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After twenty years of marriage, people tend to assume they know what love looks like. Comfort. Familiarity. Quiet evenings and shared routines that no longer need much explanation.
In many ways, they’re right. My husband and I have built a life that feels steady. We talk easily. We enjoy driving places together and filling the time with conversation. We can sit in the same room without needing constant attention from each other. There’s a deep friendship in that kind of marriage, and in many ways, it’s good. Very good.
But that isn’t the whole picture.
Last week made that quite clear. Every day that week, I wanted to have sex with my husband. Not in a vague, romantic sense. I mean I wanted sex. I thought about it. I went to bed expecting there was a fair chance it would happen.
Some nights I curled up next to him, waiting to see if he would turn toward me. Other nights I put my hand on his leg so it was obvious where I stood. There was nothing particularly subtle about it.
And every night, there was a reason it didn’t happen. He didn’t feel well. He was sore from working out. He was exhausted. It was late. All of those things were true. None of them were unreasonable.
And yet I still wanted sex.
Not because anything was wrong between us. Not because I felt unloved. I wasn’t lying there wondering if he cared about me. I knew he did.
But being loved and being wanted sexually are not the same thing, and I was very aware of that difference by the end of the week.
I do initiate sometimes. But if I’m honest, I prefer when he does. There’s something about being chosen in that moment that feels different. Especially now, when I am more aware of my body than I used to be. I am not the size I once was, and while I don’t spend much time dwelling on that, it sits there quietly in the background.
When he initiates, it tells me he still finds me sexy.
Not in a general, long-married way. Not in the “of course I love you” sense. It tells me he looks at me and wants sex with me. That matters more than I tend to admit.
Years ago, when we attended marriage retreats, the message for wives was always the same. Your husband has needs. Physical needs. Be attentive to them. The assumption was that men want sex more, and women respond to that.
That has never quite fit my marriage.
No one ever talks about the wife who wants sex more. The one lying there awake, fully aware of it, waiting to see if he will turn toward her. It’s a slightly awkward place to sit, if I’m honest. Not painful. Not dramatic. Just… there.
In a long marriage, desire doesn’t line up neatly. It shifts with energy, stress, health, and timing. Some nights it matches. Some nights it doesn’t.
Nothing is broken. Nothing is wrong. But the difference is still there.
You can have a good marriage—a steady one, a happy one—and still lie next to your husband wanting sex when he doesn’t.
That doesn’t simply disappear because everything else in the marriage works.
— Kate
There is something different about going to church now.
For years, church was simply part of our life. We went every service: Sunday school, morning service, evening service, Wednesday nights. It was what we did. And for a long time, there were parts of it we genuinely enjoyed. We looked forward to Sunday school, and I loved playing in the orchestra and singing in the choir.
But even with those things, after we left and came back things had changed. If I’m honest, looking back now I can see that we had stopped wanting to go for quite a while. We still went, but it felt more like going through the motions, something we were supposed to do rather than something we were drawn to. There was a quiet sense of obligation in it.
When our Sunday school teacher, who was also the music director, announced he was leaving, something shifted for us. It became a kind of quiet countdown. We talked about it and realised that our last Sunday would likely be his, or close to it.
Because when we really thought about it, I was only still going for Sunday school and the music, and my husband was mostly going for me.
And neither of those are reasons to stay.
After we left, I expected something to feel different. I thought Sundays might feel empty, or that I might feel like I was letting the Lord down by not being in church. But it didn’t feel that way. It felt… normal. If anything, it felt like something had been lifted.
That was one of the first things that made me realise just how much had changed before we ever left.
Since leaving, something else has stood out as well. Every time we’ve gone to a new church, we’ve been ready early, early enough that we often arrive and sit in the car for a few minutes before going in. Before, we were always rushing and running in just on time or even a few minutes late.
I used to say it was the devil hindering us, trying to keep us from getting to church. But one Sunday, sitting there early at a new church we were trying, I said to my husband:
“Maybe this should tell us something.”
And it did. Perhaps it wasn’t resistance that made Sunday mornings a rush. Perhaps it was that we simply didn’t want to go anymore.
Now, when we visit churches, we are not looking for the same things we once were. We’re not looking for activity or familiarity.
We’re looking for something harder to describe. A sense of rightness.
We notice things more now: how people interact, how the service feels, and whether the message actually reaches us. One of the things we’ve realised is that we don’t want to be overwhelmed when we walk in. Some churches were very welcoming — almost aggressively so — with people coming up immediately, asking questions, and wanting information.
There is nothing wrong with that. But for us, in this stage, it doesn’t feel right.
We are just trying to see if a place fits.
The churches we’ve returned to more than once have something in common. They let you sit. Perhaps one person says hello, and then you’re left to take it in. That feels better to us.
Recently, we visited a Catholic church, and it was completely different from what we were used to. When we walked in, it was quiet: no music, no greetings, just people sitting, praying, and reflecting.
It felt like people had come there for the right reason. To worship.
We didn’t understand everything — the kneeling, the sign of the cross, the structure of the service — but something about it drew us in.
And we found ourselves wanting to understand it.
The readings were laid out clearly, and we felt connected to what was happening. We were engaged in a way that felt different from what we had experienced before. And the message stayed with us. We talked about it afterward and found ourselves continuing those conversations during the week. That hasn’t always been the case.
The more we’ve gone through this process, the more we’ve realised something else. Our faith hasn’t changed in its foundation, but we are re-examining things we were taught, especially about other denominations. It makes us wonder if some of what we were told was shaped more by keeping people within a certain church than by truth itself.
And in a way, this has brought us closer to God. We talk about faith more now than we did before. We think about it more. We are more intentional.
We don’t know exactly where we will end up yet. But we do know what we are looking for.
And that is a place that feels right. A place that draws us closer to God.
And this time, it isn’t about what feels right for anyone else.
It’s about what is right for us.
And trusting that God will lead us there.
— Kate
Kate Alderwick 