April 18, 2026: Is It a Spark Problem, or a You Problem?
An anonymous man posted to the LDS Dating - Midsingles Facebook group this week and the thread exploded into 135 comments. He had been dating a woman for over a year. She is kind, faithful, deeply in love with him, and by his own description, pretty. They are engaged. The wedding is coming. And he is asking the internet whether he should go through with it because, as he put it, "there has never been for me overwhelming sexual attraction or butterflies when I see her. She has them all the time."
He noted that he has received priesthood blessings indicating the marriage would be okay. He mentioned she is 46, never married, living in another country, and that marrying her means leaving the United States. He said he loves her. He said she makes him happy. He said they get along. He also said, plainly, "I feel like with other girls there has been a fire."
The response was immediate, loud, and almost perfectly split. One half of the comments said: sparks are a Hollywood myth, commit fully, grow the love. The other half said: you are describing a roommate, not a wife, and you are wasting both of your time. Several women who had been married for decades to men who felt exactly this way showed up to say, quietly but clearly, that it does not get better and she deserves to know.
Scott and Laurie read the whole thread. They have thoughts.
The Adrenaline Trap
Scott
Let's start with something the original poster actually said that most of the commenters blew right past. He described the women he felt that intense fire for as women with "terrible personalities." He even used that phrase twice. So let me ask a direct question: what exactly are we protecting here?
The "fire" he is chasing is real. The feeling is real. But what creates that feeling is often not what we think it is. When a relationship is unpredictable, when you are never quite sure where you stand, when the other person runs hot and cold, your nervous system stays on alert. That alert state feels like passion. It feels like intensity. It lights you up when you walk in the room because your brain is scanning for signals, bracing for rejection, or relieved you are still wanted. That is not chemistry. That is anxiety wearing chemistry's clothes.
The kind, consistent, faithful woman does not produce that response in your nervous system. She is safe. She is predictable. She shows up the same way every time. And if your past relationships have all been chaotic, safe can feel hollow. It can feel like something is missing. It can feel, honestly, like boredom.
That does not mean she is not the right person. It may mean you have been wired, through experience, to confuse emotional chaos with desire.
Laurie
There is a pattern therapists who work with men and women from purity backgrounds see constantly. People who grew up in environments where desire itself was complicated or shamed sometimes only feel desire when it is tangled up with something difficult. Something forbidden, or uncertain, or just slightly out of reach. When someone offers clean, uncomplicated love, the wires cross. The brain says: this is too easy. Something must be wrong.
I am not diagnosing this man. But I will say this: the question he is really asking is not "can a marriage survive without sparks?" The question is "why don't I feel for a genuinely wonderful woman what I felt for women who were not good for me?" That is a meaningful question. And it deserves a real answer, not a vote.
What the Thread Got Wrong
Scott
The comment section had two camps, and both of them missed something.
Camp One said: marry her, sparks fade anyway, what matters is values and commitment. They are not wrong that long-term love is built on something deeper than initial chemistry. That part is true. Research backs it up. But "marry her because sparks are overrated" is terrible advice for this specific situation. Because this man is not saying he chose a wonderful woman over a flashier one. He is saying he does not know whether he is actually choosing her at all. There is a big difference between choosing steadiness over fireworks and settling because the fireworks have not shown up.
Camp Two said: let her go, she deserves better, you are wasting her time. Also not wrong in principle. But several of those comments turned into a public shaming session, which helps no one. Calling a man in genuine confusion a jerk does not clarify anything. It just makes him defensive.
What nobody said, at least not clearly, is this: before you decide whether to stay or go, you need to understand what you are actually feeling. And you cannot figure that out in a Facebook comment thread. You need honest, private reflection. Preferably with a good counselor who can ask you the questions the thread could not.
The Question Nobody Asked Her
Laurie
Here is the thing that kept pulling at me as I read through the comments. This man has been engaged to a 46-year-old woman who has never been married, who is deeply in love with him, who apparently believes she is about to build a life with someone who is equally invested in her. And she does not know any of this.
She does not know he posted a detailed public description of her physical appearance and his level of attraction to her in a Facebook group. She does not know he is uncertain. She does not know the wedding she is preparing for is a subject of debate between strangers on the internet.
Several commenters pointed this out, and they were right. The most important conversation this man needs to have is not with a group of 135 people who do not know either of them. It is with her. Not a version of the conversation designed to protect his options. The real one.
She is a grown woman. She gets to decide whether she wants to build a life with someone who is still figuring out how he feels. Maybe she does. Maybe with full information, she makes that choice freely and they go build something real together. Or maybe she does not, and she gets to make that choice too. But she cannot make any choice if she does not have the truth.
Posting on Facebook is not courage. Talking to her is.
The "It Will Be Okay" Blessing
Scott
A fair number of commenters focused on the priesthood blessings he mentioned. He said he had received blessings indicating that if they married, "everything will be ok."
Here is what I would offer, as someone who takes faith seriously and also knows that spiritual confirmation has limits as a decision-making tool. "It will be okay" is not the same as "this is what you should do." There is an Elder Wickman quote that made the rounds in the thread, and it is actually useful here. The gist: the Lord expects you to use your own good judgment about who you find yourself drawn to, who shares your values, who you would be happy spending your life with. Then, after you have done that work, you seek confirmation. The blessing is not meant to substitute for your own heart being honest.
If he received a blessing that said things would be okay, that may mean the marriage can be a good one if he chooses it fully. It does not necessarily mean he has already made that choice, or that uncertainty is gone, or that the work of actually cultivating desire is done for him. It means the door is open. He still has to walk through it on purpose.
The Only Question That Actually Matters
Laurie
There are two very different versions of this situation, and only he knows which one is true.
Version one: he has found a genuinely wonderful person, he is scared, he is about to leave his country and his whole familiar life, and his nervous system is looking for an exit. The "no sparks" feeling is a story his anxiety is telling him to avoid the vulnerability of fully committing. In this version, the honest move is to recognize what is happening, stop crowdsourcing his courage, and step toward her with his whole self.
Version two: he has genuinely tried to find real desire for her, not just logic or affection or appreciation, and it is not there. The warmth is real. The respect is real. The friendship is real. But the wanting is not. In this version, the kindest thing he can do for both of them is to say so before the wedding, not after fifteen years.
The problem is that from the outside, those two versions look almost identical. And the only way to tell them apart is to do the inner work honestly. Not with a comment thread. Not with a blessing used as a shortcut. With himself.
He is clearly thoughtful enough to know something is off. That same thoughtfulness is what it will take to find the real answer.
Whatever he decides, she deserves someone who shows up fully. And so does he. Not a life that is merely okay. A life that is genuinely chosen.
When you are ready to look more honestly at what you actually want, and why you might be afraid of it, that is the work we do at Unchaperoned Life. And when you are ready to go deeper, we will be here.
— Scott & Laurie
Weighing in from the lowest tier of the Celestial Kingdom, where we learned that "it will be okay" is a starting point, not a finish line, and the bravest thing you can do is want something on purpose.
