teachings on sex and marriage. The theology and teachings are beautiful and true, but they implicitly assume that sex will be pleasurable.  What if it&...

How do you find time for sex when you'e a busy mom with young kids? First, Sarah shares three mindset shifts, plus a bonus note on attitudes about motherhood: 1. You NEED to make time for your marriage. You don't find it, you make it. You need to make time for emotional connection with your husband, and also for sex. Ideally, you want both of them together, but if you only have time for...

In this episode, Sarah welcomes special guest Nathan Bartel... her husband!  Sarah asks Nathan about what led him to create his Holy Desires course for husbands. Along the way, they chat about: Philosophy (Nathan's Master's degree from CUA and his love of Aristotle) Virtue Struggles Husbands Face (mismatched libidos in marriage, not knowing how their wives' sexuality works, and find...

If you're using NFP to avoid pregnancy (TTA), how can you thrive in your marriage with the abstinence period in your fertile window? How do you stay close? What sort of physical affection and touch is appropriate? (No genital stimulation for intentional arousal.) How can you harness the extra boost from the ovulation hormones to set yourself up for better lovemaking once you get the green lig...

Maybe you're a Catholic wife with sex struggles in your marriage, but you think, "Oh well, that's just how it is." In this episode, Sarah lays out five reasons why it's worth your bother to figure out how to make things better for you.  1. You're worth it.  2. Sex is the body language of the wedding vows, so learning how to communicate the messages of love in those vo...