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 commitments. Even Church commitments can add to this! 

What they need is not more work, but more play.

More delight.

Drawing from favorite memories of tropical vacations, quiet walks in the countryside, and the meaning of authentic leisure, Sarah shares how couples can step out of survival mode and cultivate the atmosphere where friendship, affection, and intimacy can thrive.

You'll discover:

• Why vacations often help couples reconnect
• The surprising importance of play, laughter, and leisure in marriage
• How the beach vacay essentials of sun, sand, and waves can become a simple framework for strengthening your relationship
• Practical ways to bring vacation-like joy into your everyday life—without buying a plane ticket! ✈️

Whether you're longing for a special getaway or just hoping to find connection again after an intense season, this episode offers encouragement and practical ideas to help you rediscover the delight of being together.

Mentioned in this episode:
🏝️ Join our free Summer Marriage Getaway for Catholic couples at CanaFeast.com/Getaway, 

You get our short, fun online sessions designed to help you slow down, laugh together, and renew your friendship as husband and wife. Hawaiian Island vibes are infused throughout!🍍🌈🌺

🌸 free online Catholic marriage workshop: the Little Way of Marriage 

Learn how to do little marriage-building skills with great love, inspired by St. Thérèse, the Little Flower, and her holy parents, Sts. Louis and Zélie Martin!

Support the show

MORE RESOURCES

Free Enhancing Marital Intimacy Guide for Catholic Women: 9 Skills for Body, Mind, and Spirit (for married and engaged women)

Do you want to know what is allowed for Catholics in the bedroom? The "What's Allowed List" answers 20+ questions about what is licit and illicit. ($10)

Model-free lingerie! Get 10% off with my affiliate link for Mentionables.

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 NOT to do when your husband or wife is struggling.

1. Know you are aligned with the voice of God's affirming love. The enemy's voice is harsh and critical. The Lord's voice is gentle, loving, and encouraging. You are a conduit of that love when you encourage your husband or wife.

2. You have to have a hopeful, positive big-picture perspective on the future rooted in God's goodness and ultimate victory.

3. You can boost your encouragement powers by layering on helpful practical gestures, such as bringing them a tea. Show you support what they're trying to do by pitching in to support them tangibly in some way.

4. Be specific in your affirmations. "You are amazing!" is a great start; "You handled that specific situation really well" is even better. Point to their specific victories and achievements, even if they are internal victories. "You kept your cool while you got that done. That was admirable!"

5. Give comfort. Reassurance can keep a spiral from getting out of hand. 

Wives, do you dismiss your husband's encouragement to you? Learn to graciously receive and believe the encouragement and reassurance he offers you. Learn to ask for this if you're not getting it. These are choices you can make.

Learn how and why to avoid sabotaging encouragement by offering unsolicited practical advice.

Interested in taking French with St. Thérèse this summer? A backdoor is open, if you or your teens want to slip in! 

🌸 free online Catholic marriage workshop: the Little Way of Marriage 

Learn how to do little marriage-building skills with great love, inspired by St. Thérèse, the Little Flower, and her holy parents, Sts. Louis and Zélie Martin!

Support the show

MORE RESOURCES

Free Enhancing Marital Intimacy Guide for Catholic Women: 9 Skills for Body, Mind, and Spirit (for married and engaged women)

Do you want to know what is allowed for Catholics in the bedroom? The "What's Allowed List" answers 20+ questions about what is licit and illicit. ($10)

Model-free lingerie! Get 10% off with my affiliate link for Mentionables.

"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. The Story of a Soul, by St. Thérèse of Lisieux

2. A Call to Deeper Love: The Family Correspondance of the Parents of St. Thérèse of Lisieux

3. Les Buissonets (the Little Flower's childhood home in Lisieux)

4. Novena to Sts. Louis and Zélie Martin (the prayer from the shrine in Alençon is in bold at the end of each day of the novena on this website).

5. Musée des Beaux-Arts et de la Dentelle (Lace Museum in Alençon)

6. Monet's House and Garden at Giverny in Normandy, France

7. Leisure, the Basis of Culture, by Joseph Pieper (easy-to-read book of Catholic philosophy about the importance of authentic leisure)

8. Notre Dame des Victoires Basilica in Paris (church that St. Thérèse and her parents loved)

9. Chapel of the Miraculous Medal in Paris

10. Heart of the Father Ministries (Healing Prayer, Five Steps of Deliverance)

11. Be Healed, by Dr. Bob Schuchts

12. Your Blue Flame: Drop the Guilt and Do What Makes You Come Alive, by Jennifer Fulwiler

🇫🇷Interested in taking a French class with Sarah this summer or find out about upcoming pilgrimages to France?🇫🇷

Fill in your email address here to get notified:

https://canafeast.com/france

🌸 free online Catholic marriage workshop: the Little Way of Marriage 

Learn how to do little marriage-building skills with great love, inspired by St. Thérèse, the Little Flower, and her holy parents, Sts. Louis and Zélie Martin!

Support the show

MORE RESOURCES

Free Enhancing Marital Intimacy Guide for Catholic Women: 9 Skills for Body, Mind, and Spirit (for married and engaged women)

Do you want to know what is allowed for Catholics in the bedroom? The "What's Allowed List" answers 20+ questions about what is licit and illicit. ($10)

Model-free lingerie! Get 10% off with my affiliate link for Mentionables.

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:

Affection

Warmth 

Encouragement

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 examples for how to pour in more AWE in your marriage with affirmation and gratitude, non-sexual touch, and rooting for each other.

If you want to learn more little things you can do with great love to build up your marriage, check out the Little Way of Marriage, the free online Catholic workshop Sarah and Nathan Bartel created for their CanaFeast ministry. 

Find it at www.littlewayofmarriage.com. 🌹

🌸 free online Catholic marriage workshop: the Little Way of Marriage 

Learn how to do little marriage-building skills with great love, inspired by St. Thérèse, the Little Flower, and her holy parents, Sts. Louis and Zélie Martin!

Support the show

MORE RESOURCES

Free Enhancing Marital Intimacy Guide for Catholic Women: 9 Skills for Body, Mind, and Spirit (for married and engaged women)

Do you want to know what is allowed for Catholics in the bedroom? The "What's Allowed List" answers 20+ questions about what is licit and illicit. ($10)

Model-free lingerie! Get 10% off with my affiliate link for Mentionables.

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 communicate a closeness, connection, and intimacy that her heart doesn't feel. 

If a wife is not experiencing physical and emotional equilibrium, the husband must respect that and surround her with care and affection, as Humanae vitae says when it warns that practices such as birth control which lead to an entitled attitude towards sex are dangerous because a husband "may forget the reverence due to a woman, and, disregarding her physical and emotional equilibrium, reduce her to being a mere instrument for the satisfaction of his own desires, no longer considering her as his partner whom he should surround with care and affection." (Humanae vita, 17).

To talk about "withholding" sex implies an entitled attitude. Sex is not something husbands and wives are entitled to in marriage--even if there is a common expectation that sex is part of marriage. 

The Catholic Church does not teach that it is a sin for a wife to decline lovemaking in any circumstances. She is always free to do so. Husbands are also always free to decline. 

It is possible that a wife may use lovemaking in a manipulative manner to try to control her husband's behavior, but this is objectifying herself, and she shouldn't do that. 

Instead, a wife should use words to explain why she is upset, and the couple should repair the relationship. Then, they can celebrate that repair with lovemaking... when it's the right time.

A couple may need to increase their marriage skills in order to be able to have good, honest dialogue and get equipped to navigate good repair conversations. If they can tend their emotional connection, they'll be in a good place to celebrate that with their physical intimacy. 

🌸 free online Catholic marriage workshop: the Little Way of Marriage 

Learn how to do little marriage-building skills with great love, inspired by St. Thérèse, the Little Flower, and her holy parents, Sts. Louis and Zélie Martin!

Support the show

MORE RESOURCES

Free Enhancing Marital Intimacy Guide for Catholic Women: 9 Skills for Body, Mind, and Spirit (for married and engaged women)

Do you want to know what is allowed for Catholics in the bedroom? The "What's Allowed List" answers 20+ questions about what is licit and illicit. ($10)

Model-free lingerie! Get 10% off with my affiliate link for Mentionables.

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 lovemaking--practices that are unhelpful, harmful, or even sinful.

If you want help unpacking these Ten Truths further, you can learn more in The Wedding Night and Beyond: The Catholic Bride's Guide to Sex in Marriage. This is good for engaged women, newlyweds, AND wives married decades who never learned all this at the beginning (which, let's be honest, is probably most women!).

https://canafeast.com/weddingnight

Other resources mentioned in this episode

The Catechism of the Catholic Church  2363

The Ohnut by the Pelvic People (device to reduce penetration depth to prevent pain)

The Obligation Sex Series by Sheila Gregoire (excellent blog article series by an Evangelical Christian author/speaker)

A Closer Look at Sexual Coercion (straightforward article on a hotline website)

My Delight podcast episode "Marital Debt is Not Church Teaching"

My Delight podcast episode "What is Sexual Coercion?"

🌸 free online Catholic marriage workshop: the Little Way of Marriage 

Learn how to do little marriage-building skills with great love, inspired by St. Thérèse, the Little Flower, and her holy parents, Sts. Louis and Zélie Martin!

Support the show

MORE RESOURCES

Free Enhancing Marital Intimacy Guide for Catholic Women: 9 Skills for Body, Mind, and Spirit (for married and engaged women)

Do you want to know what is allowed for Catholics in the bedroom? The "What's Allowed List" answers 20+ questions about what is licit and illicit. ($10)

Model-free lingerie! Get 10% off with my affiliate link for Mentionables.

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 enjoy sex very much. 

In this episode, Sarah shares some examples for how you can slow down and connect with yourself ....and with your husband!... in order to create the foundation you need for good lovemaking. 

🌸 free online Catholic marriage workshop: the Little Way of Marriage 

Learn how to do little marriage-building skills with great love, inspired by St. Thérèse, the Little Flower, and her holy parents, Sts. Louis and Zélie Martin!

Support the show

MORE RESOURCES

Free Enhancing Marital Intimacy Guide for Catholic Women: 9 Skills for Body, Mind, and Spirit (for married and engaged women)

Do you want to know what is allowed for Catholics in the bedroom? The "What's Allowed List" answers 20+ questions about what is licit and illicit. ($10)

Model-free lingerie! Get 10% off with my affiliate link for Mentionables.

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.

🍍 She decided not to push through pain any more--and to finally talk to her husband about it.

🍓 She realized her pleasure mattered just as much as her husband's--which led to even more more honest, open communication than she'd ever had before in her marriage.

🍇 Now creating time to be together is a big priority. Hear the story of the weekend getaway that was like "heaven on earth"--though events, tensions, a nursing infant, and a big NFP decision leading up to the weekend could have derailed it.  

🫐 She went from avoiding intimacy and avoiding non-sexual touch to finding her way to turn towards and actively choose connection. 

🍒 Listen to Meghan share the genius shift her therapist suggested that is helping non-sexual touch go SO much better in her marriage now!

Megan and her husband are now preparing a new adventure with military orders to Germany. She shares how they are being intentional about preparing for this new adventure (and all the packing and tasks leading up to it), while continuing to communicate closely about prioritizing their marriage, improving their love life ever more, and preparing for the years when they'll be that loving, affectionate silver-haired older couple sitting on their porch swing!

Follow Megan Gephart's work supporting Catholic women entrepreneurs and professionals with coaching for strategy, operations, and sustainable growth at Apostolic Fruit. 

She also co-hosts the Apostolic Fruit podcast with her business partner, Anna Saucier.

🌸 free online Catholic marriage workshop: the Little Way of Marriage 

Learn how to do little marriage-building skills with great love, inspired by St. Thérèse, the Little Flower, and her holy parents, Sts. Louis and Zélie Martin!

Support the show

MORE RESOURCES

Free Enhancing Marital Intimacy Guide for Catholic Women: 9 Skills for Body, Mind, and Spirit (for married and engaged women)

Do you want to know what is allowed for Catholics in the bedroom? The "What's Allowed List" answers 20+ questions about what is licit and illicit. ($10)

Model-free lingerie! Get 10% off with my affiliate link for Mentionables.

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 physical libido, he shares about the yearning for connection with their wives he hears from men he's worked with who have the higher desire. He also shares what it's like for the husband who has the lower desire.

Understanding is key, and so are actionable skills that couples can use to help navigate the different factors at work.

Sarah and Nathan point some paths forward to creating more connection--including not making sex the only source of connection in the marriage. 

They discuss the importance of recognizing the wife's mental load, and how the wife and husband can work with that. 

Affirmation and gratitude, non-sexual touch, empathy, and curiousity all help husbands and wives grow closer, feel seen, feel like they matter to the other, and grow in their unity and emotional connection.

Catholic husbands interested in Nathan's free Desires Differences workshop can join here through March 12th. Replays of past calls are available.

Desires Differences Workshop:

https://canafeast.com/desire

🌸 free online Catholic marriage workshop: the Little Way of Marriage 

Learn how to do little marriage-building skills with great love, inspired by St. Thérèse, the Little Flower, and her holy parents, Sts. Louis and Zélie Martin!

Support the show

MORE RESOURCES

Free Enhancing Marital Intimacy Guide for Catholic Women: 9 Skills for Body, Mind, and Spirit (for married and engaged women)

Do you want to know what is allowed for Catholics in the bedroom? The "What's Allowed List" answers 20+ questions about what is licit and illicit. ($10)

Model-free lingerie! Get 10% off with my affiliate link for Mentionables.

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 life.

Of course the enemy will pursue our soul when we do this. 

Learn his tactics, learn that this is normal (you are not failing), and then learn how to gently and lovingly restore proper order after an attack. 

Denise Jelinek joins Sarah to break down the play book for each of these five attacks... and shares what to do about them.

They touch on authentic self-care and tie it all in to 

Join Denise in fasting from the scale and finding peace with food this Lent in her beautiful and deeply transformative 63 Surrendered Program! 

Ash Wednesday Sale: Get it for $1 a day (coupon code: Lent63)

Join here: https://weightlosswiththeholyspirit.com/

🌸 free online Catholic marriage workshop: the Little Way of Marriage 

Learn how to do little marriage-building skills with great love, inspired by St. Thérèse, the Little Flower, and her holy parents, Sts. Louis and Zélie Martin!

Support the show

MORE RESOURCES

Free Enhancing Marital Intimacy Guide for Catholic Women: 9 Skills for Body, Mind, and Spirit (for married and engaged women)

Do you want to know what is allowed for Catholics in the bedroom? The "What's Allowed List" answers 20+ questions about what is licit and illicit. ($10)

Model-free lingerie! Get 10% off with my affiliate link for Mentionables.