The Way You Show Up

Take the Free LovePath™ Roadmap Assessment: https://bit.ly/4ylcru9

How do you prove to your spouse that you’ve really changed?

It’s one thing to say you’re different. It’s another thing for your spouse to actually believe that the change is real, especially when there have been years of hurt, broken trust, or patterns that keep resurfacing.

In this episode, I’m taking live calls from people facing difficult situations in their marriages and their lives.

One caller has been separated from his wife for eight months and is now facing divorce. He believes he’s made significant changes in how he handles his anger, but his wife still isn’t convinced. So what does she actually need to see from him? And how can he begin rebuilding a sense of safety without constantly trying to convince her to save the marriage?

I also talk with a woman whose struggle with holding onto years of papers and belongings is keeping her from moving forward with her husband, and we break down how to make progress when you know what you need to do but still struggle to do it.

Then, I talk with a woman whose husband left during an affair. Now the affair may be over, his behavior toward her has started to change, and she’s wondering whether it’s time to tell him again that she still loves him, forgives him, and wants their marriage to work.

I'm Dr. Kimberly Beam Holmes. After a decade transforming marriages at Marriage Helper, I've realized that the greatest tragedy isn't a failed relationship; it's the person who stays stuck and never experiences the fullness of all God intended.

The Way You Show Up is for the high-achiever who is tired of "fine."

We're dismantling the average life to build an exceptional one—using the science of the PIES: Physical, Intellectual, Emotional, and Spiritual health.

If you want to save your marriage, go to Marriage Helper. If you want to master yourself and lead your legacy, stay here.

New episodes every Thursday.

Don't just exist. Show up.

🔗 Website: https://kimberlybeamholmes.com

🎥YouTube https://youtube.com/@kimberlybeamholmes

📱 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/kimberlybeamholmes

FREE MINI-COURSE: The First 72 Hours After a Marriage Crisis
https://bit.ly/4AzMPvm

When your marriage is falling apart, you want answers.

Why is this happening?
What did I do?
Can this still be saved?

In this episode, I take live calls from people asking exactly those questions.

Michael's wife filed for divorce and moved another man into their house. He's praying every day and doesn't know what else to do. My answer? Stop focusing on her. Focus on you. Be strong, calm, and gentle. And if you have to fight the divorce, fight it because you love her, not because you want to punish her.

Jessica's husband wants a separation, and the reasons he's giving don't add up. So how do you get to the real one? You ask again. You don't get defensive. And you understand that the way you start that conversation decides how it ends.

Stan wants to know if an affair can change someone's attachment style. Short answer: yes. The better news? It can change back. But only through repair.

Three different stories.
Same patterns.

You'll probably hear yours in at least one of them.

If your spouse just said "I love you, but I'm not in love with you," or "I want a divorce," start with the free mini-course at the top of this description. It doesn't matter if that happened three days ago or three years ago. The principles still apply.

Until next week, stay strong.

I'm Dr. Kimberly Beam Holmes. After a decade transforming marriages at Marriage Helper, I've realized that the greatest tragedy isn't a failed relationship; it's the person who stays stuck and never experiences the fullness of all God intended.

The Way You Show Up is for the high-achiever who is tired of "fine."

We're dismantling the average life to build an exceptional one—using the science of the PIES: Physical, Intellectual, Emotional, and Spiritual health.

If you want to save your marriage, go to Marriage Helper. If you want to master yourself and lead your legacy, stay here.

New episodes every Thursday.

Don't just exist. Show up.

🔗 Website: https://kimberlybeamholmes.com

🎥YouTube https://youtube.com/@kimberlybeamholmes

📱 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/kimberlybeamholmes

For the first time on the show, I took your calls live. No scripts. No prep. Just real people in real crises telling me what's happening in their marriage and asking me what to do next.

Bhavesh in London caught his wife with a coworker, and now she's filed for divorce and put a restraining order on him. He's done everything she ever asked him to do, and she treats him like he's dead. He wants to know if he should give up.

Cindy in North Carolina had an emotional affair three years ago. Her husband says he'll leave the day their youngest turns 18. She's trying to work on herself, but she can't stop watching him. She wants to know how to take her eyes off him and put them back on her.

Tommy in Oklahoma was married 28 years when his wife walked out with no explanation. Now she's living with another woman, and the only time they talk is in a courtroom. He wants to know how to get her home.

If you're in any of these situations, one of these calls is going to sound a lot like your life.

Listen for what I tell them. Then do it.

I'm Dr. Kimberly Beam Holmes. After a decade transforming marriages at Marriage Helper, I've realized that the greatest tragedy isn't a failed relationship; it's the person who stays stuck and never experiences the fullness of all God intended.

The Way You Show Up is for the high-achiever who is tired of "fine."

We're dismantling the average life to build an exceptional one—using the science of the PIES: Physical, Intellectual, Emotional, and Spiritual health.

If you want to save your marriage, go to Marriage Helper. If you want to master yourself and lead your legacy, stay here.

New episodes every Thursday.

Don't just exist. Show up.

🔗 Website: https://kimberlybeamholmes.com

🎥YouTube https://youtube.com/@kimberlybeamholmes

📱 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/kimberlybeamholmes

Click here to submit your questions to be on the show! https://bit.ly/3Tv4287

Eight towels. Two blankets. Zero Amazon gift cards.

That's what my husband came home with after I asked him to do one thing.

So here's my question for you: how would you have responded in that moment?

Most people go one of three ways. Laugh it off. Snap and say "I asked you to do ONE thing." Or start diagnosing your spouse with weaponized incompetence and building a whole story around it.

I would have picked the middle one four years into my marriage. Not anymore.

Because one fight about towels won't end a marriage. It's the rupture that happens over and over and never gets repaired. That's what breaks people apart.

In this episode I walk through what I actually did instead, and why "if you don't have anything nice to say" might be the most underrated marriage advice in the South.

Then we get into Solving Marriage Mysteries. A woman whose husband just filed for divorce while they're still living in the same house with five kids, and she can't figure out how to stay calm. A man standing for his wife who is deep in limerence and just went through an abortion, asking if there's any hope left. And a wife whose husband wants a separation while they're having the best sex of their marriage, wondering if she's about to be used.

Those answers are honest. Some of them are hard.

After that we open Luke 9:23 through 26 in Study Scripture With Me. The disciples had a very specific expectation of who the Messiah was supposed to be. Jesus was about to disappoint every bit of it. And what he offered instead was better than anything they had imagined.

Deny yourself. Take up your cross daily. Follow me.

That's not a group assignment. In the original Greek it's personal. Singular. Yours.

I'm Dr. Kimberly Beam Holmes. After a decade transforming marriages at Marriage Helper, I've realized that the greatest tragedy isn't a failed relationship; it's the person who stays stuck and never experiences the fullness of all God intended.

The Way You Show Up is for the high-achiever who is tired of "fine."

We're dismantling the average life to build an exceptional one—using the science of the PIES: Physical, Intellectual, Emotional, and Spiritual health.

If you want to save your marriage, go to Marriage Helper. If you want to master yourself and lead your legacy, stay here.

New episodes every Thursday.

Don't just exist. Show up.

🔗 Website: https://kimberlybeamholmes.com

🎥YouTube https://youtube.com/@kimberlybeamholmes

📱 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/kimberlybeamholmes

Resources Mentioned 👀
The 24 Hour Repair Clock: https://bit.ly/4iaXPIF
Click here to submit questions: https://bit.ly/3Tv4287

I knew I shouldn't have done it.

I did it anyway. Twice in one day.

First I blew out my knee doing double unders I had no business doing. Then I blew up a conversation with my husband over something I should have let go.

Fourteen years of teaching this stuff. And I still said the sassy thing. Then I said the second sassy thing, the one that turned a fine moment into a fight.

Here's what I want you to hear. We didn't fix it before bed. We fixed it the next day, on my drive home from the gym, hobbling instead of running.

That's the point. The goal was never perfection. The goal is knowing when to repair.

Every marriage tears. Like a meniscus. What separates the couples who make it isn't that they stop tearing. It's that they notice fast and repair fast, over and over, for years.

In this episode:

Why I pushed when I knew better, and what a push actually looks like in real time.

Solving Marriage Mysteries with three questions from around the world. New Zealand asks whether no contact or contact with pushes does more damage. The Philippines asks how to handle an in-house separation when your husband is emotionally involved with someone else. Perth asks how to work on your PIES when a chronic illness limits what your body can do.

Study Scripture With Me on Matthew 6:19-21. Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. And what that has to do with how you spend your days.

Then the Hot Seat, where I blind-rank ten things people say to their spouse from bad to worst. I got stumped early.

Stay strong.

I'm Dr. Kimberly Beam Holmes. After a decade transforming marriages at Marriage Helper, I've realized that the greatest tragedy isn't a failed relationship; it's the person who stays stuck and never experiences the fullness of all God intended.

The Way You Show Up is for the high-achiever who is tired of "fine."

We're dismantling the average life to build an exceptional one—using the science of the PIES: Physical, Intellectual, Emotional, and Spiritual health.

If you want to save your marriage, go to Marriage Helper. If you want to master yourself and lead your legacy, stay here.

New episodes every Thursday.

Don't just exist. Show up.

🔗 Website: https://kimberlybeamholmes.com

🎥YouTube https://youtube.com/@kimberlybeamholmes

📱 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/kimberlybeamholmes

Resources Mentioned In This Episode:
Follow Lucas LeFevre on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lucasplefevre/
Sign up for the Solo Spouse Masterclass: https://bit.ly/3SD36yn
Submit your questions here! https://bit.ly/3Tv4287

"I don't even know who I am anymore."

I heard it over and over in a coaching lab a few weeks ago, and it broke my heart. Different people. Different stories. Same sentence.

You didn't lose yourself overnight. You gave yourself away one yes at a time. To a marriage. To a family. To a career. To everyone who told you who you were supposed to be.

And then one morning you woke up and couldn't find yourself anywhere in it.

I've been there.

A few years ago I took a four month sabbatical. Deleted the email apps. Deleted Slack. Stopped working entirely. And the first thing I felt wasn't peace. It was terror. Because my biggest fear was that everything would be fine without me.

Then my pastor asked a question that wrecked me: Who were you before the world told you different?

In this episode I share what happened when I actually sat with that question. The 10 minute journaling practice that broke it open. The thought that broke through. The book that changed everything. And the vision God gave me that I never would have found if I hadn't stopped.

If you feel lost right now, this one's for you.

Also in this episode:

Solving Marriage Mysteries. Three of your questions answered. Is 16 months too long to save a marriage. What to do when your spouse says he's done but still says he loves you. And what a husband should do when he finally wakes up and she's already checked out.

Study Scripture With Me. John 3:25-30. John the Baptist knew exactly who he was and exactly who he wasn't, and his joy was complete either way.

Unpopular Opinions. Why life isn't about being happy. Why physical attraction has almost nothing to do with how you look. And why almost no one is a narcissist and everyone is a narcissist.

Ask and it will be given to you. Seek and you will find. Knock and the door will be opened.

Be persistent. God is a Father who gives good gifts.

Comment below and tell me what you want to see more of on this show. I read every single one.

Share this with someone who needs it.

Until next week, stay strong.

I'm Dr. Kimberly Beam Holmes. After a decade transforming marriages at Marriage Helper, I've realized that the greatest tragedy isn't a failed relationship; it's the person who stays stuck and never experiences the fullness of all God intended.

The Way You Show Up is for the high-achiever who is tired of "fine."

We're dismantling the average life to build an exceptional one—using the science of the PIES: Physical, Intellectual, Emotional, and Spiritual health.

If you want to save your marriage, go to Marriage Helper. If you want to master yourself and lead your legacy, stay here.

New episodes every Thursday.

Don't just exist. Show up.

🔗 Website: https://kimberlybeamholmes.com

🎥YouTube https://youtube.com/@kimberlybeamholmes

📱 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/kimberlybeamholmes

Referenced in this episode:
Episode on Feedback: https://youtu.be/NnAZXA32dqc
Click Here to Submit Your Questions: https://bit.ly/3Tv4287

You have emotional wounds you can't trace.

You don't know where they came from. You just know something hurts every time life bends the wrong way.

I scraped my knee in a hotel gym in Taiwan and had no idea how I did it. But for days after, every squat, every step, I felt it. That's exactly how emotional wounds work.

Here's what most people miss.

Your body forms a scab for a reason. It protects the wound so the skin underneath can heal. Rip it off, and you don't heal faster. You scar.

Most of us are ripping ours off constantly. Every time we feel angry. Every time we get defensive. Every time we let one person's comment define who we are.

In this episode, I walk through the four stages of healing an emotional wound. Protection. Repair. Clearing. Drop off.

Protection is your feelings signaling that something needs care. Repair is the hard work most people skip. Clearing is getting the voices out of your head that never should have been let in. Drop off is what happens when you finally heal instead of scar.

I also share the moment someone told me I didn't have what it takes to do this work, and what my dad said that changed how I heard it.

Then we get into Solving Marriage Mysteries, where I answer three of your questions, including whether there's still hope when your spouse is convinced you're toxic and why Marriage Helper isn't counseling.

Plus Study Scripture With Me in Genesis 12, where Abram brings Lot along even though God told him to leave his father's house. God doesn't give Abram the promise until Lot is gone. What are you still carrying that God never asked you to bring?

And my kids take the hot seat. Let's see if I taught them anything.

I'm Dr. Kimberly Beam Holmes. After a decade transforming marriages at Marriage Helper, I've realized that the greatest tragedy isn't a failed relationship; it's the person who stays stuck and never experiences the fullness of all God intended.

The Way You Show Up is for the high-achiever who is tired of "fine."

We're dismantling the average life to build an exceptional one—using the science of the PIES: Physical, Intellectual, Emotional, and Spiritual health.

If you want to save your marriage, go to Marriage Helper. If you want to master yourself and lead your legacy, stay here.

New episodes every Thursday.

Don't just exist. Show up.

🔗 Website: https://kimberlybeamholmes.com

🎥YouTube https://youtube.com/@kimberlybeamholmes

📱 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/kimberlybeamholmes

Submit Your Questions for the Q&A Segment: https://bit.ly/3Tv4287

Most husbands have no idea what they're doing wrong.

Not because they don't care. Because they're convinced emotions are supposed to follow logic.

She shouldn't feel disrespected when I correct her grammar. She should thank me for telling her the idea was bad. That's not cruelty. That's a man trying to run a relationship like a system.

Today I put my husband Rob on the hot seat and asked him the questions I usually get asked. What actually makes a marriage happy. What men do without realizing it's destroying things. Where husbands go when they stop talking to their wives. Whether he agrees with everything I teach.

He doesn't. And he says so.

He also talks about the hardest season we ever went through, the year we spent apart, and the man he became when he got back. I share the moment I stopped trying to manage his emotions and started working on my own. That shift changed everything, and not in the way I expected.

Then we study Psalm 13 together. It's the psalm for the seasons when God feels silent. When you're begging for an answer and getting nothing back. I talk about Mother Teresa's journals, the practice of stacking stones, and why looking backward is sometimes the only way forward.

And I'm back on the hot seat, answering your rapid fire questions. This week Jason had me hold a plank the entire time. I made it 4 minutes and 23 seconds and he ran out of questions before I ran out of arms.

Keep sending the questions. Just go easy on me.

I'm Dr. Kimberly Beam Holmes. After a decade transforming marriages at Marriage Helper, I've realized that the greatest tragedy isn't a failed relationship; it's the person who stays stuck and never experiences the fullness of all God intended.

The Way You Show Up is for the high-achiever who is tired of "fine."

We're dismantling the average life to build an exceptional one—using the science of the PIES: Physical, Intellectual, Emotional, and Spiritual health.

If you want to save your marriage, go to Marriage Helper. If you want to master yourself and lead your legacy, stay here.

New episodes every Thursday.

Don't just exist. Show up.

🔗 Website: https://kimberlybeamholmes.com

🎥YouTube https://youtube.com/@kimberlybeamholmes

📱 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/kimberlybeamholmes

Referenced in this Episode 👀
Marriage Helper Couples Workshop: https://bit.ly/3PPVE1C
Stop Trying To Fix Your Marriage Fast: https://youtu.be/GxRUPCSELq8
Submit Your Questions for the Q&A Segment: https://bit.ly/3Tv4287
Save My Marriage Course Waitlist: https://bit.ly/3RBHr9n

Most people try to reconnect by talking about the relationship.

That's exactly why it doesn't work.

You sit them down. You bring up the distance. You ask them how they're feeling. And they shut down harder than before.

I did that with my husband for years. Coffee. Serious face. "Can we talk about us?" It never once went the way I hoped.

What finally worked was something much smaller.

In this episode, I walk through the three steps I used to reconnect with my husband ten years ago. It's also the same three steps I just used with my 11 year old daughter.

Step one. Make intentional time. Not them. You. If you're the one who sees the gap, you're the one who takes the first step to close it. That means putting down the thing that pulls you away. The phone. The work. The hobby. Whatever it is for you.

Step two. Get interested in what they're interested in. Not what you wish they cared about. Not what you want to do together. What lights them up. People who don't feel safe talking about their fears will still talk for an hour about the thing they love.

Step three. Start with something fun so it can go somewhere deep. Laughter comes before honesty. Safety comes before vulnerability. You cannot skip to the hard conversation and expect them to meet you there.

For me and my daughter, it was nachos and the World Cup. For me and my husband, it was Renaissance festivals and a shooting range.

It works in every relationship. Marriage. Kids. Anyone you've drifted from.

If the connection is weak, you move closer to the source.

Also in this episode: I answer three of your questions, including what to do when your spouse distrusts therapy, how to reconcile when you no longer share the same view of marriage, and what to do when you're doing all the work alone and running out of steam. Then we read Psalm 73 together in Study Scripture With Me, and I take on the Hot Seat while holding a wall sit longer than I should have.

Walk. Don't run. There is still hope.

I'm Dr. Kimberly Beam Holmes. After a decade transforming marriages at Marriage Helper, I've realized that the greatest tragedy isn't a failed relationship; it's the person who stays stuck and never experiences the fullness of all God intended.

The Way You Show Up is for the high-achiever who is tired of "fine."

We're dismantling the average life to build an exceptional one—using the science of the PIES: Physical, Intellectual, Emotional, and Spiritual health.

If you want to save your marriage, go to Marriage Helper. If you want to master yourself and lead your legacy, stay here.

New episodes every Thursday.

Don't just exist. Show up.

🔗 Website: https://kimberlybeamholmes.com

🎥YouTube https://youtube.com/@kimberlybeamholmes

📱 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/kimberlybeamholmes

Learn more about the Marriage Helper Couples Workshop: https://marriagehelper.com/couples-workshop/

You are such an idiot.

That is what I said to myself. Out loud. For days.

Over a pair of AirPods.

I left the case on my bumper, drove off, and lost them. Second time I've lost a case. The first time I mailed it away in an Amazon return box.

And I spent the next week beating myself up about it.

Here's the problem with that. The things you think don't stay in your head. They move to your heart. They come out of your mouth. And when you think badly about yourself, you start thinking badly about everyone around you.

What you think about is what you keep thinking about. So make it good.

In this episode, I talk about how to break the negative self-talk spiral and actually move forward instead of ruminating.

Then we get into your questions.

How do you show a reluctant spouse you're a safe place when the only contact you have is sporadic texts about money? Short answer, you can't manufacture the opportunity. But you can be a good steward of the ones you get.

Are kids really resilient after divorce? They are. But they shouldn't have to be. I get honest about why so many people repeat that line, and what the research actually says about kids growing up in high conflict co-parenting.

And what do you do when your spouse says he's leaving so the kids won't have to watch a bad marriage? Fix the marriage. That is the model your kids need. Two people going through something hard and figuring out how to repair it.

In Study Scripture With Me, I'm in 1 Samuel 28. Saul goes to a medium at Endor because God stopped answering him. David asks for the ephod and waits. Two men asking God the same kind of question. One wanting permission, one wanting direction.

If God agrees with everything you want to do, it might be worth asking who you're actually listening to.

Then we close with the hot seat. Ten words or less. Including one piece of advice I've given for years that I've had to correct.

I'm Dr. Kimberly Beam Holmes. After a decade transforming marriages at Marriage Helper, I've realized that the greatest tragedy isn't a failed relationship; it's the person who stays stuck and never experiences the fullness of all God intended.

The Way You Show Up is for the high-achiever who is tired of "fine."

We're dismantling the average life to build an exceptional one—using the science of the PIES: Physical, Intellectual, Emotional, and Spiritual health.

If you want to save your marriage, go to Marriage Helper. If you want to master yourself and lead your legacy, stay here.

New episodes every Thursday.

Don't just exist. Show up.

🔗 Website: https://kimberlybeamholmes.com

🎥YouTube https://youtube.com/@kimberlybeamholmes

📱 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/kimberlybeamholmes