My husband was the last person I ever expected to break from our family’s routine. But when his excuses started piling up, I realized I might not know him as well as I thought.I’ve been married to my husband, Dan, 34, for seven years, and if there’s one thing I could always count on, it was his routine.For one, he doesn’t skip Sunday church service.He reminds our two kids to bow their heads before dinner. The one who says grace. He even tells me, more often than I probably need to hear, that faith is what keeps a family steady.That’s just who he is.Or at least… who I thought he was.Because two months ago, something changed.

At first, it didn’t seem like a big deal.Dan woke up one Sunday morning holding his stomach, saying he didn’t feel right, like he had caught a bug. By the time we had to leave, he was curled up on the couch, groaning. didn’t question it. I took the kids, sat through the service, and came home an hour later.Surprisingly, we found him sitting upright on the couch, flipping through TV channels as if nothing had happened.”Feeling better?””Yeah,” he said quickly. “Must’ve passed.”I let it goBut the next week, his excuse for not going to church was “car trouble.”The battery’s dead,” he said, standing in the driveway with the hood up.So he called a taxi to pick us up, and again, I took the kids and went without him.But later that afternoon, I grabbed the car keys to run to the store, forgetting about the issue. The car started on the first try.I sat there for a second, my hand still on the ignition, remembering how Dan had said the battery was dead. Something didn’t feel right.But I told myself not to overthink it.