Interior Work with Kristin Beck Chmiel

Welcome to Episode 13 of the Interior Work Podcast: Personal Growth Isn’t Selfish... It’s Essential to a Holy Marriage. This is the finale of our ten-part series on Spiritual Bypassing in Marriage.

“Isn’t this selfish?” It’s the question I hear from new mentees more than any other. In this series finale, I take that question seriously... and show why your own interior work may be the most generous thing you ever do for your marriage.

Key Topics:

Why “die to self” was never meant to mean self-erasure

How the greatest commandment assumes you love yourself

Why Jesus withdrew from the crowds... and what that permits you

How one spouse growing changes the whole marriage

Why holiness is wholeness: the glory of God is a person fully alive

Learn More:

Start the Spiritual Bypassing series from the beginning (Episode 3)

Gift: the Catholic marriage prep program I co-authored with Dr. Greg Bottaro of the CatholicPsych Institute

Work with me: I’m a marriage mentor, and I work one-on-one with individuals. You don’t need your spouse to be willing. You just need you. The first consultation is free at KristinBeckChmiel.com.

You are not just marrying each other. You're marrying each other's families... not legally, formationally.

This past Saturday, Kristin and her husband Rob stood in front of 18 engaged couples and told the story of an apple green linen sundress... pressed, perfect, and completely wrong for the party. In Part 9 of the Spiritual Bypassing in Marriage series, Kristin brings that talk to the podcast: the two "schools of love" she and Rob graduated from, the collision that followed, the five marks of relationship from the Gift program, and the line the whole series stands on... you inherited relational patterns, but you did not inherit a verdict.

Your homework this week: keep one, leave one. One thing from your family to keep in your marriage, and one thing you're ready to leave behind.

Next week: Part 10, the series finale... why personal growth isn't selfish, but essential to a holy marriage.

Kristin Beck Chmiel is a Catholic marriage mentor with the CatholicPsych Institute who works one-on-one with individuals at every stage of marriage. You don't need your spouse to be willing... you just need you. A few openings remain this fall, and the first consultation is free at KristinBeckChmiel.com.

Growth is possible. Healing is possible. And God is still at work in your story.

Spiritual bypassing is not weak faith. It's self-protection... dressed up as devotion. In Part 8 of our series on spiritual bypassing in marriage, we finally go underneath the patterns and ask WHY good, faithful, sincere people use the holiest things in life as a place to hide. I'll tell you about my own fifteen years on a spiritual treadmill... the checklist that looked like devotion but worked like armor... and the day someone helped me see my blind spots.

In this episode:

Why the people who bypass the most are often the most sincere

You are an integrated being: how psychological wounds and the spiritual life shape each other (1 Thessalonians 5:23)

Perfectionism, scrupulosity, and the checklist that almost eliminated uncertainty

The "God's will bazooka": when a holy phrase becomes a way to avoid healing (Wisdom 1:13; CCC 311)

How your family of origin taught you to rename avoidance as peace

Three tells that you might be bypassing

Gethsemane: honest pain and total trust in the same prayer

The first step out: "God created us without us, but He did not will to save us without us" (St. Augustine)

I'm Kristin Beck Chmiel, a Catholic marriage mentor with the CatholicPsych Institute. I work one-on-one with individuals at every stage of marriage, and I have a few openings this fall.

Book a free consultation at KristinBeckChmiel.com

Sometimes our deepest desire for our spouse's holiness slowly becomes a burden God never asked us to carry. In Part 7 of our series on spiritual bypassing in marriage, we look at what happens when loving concern turns into spiritual control... and why the story of Sarah, a woman with a promise from God and a plan of her own, might be the most honest mirror we have.

In this episode:

• Why the spouses most likely to fall into spiritual control are often the ones who love God most

• Sarah's story: what happens when we keep the goal but take over God's timeline

• The difference between acting out of love and acting out of fear

• How Jesus loved people without forcing them to change (Mark 10:21, Revelation 3:20)

• What healthy spiritual leadership really looks like

• The good news of Isaac: our control cannot cancel God's promise

I'm Kristin Beck Chmiel, a Catholic marriage mentor with the CatholicPsych Institute. I work one-on-one with individuals at every stage of marriage, and I have a few openings this fall. Book a free consultation at KristinBeckChmiel.com

Based on my article "When Spiritual Leadership Gives Way to Spiritual Control," part of the Spiritual Bypassing in Marriage series on my blog.

For eight episodes, you've heard Kristin's side of thirty-five years: the enmeshment, the seventeen moves, the conversations she avoided and called it peace. Today, for the first time, you hear from the man who lived all of it with her. Rob joins the podcast for a conversation thirty-five years in the making: how a dinner on the twenty-first night of September became a marriage, what that young man at the altar didn't know yet, and what her silence looked like from his side of the table. They talk about the cost and gift of seventeen moves, the faith that carried them, the phrase "we choose us" and the movie that inspired it, and what Ephesians 5 means when it's actually lived: not a throne, but a cross. Plus: the confession they share about perfectionism, why one healed spouse really can change everything, and the question at the end that neither of them rehearsed. Pull up a chair. There are two at the table today.

In this episode:

The twenty-first night of September: how they met (Earth, Wind & Fire fans, you already hear it)

"I met my future wife last night." "Oh, so who was it this week?"

What the young man at the altar didn't know yet

Seventeen moves: the honest cost and the unexpected gift

The conversation that took Kristin five years, and the moving truck that followed

What her silence looked like from Rob's chair

Two perfectionists, one house: the OCPD traits they've both come to understand

"One healed spouse can help the other spouse heal too"

"We choose us": the movie, the phrase, and what it means at every fork in the road

Ephesians 5, lived: "It's not a throne. It's a cross."

What they'd each tell a couple at year five

And the final question: would you choose us again?

A question to take with you: What would "we choose us" change about the next decision in your marriage?

Work with Kristin: Book a consultation at KristinBeckChmiel.com

Marriage prep with Kristin and Rob: Gift: A Marriage Built to Last — Saturday, October 3rd, St. Mary's, Greenwich. Register: [email protected]

If this episode encouraged you, please subscribe, leave a review, and share it with a couple you love.

"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

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

"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.