"I'm still praying about it." "God hasn't given me peace." "If it's God's will, it'll work out." All three sentences sound holy, and all three can be hiding places. In part six of her ten part series on spiritual bypassing, Kristin takes on the sneakiest pattern of all: using discernment language to avoid the conversations, decisions, and growth a marriage needs. She explains why avoidance feels like peace (and why relief is not peace), what Scripture and the Catechism say God's will for your marriage really is, the difference between what God desires and what He permits, and the wisdom of Jean-Pierre de Caussade on meeting God in the present moment. Then she gets practical: the one tell that separates real discernment from holy-sounding delay, three questions to take into prayer, and her own confession of praying for peace while avoiding the conversations that would have brought it. Because sometimes God's will is not hidden in a future answer. Sometimes it's waiting inside the next honest step you already know you need to take.

In this episode:

A sentence that kept a marriage stuck for three years

Why your nervous system mistakes relief for peace

"This is the will of God: your sanctification": what Scripture says is not hidden

The Catechism on freedom: left "in the hand of his own counsel" (CCC 1730)

Perfect will versus permissive will: why dysfunction is not holy (CCC 311)

Jean-Pierre de Caussade and the sacrament of the present moment

The tell: real discernment moves toward a decision

Three questions to bring to prayer this week

Kristin's own confession: prayers that were real, and avoidance that was real too

A word of care about abuse, and about genuine discernment

Next week: Rob joins the podcast

A question to take with you: What is the next honest step in my marriage that I already know?

Read the full written series: blog.kristinbeckchmiel.com

Work with Kristin: Book a consultation at KristinBeckChmiel.com

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"Wives, be subordinate to your husbands." Few lines in Scripture are quoted more often or misunderstood more deeply, and this week Kristin puts the passage on trial with the Catechism of the Catholic Church open the entire time.

The episode opens with four real rooms from years of mentoring and ministry: the husband claiming final say on all things, the father overruling his wife in front of the children, the couple whose spiritual director counseled coerced intimacy, and the wife told a woman's place is in the home.

One by one, each distortion is answered from the Church's own teaching: the verse everyone skips, Ephesians 5:21, the equal dignity of the sexes, St. John Paul II's Personalistic Norm, the feminine genius, and the two cultural ditches that formed these patterns in the first place.

Then Kristin steps out from behind the Catechism and shares what 35 years of loving her husband's God-given masculinity, and being loved in her feminine genius, has taught her about complementarity, and why modeling it is the greatest gift parents can give their children. Part 5 of a ten-part series on faith, psychology, and the real work of healing in marriage.

In this episode:

Four rooms, and the verse standing in the corner of every one

The two readings: Ephesians 5 as it gets quoted, and as St. Paul wrote it

Why verse 22 cannot be read without verse 21, and the crucifixion language given to husbands

Equal personal dignity: what the Catechism teaches in paragraphs 2333 and 2334

St. Ambrose to husbands: you are not her master

What children learn when one parent overrules the other

The Personalistic Norm: a person must never be used as a means to an end

Why coerced intimacy is spiritual abuse, never obedience, and what the Church teaches about freedom and self-gift

The feminine genius, Proverbs 31, and discernment versus decree

The two cultural ditches: canceling strength, or canceling equality

Kristin on 35 years of complementarity: his strength, her attunement, one team

Gift: A Marriage Built to Last, and why she and Dr. Greg Bottaro hand engaged couples Ephesians 5 whole

A question to take with you: Where might I be using authority to avoid the harder work of listening? Or shelving gifts God gave me, and calling it peace?

Read the full written series: blog.kristinbeckchmiel.com

Marriage prep resource: Gift: A Marriage Built to Last, by Kristin Beck Chmiel and Dr. Greg Bottaro

Connect with Kristin: KristinBeckChmiel.com

If this episode encouraged you, please subscribe, leave a review, and share it with someone who needs it.

You have prayed about it for years. You have surrendered it. You have asked God to change your spouse, and then to change you. And still: the same argument, the same distance. In this episode, Kristin sets the composite couples aside and tells her own story, opening her own 35 years through four stories: the enmeshment that nearly ended their marriage until she found the courage to name it, the years of praying for provision, the houses lost, the prayer she finally gave up on, and the answer that came more than five years later, the pattern with their children that took decades to heal, and the intimacy that grew only when they took the steps themselves. Along the way: what Aquinas meant by grace building on nature, why the Catechism says God's initiative asks for our free response, the difference between prayer as escape and prayer as encounter, and the one sentence she wishes someone had told her thirty years ago. Part 4 of a ten-part series on faith, psychology, and the real work of healing in marriage.

In this episode:

Why nothing changes, even when you are praying sincerely

Grace does not destroy nature but perfects it: what Aquinas meant

The other half: we cannot transform ourselves without God

The enmeshment she prayed about for years, and the sentence that finally changed it

Praying for provision while God was working toward conversion: debt, job loss, fifteen years of moving

Good Sunday Catholics with no formation past confirmation, and what God gave instead of what they asked for

The prayer she stopped praying, and what happened five years after she let it go

The pattern with their children that prayer alone never moved, and the courage that did

The season that stripped everything away, and why asking for help was the most faith-filled thing she did

Why "the Holy Spirit whispers, He does not knock down your door"

Prayer is not meant to replace the work, but to sustain you in it

A question to take with you: Where might I be using prayer to avoid something I am being invited to face?

Read the full written series: blog.kristinbeckchmiel.com

Connect with Kristin: KristinBeckChmiel.com

If this episode encouraged you, please subscribe, leave a review, and share it with someone who needs it.

It might be the most Catholic phrase there is: offer it up. And it’s true, beautiful, and powerful, when it’s understood. In this episode, Kristin tells the story of Tom, a good and faithful husband who spent years offering up a climate of dismissal in his marriage, and what all that patience quietly cost him, his wife, and the space between them. Along the way: what redemptive suffering actually means, the difference between suffering that is freely chosen in love and suffering that is a message asking to be spoken, why God does not ask us to bypass our humanity, and the one question that reveals whether your “offering it up” is deepening your love or replacing it. Part 3 of a ten-part series on faith, psychology, and the real work of healing in marriage.

In this episode:

• Tom and Sarah: a climate of dismissal, and the holiest silence in the house

• What “offer it up” really means: redemptive suffering, united to Christ, an act of love and trust

• The two kinds of suffering: freely chosen in love, or a sign something needs to be addressed

• The test: redemptive suffering keeps you present and more loving; avoidance makes you quieter and more alone

• What years of misplaced patience did to Tom, to Sarah, and to their marriage

• Why God does not ask us to bypass our humanity: He entered into it

• The question that changes everything: is this helping me love more deeply, or keeping me from engaging?

• “That hurt”: the sentence that was love in action, not a failure of faith

• Both can be holy: patience, and the conversation you’ve been avoiding

A question to take with you: Where in my marriage am I saying “I’ll offer it up,” instead of addressing what needs attention?

Read the full written series: blog.kristinbeckchmiel.com

Connect with Kristin: KristinBeckChmiel.com

If this episode encouraged you, please subscribe, leave a review, and share it with someone who needs it.

“That really hurt me.” Four honest words, and what happens in the next thirty seconds can shape a marriage for years. In this episode, Kristin tells the story of Anna and Mark, a composite couple whose small breach of trust becomes a window into the most common form of spiritual bypassing: forgiveness without accountability. Follow them from the wound, to the deflection, to the quiet closing of a marriage, to the holy words that almost kept it closed, and finally to the boundary and the three sentences that rebuilt trust. Along the way: why forgiveness is in Kristin’s top five after 35 years of marriage, why it often begins as an act of the will, and why forgiveness opens the door while accountability rebuilds what was broken. Part 2 of a ten-part series on faith, psychology, and the real work of healing in marriage.

In this episode:

• Anna and Mark: a private confidence shared, and the conversation that made it worse

• The moment most people miss: when the issue becomes that the hurt is not being received

• Why marriages quietly close: not from lack of caring, but because it stopped being safe

• “Just forgive” and seventy times seven: when true words get used to skip what hasn’t been faced

• Forgiveness as an act of the will: the head chooses first, the heart follows

• Forgiveness is not the absence of accountability; it’s what allows accountability to lead to growth

• The Four Horsemen dressed in reasonable clothing, including contempt as spiritual superiority

• The boundary Anna finally sets, and the three sentences from Mark that began rebuilding trust

• The two-sided question: where am I Anna, and where am I Mark?

A question to take with you: Where am I Anna: is there a hurt I’ve gone quiet about instead of bringing to healing? And where am I Mark: is there a hurt my spouse tried to bring me that I deflected instead of received?

Read the full written series: blog.kristinbeckchmiel.com

Connect with Kristin: KristinBeckChmiel.com

If this episode encouraged you, please subscribe, leave a review, and share it with someone who needs it.

Faith should be one of the greatest sources of strength in a marriage.

But sometimes holy words get used to skip over hard work. In this episode, Kristin names a pattern she has seen for years in her work with couples, and has caught in her own life too: spiritual bypassing. She walks through five ways it shows up in faith-filled marriages, from rushed forgiveness to "offering up" problems that need to be faced, why it sounds holy while keeping couples stuck, and what it looks like to bring prayer and real human growth back together.

This is Part 1 of a ten-part series on faith, psychology, and the real work of healing in marriage.

In this episode:

What spiritual bypassing is: holy words used to skip hard work

Rushed forgiveness: when "you need to forgive me" ends the conversation

Forgiveness after 35 years of marriage: an act of the will first, with accountability and boundaries alongside

"Offering it up": the difference between carrying a cross and avoiding a conversation

Grace builds on nature: why you can't pray a cracked foundation back together

Ephesians 5: what "be subject to one another" really asks of both spouses

God's perfect will vs. His permissive will: God never desires your suffering

Fresh paint over water damage: why faith heals what we're willing to face

A question to take with you: Is there any place in my marriage where I'm using spiritual language to avoid something God is actually inviting me to face?

Read the full written series at blog.kristinbeckchmiel.com

Connect with Kristin at KristinBeckChmiel.com

If this episode encouraged you, please subscribe, leave a review, and share it with someone who needs it.

Do you ever feel like your marriage can't get better until your spouse changes? In this episode, Kristin challenges one of the most common beliefs that keeps couples stuck — and offers a hope-filled alternative: one healed spouse can change everything. Drawing on her work as a Certified Master Mentor accompanying individuals and couples, Kristin explores why waiting for the other person to change leaves us powerless, how marriage reveals wounds we've carried since long before we said "I do", and the crucial difference between managing symptoms and true healing. You'll come away with one simple, powerful question that can begin the process of transformation today — no matter what season your relationship is in.

In this episode:

The hidden trap in "if only my spouse would change" — and why it leaves us powerless

Waiting vs. growing: the question that shifts everything

Why marriage doesn't create our wounds — it reveals them

Managing symptoms vs. healing the root

How one person's healing changes the whole family system

The greatest gift you can offer your spouse

A question to take with you: What is one area where God may be inviting me to grow right now?

If this episode encouraged you, please subscribe, leave a review, and share it with someone who needs it.

Welcome to the very first episode of The Kristin Beck Chmiel Podcast. In this introduction, Kristin Beck Chmiel shares who she is, why she started this podcast, and the belief at the center of all her work: our relationships are not obstacles to our growth. They are often the very means God uses to heal, form, and transform us.

Kristin opens up about her own winding path, from a childhood of constant moves, to careers in retail and interior design, to motherhood, ministry, and eventually formation as a Certified Master Mentor through the Catholic Psych Institute. Along the way she discovered that lasting change rarely comes from more information. It comes from understanding ourselves honestly, encountering God's love deeply, and learning to cooperate with His grace in everyday life.

Whether you are dating, engaged, married, parenting, or simply longing for greater freedom and wholeness, this episode is a warm invitation to walk that journey together.