“Yeah.”

Fortunately, I didn’t love him for his verbosity.

I realized that we hadn’t really broached the subject of religion in our three years together. In retrospect, that’s shocking because we had such in-depth discussions about every other important aspect of life. But because we never went to church and Fred didn’t talk about God, I wrongly assumed that he thought the way I did: the idea is nice, but it just doesn’t all add up.

As I peeled back the layers of his faith over the next few months, I discovered something else: my husband’s unobtrusive belief in a higher power was surprisingly attractive. He believed that an omniscient being watches over us, that when we died we would be together again in an otherworldly place, and that praying for people was an important part of caring for them.

He didn’t go to church, he didn’t read from the Bible every night (I had actually never seen him with one in hand), and he didn’t feel the need to force his opinions on anyone else. He was Christian-lite: just enough for me to respect it, and more important, to live with it.

So it was quite a surprise when two years ago — two years after we married — Fred announced over a Saturday breakfast of blueberry pancakes and turkey sausage that he didn’t believe in God anymore.

My jaw dropped. “What?”

“I’ve been thinking a lot about it lately and I don’t know that I ever truly believed.”

He went on to voice all the conflicting ideas and emotions he had been dealing with as he scrutinized his faith, notions I had examined in my own spiritual quest that ended in agnosticism during my college years. Fred was traveling the same path, only 11 years behind me. I nodded and “mm-hmmed” and interjected points he had neglected that supported his new beliefs (or nonbeliefs, I suppose).