3 Hidden Triggers Behind Every Argument You Have

You think the fight was about the medicine.

It wasn't.

It was never about the medicine, the dishes, the text you forgot to send, or who said what first.

Every argument you've ever had walked in carrying three invisible passengers.
 Your past.
 Your personality.
 Your point of view.

And your spouse brought their own three into the room, too.

In this video, I break down what's actually happening inside both people the moment a conversation starts to heat up. Why something as small as "please pick up my prescription" can turn into a full-blown rupture in under thirty seconds.

I'll walk you through the exact fight my husband and I had over a grocery run. What I felt. What he felt. And the three things I did in the hour after to flip it.

Calm down.
 Get curious instead of furious.
 Lean in.

Because here's the truth. You can't put the egg back in the shell once it cracks. But you can decide what happens next.

You can clean it up and pretend it never happened.
 Or you can flip it and make something out of it.

That's the difference between a rupture that quietly ends a marriage and a repair that makes it stronger.

And it's rarely the big betrayals that break people. It's the small cracks in the day-to-day that nobody ever goes back to fix.

I'll show you how to spot your three, understand theirs, and turn the next heated moment into a repair instead of a wound.

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.

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Don't just exist. Show up.

🔗 Website: https://kimberlybeamholmes.com

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Transcript

From Breakdown To Growth

SPEAKER_02 0:00

Years ago, I was crying on my bathroom floor. My marriage was falling apart. And that was the day I stopped waiting for everything to change, and I started changing myself. I did it by working on my pies physically, intellectually, emotionally, and spiritually. Am I perfect? Nope. Still seeking, still trying. And I'm bringing you with me. This is the Dr. Kimberly Beam Holmes

What Happens When Tempers Spike

SPEAKER_02 0:27

Show. What do you do when things start to get heated? And I'm not talking about in the bedroom. I'm talking about when you're having a discussion with someone and they say something that really pisses you off. And things start to get heated. Kind of like the pavement in the middle of a southern summer heat wave where we're under heat advisory, all the things. Here's what typically happens in that kind of situation when an argument starts to happen, a fight is beginning. Either you're gonna say something that you're ultimately going to regret because you can't hold it in anymore, or you're gonna be the kind of person who just takes everything in, you push it down until eventually you explode. Either way, there are things happening in your conversation that's ultimately affecting the relationship. And if you don't handle it the right way, then it begins to break the relationship. Just like if you drop an egg on the floor, it's ruptured. You can't put it back together, but you have to make a decision of what are you gonna do from this point forward? Either you can just clean up the egg, you can try to make everything look like it never happened and never deal with the real issue, or you can try and figure out how to flip it. In the next couple of minutes, I'm gonna be teaching you what's going on in both people when a conversation starts to turn south, when you are beginning to enter into an argument. We're gonna be talking about the three things going on in each person and what you can do to ultimately flip this, deal with the real situation that's going on. And instead of the rupture that is threatening to tear your relationship apart if it doesn't eventually get repaired, I'm gonna teach you how to repair it. But we are under a heat advisory. So I'm gonna go inside to teach you this next part. Follow

Past Personality And Point Of View

SPEAKER_02 2:25

me. So in every relationship, there are two people. And each person in that relationship brings three things into the relationship with them. The first one is they bring their past. They bring their upbringing, their childhood, their degrees, their misses in life, their failures, everything that's happened to them in their life, they are bringing into the relationship with them. The second one is they bring their personality. This is their behavioral temperament. This is the way that people are wired. And everyone is going to be different. So someone's past shapes how they show up, but also their natural personality that God gave them, that they were nurtured with, that shows up as well. And then the third thing that people bring into their relationships is their point of view. Now, all of this is happening in each individual, in each relationship, which is why when we try and have some of these conversations, even if they're not supposed to be difficult conversations, even if you're just asking your husband to go pick up your prescription at the pharmacy, it can ultimately end up leading to fights. It's these fights that rupture relationships, just like we ruptured the egg and it fell onto the hot pavement. Rupt happen in small things, but ruptures can also happen in big things. But the thing that is more likely to end a relationship is when ruptures continue to happen in the small details, in the day-to-day, and repairs are never made. You know clearly that when an affair happens inside of a relationship, when something that's huge and trust breaching occurs in a relationship, of course, everyone realizes we have to repair from this. Do they? Not always, but it's clear that that happens. But it's these small things, like when you ask your husband to do something for you, or when you share a really vulnerable part of your life with someone else, that really what we are doing is we are trying to grow the relationship, but we are also testing. We are testing the other person to see, can I trust you? Because ultimately, at the core of all of us, what we are looking for in relationships that we care about, like a marriage relationship, even like with uh with your parents or even with your kids, but I'm primarily going to focus on the marriage relationship, the romantic relationship right now, is we are all wanting to know is this person going to be there for me no matter what? And these three things, past personality, and point of view, affect how each of us sees that, how each of us interprets, will this other person be there for me? And this is why so many ruptures happen, because I may see things one way, and my husband may see things another. Let me explain it this

The Missing Medicine Argument

SPEAKER_02 5:36

way. A couple of weeks ago, I asked my husband to please go to the grocery store and pick up my medicine. I was just really tired that day. The pharmacy was about to close, and I couldn't bring myself to do it. And so he said, Yes, for sure. I'm happy to do it. And just before he walked out the door, he said, Text me what you need. And right before he left, I said, Oh, there's some other things that I need you to get from the grocery store as well. And he said, Great, just text it to me. So I texted him the other things that I needed from the grocery store. He comes back an hour later. He has all of the things, the Oreos, the heavy whipping cream. I was clearly in the mood to make something sweet and delicious. All of that was there. But I didn't have my medicine. And so I he was in the bathroom, like in the in the closet, changing, getting ready for bed. And so I went to him and I said, Hey, uh, did you get the medicine? And he responded and he said, Well, that wasn't in the text. It wasn't on the list. Now, friends, at this point, there's a lot of things going on through my mind. The first thing going on through my mind, my point of view, was happening here to where I said to myself, the whole reason that I asked you to go to the store was to pick up my medicine. Immediately I felt anger. Immediately I felt like somehow this is my fault, and I don't think it actually is. But let's break down why I felt that way. Ultimately, before I tell you what, before I break down how I felt, what I said to him in that moment was, you've got to be kidding me. And I said it just like that. So in that moment, after I said that, he knew that I was, I was getting defensive. He felt me beginning to be critical. And he said, Hey, it wasn't on the list. Why do you not appreciate anything I do for you? Things were heating up. A rupture was beginning to happen. And the question at this point was, what were we going to do about it? You can't put the egg back in the shell after it's begun to be cracked, but you can begin to do something to change, to flip how it's going to go. Now, here's what was going on and why things were heating up. And this is the part that most people don't take the time to really go back and understand, or even in the moment to understand, because we're so caught up in the feeling that we feel in the moment. I am angry. How dare you say that? I want to say something back to you. So, in the moment, we had my past. This was one of the things that was going through my head. Not consciously, but subconsciously, maybe even to some extent unconsciously. Because to give you a brief background, there have been many times in my life, in even before Rob came into my life, where I felt like other people, especially men, were taking advantage of me. They were taking advantage of how nice I was, or something to that extent. But I really felt like there were several situations and I can remember every single one of them, where I felt like I trusted someone and they ended up breaking my trust. They ended up taking advantage of me, sometimes knowingly and sometimes unknowingly, like they didn't have bad intentions. It's just how it how it ended up happening. And so through that, I was also taught, because I'm a female and I am a Christian, grew up in a Christian household. There was also this messaging that was taught to me from an early age of you just need to be nice. In fact, sometimes it was explicitly stated to me, Kimberly, if you want to be successful in life, sometimes you just have to learn how to get along with people who aren't always gonna be the easiest people to get along with, who aren't always gonna treat you right, but you've just got to figure out how to do that. And I took that as, well, I just have to be walked over at some point because that's the nice Christian thing to do. That's the thing that women should do. You can't act certain ways, otherwise, you're gonna be labeled a certain word. And so ultimately, for 30 years of my life, there were many times that I didn't stand up for myself. I didn't, I went along with things or decisions that even though I felt bad about it, I felt like I couldn't speak up about it because I needed to be nice. Ultimately, that led to resentment. And again, a lot of this happened even before my husband ever came into the picture in my life. And the way that I internalized a lot of that was if something doesn't go right, it's my fault. It's because I didn't show up the right way, because I wasn't nice enough, because I didn't set my boundaries hard enough. If anyone took advantage of me, ultimately it wasn't on them. It was on me. And so for decades of my life, I have held on my shoulders this weight of somehow everything is my fault. And I just need to do better next time. But that's also the thing through the years that I've become more resentful towards. And anything that even kind of smells like that to me, I have a strong reaction to, which is exactly what was happening with my husband. When he said, you didn't text it to me, immediately, right or wrong, what I felt within me was he's trying to blame this on me. Now, was it true? Yeah, I didn't send it in the text message, but my point of view was also true. I did ask him to go to the store from the get-go in order to get this medicine. And so this point of view correlated with my past, where I began to think to myself, no way is he gonna peg this on me. This is not my fault. Again, I'm not saying I'm right, I'm not saying I'm wrong. I'm saying this is what was happening in me, which also correlated with my personality. If you haven't guessed, I'm a pretty strong-willed individual. I directly address conflict. I do not mind sharing how I feel. And sometimes the words that come out of my mouth happen faster than my mind can filter them. And so that's what led to in that moment, me saying, You've got to be kidding me. Internally, what I was feeling was, I want to trust my husband. I want to know that he's gonna be there for me. And in this moment, I feel like he's not because I asked him to do something and he's turning it back around on me instead of just saying I'm sorry, instead of just saying I forgot. What was really the core issue for me was the blame. I didn't want to feel like this was my fault. Again, not saying right or wrong, but I think when I honestly, if I take a look back at the situation, could I have put it in the text? Sure. But also the reason that he ended up, that my husband ended up reacting so strongly back to me, is because he brought his own set of this into the conversation. His past. He has felt really unappreciated by me in the past. That is a trigger point for him. He has been, for many years of our marriage, especially after we brought the kids home with us, the he has been the stay-at-home dad for a lot of it. He has still provided for our family, but he has taken on a lot of that work of making sure they get to school on time, picking them up, making sure that they have everything they need. And that's harder for him to do. And I think it's also harder because men don't typically have that role. And so for him, appreciation is a big thing, especially because there have been times in the past where I haven't shown that appreciation to him. I've kind of taken advantage of it. And so that's that is a tender point for him, because that's happened in the past. But also from his point of view, he did say, hey, I need you to text me what you need. What I understood that to mean was text me the extra stuff. What he was actually asking was, please put everything in there so I don't forget. And then he has a different personality than me. He's very logical, he's very analytical, he's very by the book. This is what we need to do. He ultimately what he wants, what he, another another thing that goes back to his past for him is please just listen to me. Please respect me enough to listen to me and to do the things that I'm asking you to do. Like it's a respect issue for him. So these two things you can begin to see how they intersected in something as simple as please go pick up the medicine from the grocery store. And he forgot. Honestly, that's not a big deal. I don't care that he forgot to pick up the medicine from the grocery store. And if we're being completely honest, by the time he got there, the pharmacy was closed. So we ended up having this huge fight. Yeah, I wouldn't call it huge. It was a fight. We definitely got in a disagreement. There was definitely a rupture that was happening in our relationship in that moment. Because ultimately, after he said, You don't appreciate anything I do, I knew that this was not, this was not going well. All I really wanted him to do was say he was sorry. I just didn't want to feel like the blame was on me, like I wasn't good enough. But guess what? He also didn't want to feel like he wasn't good enough. Ultimately, he was sorry. He ended up saying that later. He was sorry, and he felt like he screwed up. And it was hard for him to admit that. Now, there's other parts of our past that played into this a little bit. If you're we're not going to get into attachment right now, but I lean, I we're both securely attached, but I lean a bit more anxious. He leans a bit more avoidant. And so previously in our marriage, whenever he would begin to lean out, whenever we would get into a fight and he would go, he would go to another room, or he would just want to zone out for a little bit after our fight. Whereas I want to work it out now. I don't like the unsettled nature of things. That's a combination of our attachment styles and our personality. And so I would follow him around. I would try and make this conversation happen so that it would have a resolution so I would feel better. But I was pushing him to have conversations before he was ready to do so. So then we ended up fighting and it ended up making everything worse. Well, I've learned better since then. So when this conversation went south, I said, I'm gonna give him space. For the next hour, I just let him cool off. And I took that time to do three things.

Calm Down Get Curious Lean In

SPEAKER_02 16:32

I took that time to flip it. I turned, I took that time to instead of figure out how we're just gonna push this under a rug, act like it never happened, how can we turn this into something that ultimately ends up being a repair instead of just staying ruptured? So the first thing I did was calm down. It was a good thing I didn't follow him around the house because in the past when I would do that, I was not calm. And I was still just really trying to get him to see my side. And it didn't help anything. So first thing is to calm down. The second thing is get curious instead of furious. I could have taken that hour to just sit in my anger. And I'm not gonna lie, for the first couple of minutes I did, but eventually got to the point where I said, you know what? How did he take that? I tried to put myself in his point of view. I tried to understand what was the thing that I did that I can take ownership of, that I can apologize for, where I'm not putting the whole blame on myself, like maybe I would have in the past, where I said, all of this is my fault. Clearly, I can't do anything right. No, that's not healthy. That's not the way we want to do this. But what is it I could take ownership of? Well, I should have not had that retort as soon as he said that he forgot. Instead of me saying, Are you kidding me? I could have simply said, I understand. Tomorrow, would you mind going back and getting it for me? And then the third thing was lean in. I didn't avoid the subject. I allowed time to pass, and then I went into the bedroom. He was laying on the bed, scrolling on his phone. I went into the bedroom and all I did was I just sat on the bed. Now, my husband has done a lot of work himself as well. So I can't guarantee every husband in the world would respond this way, but minded. I sat on the bed. That's all I had to do before he said, I'm sorry for reacting that way. I'm sorry for getting mad about what you said. I just felt bad that I forgot to do the most simple part of the whole thing. You see, for him, he wanted to know that I was gonna still be there for him. He wouldn't have consciously thought of it that way. But ultimately, he didn't want to feel like a failure. He didn't want to feel like he wasn't good enough. And I know that this is such a tiny thing, but this is the deep-seated feelings that ends up leading to a lot of the defensiveness and criticism and contempt and stonewalling that we have in the relationships that we have, the way that we end up that we end up having these conversations that can heat up and lead to these arguments because there are these feelings deep-seated underneath. And we don't consciously realize it. But when you replay the tape in your mind, you can begin seeing, even in some of the fights you've probably recently had with people that you love, what your past, your personality, and your point of view, how those three things intertwined in order to lead to at least your side of that fight and how it got so hot. But if you can even take it a step further, and this is the part that really takes it to the next level. When you get curious instead of furious, not just about what's going on with you, but even trying to put yourself in their shoes from their perspective, that can allow you to lean in even better. I, of course, apologized to him too about the way that I reacted, about how I got so defensive so quickly. And here's the thing: your emotions, you can't control the emotion that you feel within any given moment. The anger that I felt, I couldn't just stop that from happening. Instead, though, I have to learn and continue to learn how to not let that feeling guide my actions or guide the words that are coming out of my mouth. I've gotten a lot better at it over the years, but I'm still a work in progress, as is Rob, my husband, as are you. But when you can take this framework into a conversation when it's heating up, then you begin to see how when you calm down, when you get curious instead of furious, and then when you lean in, own your part, heal your part of the rupture. That is where repair really can happen. That's when you can take the egg that's just simmering on that hot pavement, flip it, and still make something useful out of

Listener Q And A On Marriage

SPEAKER_02 21:11

it. Now it's time for my favorite part of the show where I get to answer your questions. So, Jason, what questions am I gonna be answering today?

SPEAKER_00 21:21

Okay, first question that we have. They want to remain anonymous, but they said, My husband doesn't want a romantic relationship anymore. He wants to co-parent for now and eventually divorce. There's no real timeline for the divorce. We still live together, we co-parent, and there is no conflict. I focus on myself as recommended. I try to avoid push behaviors and try to focus on the pulls. I'm cooperative concerning the children. To what extent does the peaceful co parenting and sharing a home confirm his conviction that we are better off as co parents? Doesn't it confirm his idea that we shouldn't be romantic partners? After all, there is no conflict or tension right now. How will pull behaviors? Behaviors work in this situation.

SPEAKER_02 22:01

Yeah. So my first question in this situation is why does the husband want out? And I know that it's not stated there, but uh what was stated was he has this plan that he wants us to just co-parent for a while and then eventually get divorced. So number one, why does he want out? And number two, why are you just going along with this? Or or are you? I understand that one of the things we always teach at Marriage Helper is do not push, don't do things that are going to push your spouse away. But I think a lot of people hear that and they think, well, that means I'm just not supposed to do anything to make them angry. So then I just need to be okay with what they do because if they're not angry, then they'll like me more, and then that'll eventually bring them back. But that's not exactly how that works. There's certain things that you should not put up with. We call them either essential or necessary pushes, and I'm not going to get into the definition of those right now. But there's some things that you need to do that are going to come across as a push to your spouse, but it's essential for you to do them, or it's necessary for you to do them because it keeps your dignity and your self-respect. So without being able to talk back and ask you questions, the question I would ask for you to think on is why does your spouse want out? Why does he want out? That's going to give you the key of getting clarity. As we talk about at Marriage Helper, there's calm down, get clarity, stop your pushes and your pulls, or start your stop your pushes, start your pulls. So you want to get clarity. Why does he want out? And then number two, are you just going along with this because you don't want to make him mad? And if so, maybe you're approaching this the wrong way.

SPEAKER_00 23:46

Okay, next question. This is from John in Tennessee. He says, We have one income. My wife typically manages the budget since she is a stay-at-home mom. Our extra resources have been directed towards her quote unquote dreams, among other things. And this is taking a toll on our family finances. When I do bring it up, I'm accused of quote unquote never supporting her dreams or trying to control or manipulate her. Our marriage is basically her just being a very expensive roommate. How can I discuss financial boundaries with my wife when she has been unfaithful and is done with our marriage?

SPEAKER_02 24:18

Okay, so that last sentence just piles on a bunch of extra stuff. Because I think the core of this isn't necessarily the wife and her dreams that you're sick of feeling like you're funding. The core issue is you don't trust your wife. And therefore, you're looking at all of these other ways that you don't trust her and you're focusing on those, but that's the core issue. That's the key issue. If she hadn't have been unfaithful, then yeah, this might be driving you crazy. You need to have a hard conversation, fine, but you can do that. You're nervous to do that, maybe you don't feel nervous, but you're not doing that for some reason. And in fact, can you read the last sentence again?

SPEAKER_00 24:55

Uh he said, How can I discuss financial boundaries with my wife when she has been unfaithful and is quote unquote done with our marriage?

SPEAKER_02 25:02

Okay. So you have a woman who you don't trust and you don't trust her to look for the good of the future of your relationship because she's the one saying that she's done with the marriage. So then the question here is really one step back from this is how do you rebuild trust? But the step back even before that is why is she done? What happened when she had these affairs? Why does she say that she wants out? What is it that has led to this situation happening? That's where we need to focus our attention. This is getting clarity. I said this with the last, the last question that we just answered. But at Bear Telberg, we have a seven-step process. Number one is you calm down, you get in control of your emotions because you can't actually deal with emotional issues when your emotions are driving the show. So calm down. Number two is you want to get clarity. A lot of people will bring in all of these extracurricular things that are happening. I'm not saying they're not important, but they're not the core of the issue. The whole part about step two of getting clarity is getting down as best as you can to the core issue that's actually going on. If your wife is done with the marriage and wants out, then she's likely not caring about the finances because she is in a headspace of not respecting you right now, not respecting the future of the relationship. So what you have to do is understand what's leading her to want out. Is it because she has been controlled by you? Would she say that she feels like she has to do what you want her to do in order for your relationship to be good, in order for you to ultimately treat her like you love her? Or might she say that you've actually let her do anything that she's wanted and you haven't stood up to her? These are two different situations, but it matters. The one that might be pushing your wife away because you're going to handle each of them differently. If your wife feels like she's been controlled, then you need to tackle that one way. You don't want to go in just super strong, really confrontational, and say, you're spending too much money, you can't do this, because she's going, it is going to, it's going to continue to underline the narrative in her head, she already thinks of you. Instead, that would be a conversation of, hey, help me understand what's going on, help me understand why you want out of the marriage, not being defensive, completely listening, all of those things. But if you're the kind of person where you said, I've just let her do what she wants because I didn't want to cause friction, I didn't want to cause conflict. And so she's been able to spend whatever she's wanted without me saying anything, then you need to handle that a little bit differently. Where you go to her and you say, I understand that there are things that you want to do and I do want to be able to support you, but I also need to feel like you and I are on the same page. And for that to happen, these are the things that are necessary for me in this relationship. Now, that's a very high-level view of how to do this. This is the type of situation that really going through one of our programs at Marriage Helper will help you get the clarity you need to really have a plan on how best to handle this situation. This is where, as I've said many times before, 80% of what we teach is applicable in any situation, which is true. But then it's knowing which ones you need to use and which ones you don't need to use based on your personality, your attachment style, your past, your history, and your wife's. And knowing the intersection of those two things will really give you the game plan on how you need to move forward in this specific situation. That's what the current solo masterclass that Dr. Joe, my dad, and I are doing right now. We are guiding people through how to think about this. And so if that's something you're interested in, there's a link in the description where you can learn more and apply to be a part of our very space-limited group of people that we're working with for that.

SPEAKER_00 28:56

Before we go on to the last question, Dr. Kimberly, would you like to tell people how they can submit questions every week?

SPEAKER_02 29:02

Here's how you can submit questions. Follow me on Instagram at Kimberly BeamHolmes, H-O-L-M-E-S, like Sherlock, beam like Jim Beam, no relation. Kimberly, you get the thanks. So go find me at Kimberly Beam Holmes. Send me a DM, send me a message, just say the word pies, P-I-E-S, and it will automatically send you the form that you can then click and submit a question. You could choose to be anonymous. You can choose to actually in the future call in and talk to me on air. So that would be fun too. Submit your question there. I'd love to answer it.

SPEAKER_00 29:38

Okay, final question. This person says, My husband left seven months ago due to frustration within the 15-year relationship. And we have had very limited contact since then. We do not share friends or social circles, and neither of us use social media. In this situation, how would one spouse notice changes in the other who has been working hard on their pies for many months now?

SPEAKER_02 29:58

And it said there was no children?

SPEAKER_00 29:59

It does not say. They have very limited contacts, they don't share friends or social circles.

SPEAKER_02 30:04

There's probably not children, otherwise, she probably would have said that.

SPEAKER_00 30:08

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 30:08

So we'll go on the assumption that there's not. If that's the case, listen, it's harder. It is for sure harder. In those kinds of situations, as I say, you don't work on your pies just to show your spouse that you are the one who has changed. You do it because it is the best thing that you can do for you, regardless of what happens. This is not a manipulation strategy. Although some people listen to it and they take it as a manipulation strategy and say, well, this is the what I'm going to do. This is the tactic that I'm going to use. I'm going to work on being my best self. I'm going to flaunt it. I want him to see it in order for him to come back. If you go into it with that mindset, you're going to approach it a very specific way. And that's not the healthiest way to approach it. So my encouragement to you is don't go into it with that mindset. Go into it instead with this is what I'm going to do regardless, because it's the best win-win for my future, no matter what happens. And just work on yourself. Just work on becoming your best physically, feeling the best that you can, getting good sleep, exercising, eating healthy foods for the most part. Focus on growing your mind, engaging in hobbies, hanging out with friends, getting that those, that friend group, like a girl's night out, guys' night out. Go and do those things because it's what refills you and continues to and continues to make you a fascinating person to be around. And then emotionally continue doing things that help you become the most not necessarily positive person, but evoke positive emotions within other people, emotions that they enjoy feeling when they're around you. And then spiritually be the kind of person who is living in line with your beliefs and values. Do it because that's the best thing for you to do. And don't try and manufacture other situations. Just at some point, you just have to live life. And maybe that's what you should do here.

SPEAKER_00 32:10

Okay, that's all the questions for this week. We'll be back after this short commercial break.

Solo Spouse Masterclass Invitation

SPEAKER_02 32:15

So for the first time ever, you can actually work directly with me and Dr. Joe. It's a solo spouse masterclass. So if you are the person who is desperately trying to make your marriage work and you feel stuck, you want guidance, you want instruction, you want a plan of what you need to do. That's exactly what we're gonna guide you through over eight weeks together. We limit the amount of people that we work with in these classes that we do. And so it's only going to be limited to 12 people this coming time that we go through it. And we're gonna be helping you understand exactly what you're doing that's pushing your spouse away and exactly what you need to do to pull your spouse back based on a special assessment that Joe and I have created that creates a profile specifically about you, about how you're showing up in your relationship, and knowing the things you're doing that are pushing your spouse away based on you. There's general advice that we give all of the time. Don't do push behaviors, stop pleading, stop begging, stop whining. But depending on your personality style and depending on your attachment style actually depends on what you should do or what you should stop doing. And so that's what we're gonna be working with you in. If you want to do that, we would love to work with you. We have applications that are open. We go through every single one of them to see who is gonna be the best fit for this. And if you want to work directly with me and Joe for eight weeks, then go and fill out this application and put down your deposit because that helps us. We have a waiting list of people already. It just helps us understand who is ready. So you can do that by clicking the link in the description

Saul David And Submitting To Jesus

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below. This is one of my favorite parts of the show where I ask you to study scripture with me. And it's actually, as of last week, been one of the favorites of the show so far. So I would love to know what you think of it. As always, you can drop a comment in the comments below. One of the things that I have really been thinking about a lot lately is Saul and David. As I know, and maybe as you know, Saul and David were the first two kings of Israel. And there's a stark difference between both of them, between the kind of person they were, between the type of leader that they were, between what they did and what they didn't do, and ultimately what ended up happening to them. Saul, we know, kind of ended up going crazy in his leadership, whereas David was always called a man after God's own heart. And if I'm gonna be really honest with you, it's two leadership juxtapositions that I have been thinking about a lot over my years of leadership, but even especially over the past couple of weeks, as I as I have been studying 1 Samuel and just going through the Old Testament. And one of the things that I continue to think about is God, please don't let me be like Saul. Saul was very marked by his jealousy, his envy, his desire to be liked, his desire to be praised by the people. And honestly, the other thing he did was he didn't fully do what God asked him to do. I covered that in last week's study scripture with me about how God sent Saul to destroy the Amalekites, who were an enemy of Israel. And he said, utterly destroy them, destroy everything, destroy the people, destroy their stuff, don't take anything back with you. And Saul didn't do that. Instead, he did not kill the king, King Agog. He brought him back with him, and they took the best of the sheep, the best of the things out of that area, back with them. He didn't destroy it. And he tried to justify what he was doing by saying, Well, we're gonna offer these sheep to God as a sacrifice, tried to make it sound good. But the bottom line of it was he didn't do what God asked him to do. And it was after that God rejected him as king. But even after he rejected him as king, Saul still stayed in that seat for many, many more years and would continue to not fully follow God. And then we also see he struggled with this jealousy when David ended up coming into his courts to play music for him because Saul would have really disturbing dreams. He couldn't sleep well. There was an evil spirit, basically, that was sent to annoy and disturb Saul during the night. And the only way that Saul could get to soothe himself and comfort himself was by hearing music. And so David was a great musician. People in the courts said, hey, there's this really great guy who plays really good music. You should have him come play for you. And so he did. That's one of the ways that David ended up entering into the palace, but also the famous story about how David ended up killing Goliath, which also brought his place into the courts of King Saul. Now we're not going to get into all of that right now, although I do think there's a lot of really interesting correlations between how, even though David was a man after God's own heart, we even see that in the story of David and Goliath that David didn't have totally pure motives. He heard the soldiers talking about how the person who was able to defeat Goliath was going to get these things from the king. And he said, What was that? Tell me what you said again. Which is when his brother then saw what David was doing and said, I know your heart. Your heart is full of evil, which it wasn't, but the brother is acted as brothers do and gave false intentions or put false intentions about David in his own mind and said it about David, but it wasn't true. But then, as David goes out into the battlefield, he said, How dare you? He says to Goliath, how dare you say these things about God? My God is going to be with me today, and he is going to save the nation of Israel. Therefore, like, can both things be true? Can David have been wanting to defend the sovereignty and name of God, but also wanted the reward from the king? I think yes. David, as we see in scripture, was a man after God's own heart, but he wasn't a man devoid of wrongdoing. We see that in his leadership as well. We see it with how he ended up sleeping with a woman who was married to someone else, impregnating her, trying to kill her husband and make it look like a cover-up in order for him to not have to deal with the consequences of his actions. We see how his kingdom tried to be taken from him by his children. We see how he at times even got prideful. Even though he was a man after God's own heart, he still wasn't perfect. And so then, as I've been reading about them and just trying to understand the differences between Saul and David, and how can I be a person more like after God's own heart and less like a person who ends up being rejected by God, so to say, as Saul was. Yesterday at church, my the sermon ended up being about this era of the Bible, about Saul and about David. But it really put in perspective for me what I've been missing about the whole thing. And in the show notes, we're going to put a link to the whole sermon because it was really great. But overall, here's what ended up happening in 1 Samuel. In 1 Samuel 8 is when the people asked for a king to begin with. Because you see, God had made it to where he wanted Israel to be run without a king, because God was going to be their king. God was their king. And for several hundred years, God was their king. There were judges who enacted what was right on behalf of God for the people. So we had a period of judges. That's what we read about in the book of Judges in the Bible. But then there came a time where the people felt like the judges weren't good enough anymore. They looked around and they saw the nations around them and they said, We want a king like those nations have kings. God wanted Israel and his people to live and act a certain way, to be different than everyone else. But ultimately, what the people ended up continuing to come back to and to come back to and to come back to was, but we want to look like everyone else. And isn't this the continual struggle that we have in today's culture? We are called as Christians to be set apart as holy, to do things differently than the world does. Romans talks a lot about that. Be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Don't act in the way that everyone else does. You are not a citizen of this world. You are a citizen of heaven. Therefore, act in accordance with what has set you apart, how you are called to live. But we continue to be pulled back, we continue to be tempted. We begin to, we continue to be drawn in by the things we see around us, by the pride, by the success, by the money, by the fame, by the false idols that this world offers, which are successful at making us feel better at first. But we see in 1 Samuel 8 how the people say, We want a king to be over us, starting in verse 4. Then all the elders of Israel gathered together and came to Samuel, who was the prophet at that time at Ramah, and said to him, You are old, and your sons do not follow in your ways. Appoint for us then a king to govern us, like other nations. But the thing displeased Samuel when they said, Give us a king to govern us. Samuel felt like I can just imagine him feeling sick to his stomach when he heard this. Samuel prayed to the Lord, and the Lord said to Samuel, Listen to the people in all that they say, for they have not rejected you. You haven't done a bad job at representing me, is basically what God is saying here. They're not rejecting you, but they are rejecting me from being king from over them. And then Samuel ends up going back to them and he basically says, God's gonna give you what you want, and you're gonna end up regretting it because this king is going to take. It's going to take from you, he's gonna take from you, he's gonna take from you. And they said, basically, we're determined to have a king over us. They rejected God's ways for what they thought was better because they wanted to look like everyone else, they wanted to feel like everyone else, they felt like that was the right thing to do. And so the first king they get is Saul. And Saul wasn't a great king, we know that for sure. David was a better king, and as I've said, he's a man after God's own heart, but he still fell short. And in my study over the past couple of weeks of looking at these two kings and trying to understand what made one go off the rails so much, and how what was it about the other one that made him after a man, a man after God's own heart, I missed the point completely because the point was neither of them could ever do what God was only meant to do, which was to be the king over all of them, to be their only king. It wasn't they were never supposed to have a king. So it's not even about trying to not emulate Saul or be more like David, but how can we be even more like Jesus, but even more importantly than that, completely submitted. ourselves to him as the ultimate king of our lives. I want to go from here to Matthew. In Matthew, Jesus is telling a parable about a landowner who planted a vineyard and he put a fence around it and he dug a winepress in it and he built a watchtower. He set it up so that it could do its job, so that it could work, so that it could provide grapes, which would end up to wine. Then he leased it to tenants and went to another country. When the harvest had come he sent his slaves to the tenants to collect the produce. But the tenants seized the slaves, beat one, killed another, stoned another. Again he sent even more slaves, the landover, the landowner from far away, he sent even more and they treated them in the same way. Finally he sent his son to them, saying they will respect my son. They said to themselves instead, this is the heir, come let us kill him so we can get the inheritance. So they seized him, threw him out of the vineyard and killed him. Now when the owner of the vineyard comes, what will he do to those tenants? He said to them, he will put those wretches to a miserable death and lease the vineyard to other tenants who will give him the produce at the harvest time. This parable is a picture of what God is trying to say this is what you all have done. I have given you this land. I have given you this nation to rule, to run, to produce good fruits in fruits of love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, fruits of telling people about me, God, fruits of you following me as the one and only God. I've given you the opportunity to do that. But instead you have wanted it all for yourself. You've wanted it to do, you've wanted to do it your way. And when I have tried to send people to put it back on track, you you kill them because you ultimately want the abundance for yourself, the fruits of it for yourself. Not to give to me as it should be, but for your own good and your own glory. And then ultimately he sent his son, which in this case was God sending Jesus to earth to live as the actual king, which Isaiah predicts that he's going to come and he's going to be a king that looks different than the kings that you think he's going to look like. But he is the king who's ultimately going to be able to conquer death which no other person would have ever been able to do. And they kill him as well. Jesus said to them Have you never read in the scriptures the stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone. This was the Lord's doing and it is amazing in our eyes therefore I tell you the kingdom of God will be taken away from you if you continue to treat it in this way and given to a people that produces the fruits of the kingdom. Again in John 18 verse 36 Jesus answered My kingdom is not from this world. If my kingdom were from this world my followers would be fighting to keep me from being handed over to the Jews. But as it is my kingdom is not from here. They wouldn't want me to die. I mean they didn't the disciples also didn't want Jesus to die because they didn't quite yet understand the full picture but if Jesus were a king like a king of this world he wouldn't have wanted to die because then it would all be over but the thing that makes Jesus different than any other religion or false God is that he gave completely of himself in order to sacrifice and overcome the one thing that could separate us fully forever from God. And he overcame that in order to break it so that you and I would have full access and full inheritance which most kings don't do. The kings in 1 Samuel took and took and took but we know that John 316 says that for God so loved the world that he gave God gives that's why he is the good king. And so for me that there's a lot of people in the Bible that we learn from who are as messed up as I am and it's helpful to know I'm not alone but ultimately the one and only person to completely submit to as king and to give all of the false idols that I have and that you have to and submit to his authority and his leading and his model of how to live is Jesus. So I would love to know what is your takeaway from today's study with scripture put it in the comments I read every single one. Now on to the next part of the show okay it is now time for the hot

Hot Seat Rapid Relationship Questions

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seat.

SPEAKER_00 49:06

This is a segment where Dr. Kimberly has three minutes to answer three questions and we are changing the rules this week. Oh because last week it was too easy for her yeah I was just too good. Yeah so we are changing the rules this week last week it was she had three or she had one minute to answer each question after I finished reading the question. This week she has three minutes to answer three questions period including me reading the questions.

SPEAKER_02 49:37

Three total minutes three questions okay okay challenge accepted and we have a special guest we do have a special guest who's gonna be reading today we have Lenny the intern all the way from Germany just for this just for this one segment Lenny great I'm glad that you'll have me here today and and Lenny picked all the questions so I have no idea what's coming all right you ready?

SPEAKER_03 50:07

I'm ready okay let's get it so my first question is um is it bad if you secretly look through their phone because you're terrified to find out about the truth yes how bad is it if you're terrified to find out the truth that means that there's a fundamental break of trust in the relationship and therefore that's the problem.

SPEAKER_02 50:32

So that's what makes it bad. It's not even necessarily well it can be it it and then secondly trying to find their phone when you find it and then you find out the truth what what are you going to do with it? You're gonna have to either hold that in or you're gonna have to tell them what you've done, which is gonna make everything worse. The better thing to do if you are scared that they are cheating on you, they're hiding something from you is to simply go to them and ask them hey is there anything that you want to talk to me about start there.

SPEAKER_03 51:01

Alright awesome next one is it okay to secretly think about your ex while you're happy in your marriage is it okay to what was the first part? Is it okay?

SPEAKER_02 51:15

Is it okay? Yeah no it's not okay because you are thinking about altern acceptable alternatives so when we think about the when we look at the research the more that someone thinks about acceptable alternatives like someone else that they could be with when they think about what if I was married to the barista at Starbucks or whoever my ex my ex-boyfriend it actually makes them less committed to the current marriage that they're in it doesn't matter if you're completely faithful in your current marriage the fact that you're even considering it makes begins to erode your commitment.

SPEAKER_03 51:50

All right your spouse consistently criticize you how you raise your kids do you just swallow your pride or do you risk a massive blow up?

SPEAKER_02 52:03

I think there's a third option here. So instead of doing either of those things you have a conversation where you try and get on the same page. So if your spouse is always criticizing you, sit them down and say, hey what what's going on? What are the things that are bothering you most about this help me understand how you would like the kids to be raised and what the core issues are for you and just have a conversation where you are as I said at the beginning curious instead of furious seek to understand them first so that later you can also share your side and be understood.

SPEAKER_01 52:35

Where are we at? Where are we at? Where are we at?

SPEAKER_00 52:39

Lenny she's too good at this where are we where are we at?

SPEAKER_01 52:44

Lenny did a great job though.

SPEAKER_00 52:46

Lenny did do a great job uh you're at two minutes and 17 seconds the answer I mean not the answer is the questions were harder this week shout out Lenny shout out Lenny harder questions we're still we we can't stem her we're gonna have to we're gonna figure something out we're gonna figure something out you've gotta do now y'all the listeners may be listening and be like I don't like that answer.

SPEAKER_02 53:05

Like what if I'm answering them quickly but the listeners are like answers suck.

SPEAKER_00 53:10

Uh listeners if you think her answers suck. You gotta tell us tell us let us know. Does she need to go more in depth that's right with her answers. Is she answering completely or is she just trying to beat the time?

SPEAKER_02 53:23

Ooh that see that's where the rubber meets the road that's where the egg meets the pavement. Ah right there. I see what you did then now it's time for the challenge of the week.

Challenge Of The Week And Wrap

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So on the last episode I issued a challenge of the week to do a mile with me whether you run hike walk swim if you dare cycle whatever it is get out and do a mile. And here's how you can submit it to me for me to know that you did it in order for you to be able to win some of this special stay strong swag. Follow me on Instagram and tag me. Put something in your stories put it in a post or even just send it to me in a DM but I would love for you to share with other people how you are working on your pies as well. And every week for a person who finishes the challenge I will pick one lucky person to get some swag. The swag is still pending development just so you all know we're in the middle of designing it and getting it right now. But as soon as we have it, you better believe I'm gonna show it to you there's gonna be mugs, there's gonna be hats, there's eventually gonna be shirts. So the winner of this week's Going a mile with me is Chelsea from Texas. Super excited thanks for going a mile with me. And for this coming week's challenge, here's what we're gonna be doing. So last week we focused on the pea of the pies physical we got out and we did something. This coming week we're gonna focus on the eye intellectual attraction one of the things that can keep us intellectually fascinating is by continuing to do new and novel things. So this week here's what I want you to do do something new. I don't care what it is you can bake a new recipe try a new kind of food go to a new restaurant do something you've never done before like going to see a movie by yourself or maybe you try a kind of exercise or exercise class you've never done before or maybe you go and do a painting class or you download an app like Duolingo and learn a new language something that is new to you. I want you to do it this week again follow me on Instagram at KimberlybeamHolmes tag me in a story or a post of you doing this new thing and you'll be entered to win for next week. Well this brings us to the end of this week's show I would love for you to comment tell me what you loved tell me what you hated tell me what you want more of don't forget go follow me on Instagram where even more stuff happens during the week and until next week stay strong.