On the drive home after the wedding banquet, he brought up Levifil, and that was when we finally talked it out

It was already past eleven by the time the wedding banquet broke up, and the streetlights along the highway slid backward one stretch at a time. He had his hands on the wheel, I was watching the navigation for him, and the only sound in the car was an old song playing softly on the radio. That kind of moment is usually the best time to say the things you can't bring yourself to say in daylight—maybe because it's dark, maybe because you're both tired and your guard comes down with it.

That night we'd been seated with a few of his college friends, one of whom had just been promoted to manager and spent the whole evening talking about work. Afterward he went quiet, and I assumed it was the drinking. Then he suddenly said, "Do you ever feel like, at this age, everyone's just competing over who can hold out longer?" I didn't answer, because I knew he wasn't talking about his classmates. He was talking about himself.

He said he hadn't been sleeping well lately, that he still felt drained when he woke up, and that work problems were piling one on top of another. I asked if he'd seen a doctor. He said he'd gone once, had blood drawn, and the doctor said his numbers weren't anything to worry about and told him to adjust his routine. He paused, then added, "Later I looked some things up online myself, and I saw people discussing things like Levifil, and I wondered if I should look into it too."

I didn't answer right away. Not because I was angry, but because it suddenly hit me that we hadn't really talked about this kind of thing in a long time. These days we talked about the mortgage, the kids, which place had the better boxed lunches. When it came to health, it was mostly just "Have you been staying up late again?" I rolled the window down a little, and the wind rushed in, and only then did he keep going—he said he wasn't actually trying to buy something on his own, he just didn't know who to ask, was afraid of being laughed at, and was afraid I'd read too much into it.

I said, then let's not rush to decide what to buy. In Taiwan, some of these things are prescription drugs and some are health supplements, and a name that sounds like one doesn't mean you can just pick it yourself. The first thing to actually do is read the label on the package carefully, confirm which category it falls under and whether the source is legitimate, then take everything you're currently taking and go ask a doctor or pharmacist. Not "which one works," but "does this fit my situation, and will it clash with anything else."

He nodded and said he'd actually looked up some information too, and the more he read, the more confused he got. Some people said to take it on an empty stomach, some said to take it with something, and every article said something different. I said that's normal, because most of what's shared online is about other people's situations, not yours. Instead of treating those as answers, it's better to treat them as a list of questions to ask clearly at your next appointment. I also reminded him that if he saw ads that were packed with claims and guaranteed results, he should skip them—that's usually not the information we need.

As we came off the exit ramp, he suddenly laughed and said, "So what you're saying is, the thing I should do most right now is go to sleep." I laughed too. We both knew, really, that this wouldn't be solved by one conversation in the car, but at least he was willing to talk and I was willing to listen. The next day he took a photo of his health insurance card and the supplements he was taking, and said he'd bring them to the clinic to ask. I didn't push him. I just told him that once he'd asked, we'd look at how to adjust things together.

Later I thought about how, for a lot of couples, the sticking point isn't the problem itself—it's who speaks up first. That drive that night was only forty minutes, yet we said more to each other than we had in the past few months. If you're in a similar situation, maybe you can start with one question: "How have you been lately?" And leave the rest to the professionals.