Kimberly Brenner LCSW - Marriage Counseling

12/16/2025

Are You Drowning in Your Marriage?

There’s a kind of drowning no one talks about.
Not the dramatic kind—
the quiet kind.

The drowning that happens while you’re still smiling, still functioning, still doing everything you’re supposed to do.

It’s when you’re in a marriage…
but you feel like you’re slowly disappearing inside it.

Maybe you’re carrying the emotional weight for both of you.
Maybe you’re always the one trying, fixing, initiating, smoothing.
Maybe you’re exhausted from being the only one who seems to care about connection.

Or maybe you’ve stopped speaking up altogether
because it feels easier than being misunderstood.

That’s how drowning happens—
not all at once,
but one unspoken need, one ignored feeling, one silenced truth at a time.

And the scariest part?
On the outside, everything looks “fine.”
But inside, you’re gasping for air.

A healthy marriage shouldn’t suffocate you.
You shouldn’t lose yourself to keep the peace.
You shouldn’t have to shrink to keep things together.

When a woman finds Her Gutsy Voice, she stops drowning…
because she finally comes up for air.
She tells the truth.
She sets the boundaries.
She stops carrying what was never hers to hold.

If you feel like you’re sinking in your marriage, it’s not failure.
It’s a signal.
A call back to yourself.
A call to rise.
A call to breathe again.

And inside SHE HOW DECIDES, I teach women to do exactly that.

12/16/2025

What if building a 6-figure business didn’t mean sacrificing your marriage—or yourself?
💥

In this episode of Her Gutsy Voice, I sit down with Jean Kuhn, a powerhouse business strategist helping women rise in business and in love.

If you’re a woman entrepreneur ready to claim your voice, your money, and your life—this one’s for you.

🎧 Listen now: How Jean Kuhn Helps Women Entrepreneurs Build 6-Figure Businesses & Thriving Marriages
🔗
How Jean Kuhn Helps Women Entrepreneurs Build 6-Figure Businesses & Thriving Marriages
https://youtu.be/-d4DUBF7c8E

12/14/2025

12/13/2025

When we forget to connect to our spouse we run the risk of waking up and not knowing who we are married to. Learn how to stay connected.

12/13/2025

12/13/2025

Try not to cry...

The power of emotional advertising (the music, the imagery, the storytelling). For more emotional ads, click this playlist: https://youtube.com/playlist?li...

12/02/2025

https://www.facebook.com/groups/gutsywife
That child grew up to be a Power Pleaser, and now I help women heal from People Pleasing and Power Pleasing.

Most people talk about the People Pleaser — the woman who over-gives, tiptoes, and tries to earn love.
But the Power Pleaser is just as common… and just as misunderstood.

She doesn’t beg for love.
She proves she doesn’t need anything.
She controls, manages, organizes, and leads everything because she doesn’t trust anyone — especially her husband — to show up the way she needs.

She calls it strength.
He feels it as distance.
And soon, the marriage starts to suffocate under the weight of her “I’ve got it.”

Here’s how she unknowingly creates unhappiness:

1. She runs the marriage like a mission, not a partnership.

She steps in because it’s easier.
She takes over because she can do it faster.
She leads everything because she can’t handle inefficiency.

This leaves her exhausted…
and him feeling unnecessary.

When one person carries all the power, the other eventually stops trying.

2. She doesn’t allow herself to receive.

Love.
Affection.
Support.
Help.

He tries… she critiques.
He offers… she rejects.
He attempts… she redoes it her way.

Over time, he backs off.
She interprets that as emotional abandonment.
And the cycle deepens.

3. She confuses self-protection with self-silencing.

Power Pleasers aren’t loud — they are contained.
They hold their emotions tight, locked behind competence and control.

But silence doesn’t create safety — it creates distance.
He never really knows what she needs…
and she resents him for not knowing.

Unspoken needs always breed unhappiness.

4. She makes decisions alone, then resents feeling alone.

She doesn’t ask for his input.
Doesn’t lean on him.
Doesn’t let him contribute emotionally.

She calls it independence.
He feels uninvited.
Then she feels unsupported.

This is how marriages drift into parallel lives.

5. She uses strength as armor, not connection.

Power Pleasers learned early:
“Being vulnerable gets me hurt.”
So they protect, perform, and stay strong… even when they’re breaking inside.

But marriage cannot survive on emotional distance, even if everything else looks functional.

Strength without softness creates loneliness — for both.

So What’s the Real Issue?

A Power Pleaser doesn’t break her marriage because she’s too strong.
She breaks it because she’s too alone.

She doesn’t know how to:

let love in

trust another person’s presence

allow imperfection

ask for what she wants

lean without collapsing

soften without fearing loss of control

And this disconnection — from herself and him — is what creates unhappiness in the marriage.

The Good News? This is fixable.

When a Power Pleaser finds Her Gutsy Voice, she learns to:

receive love instead of earning it

express needs without fear

let go of control without losing herself

create emotional connection instead of emotional management

allow partnership instead of performing strength

That’s when everything shifts.

👉 A marriage doesn’t thrive because a woman is strong.
It thrives when she is strong and emotionally available.

When she stops Power Pleasing,
and starts truth-telling,
she becomes the woman — and partner — she was always meant to be.

11/29/2025

Grateful for every couple who chooses healing, honesty, and love.
This work is sacred, and it’s an honor to walk beside you.
Happy Thanksgiving, dear ones.
Sending you all the love in the world — and remember to Be Love.

11/26/2025

Make Me Feel Important

What most people truly want isn’t power, money, or fame — it’s to feel seen.
To know that their presence matters.
To feel important, not invisible.

This isn’t vanity — it’s human.

When I look back at the women’s movement of the 1960s, I don’t see a fight for superiority. I see a fight for visibility. Women weren’t just demanding equal rights; they were demanding to be recognized as individuals — not as someone’s title or role, but as someone in her own right.

And yet, decades later, many women still feel unseen — in their marriages, workplaces, friendships, and even within themselves.

Here’s the truth:

The world can’t see you until you show it who you are.

That’s why, in the 1980s, I created The Spiritual Women’s Network — a space for women to gather, not to blend in, but to shine. A place where individuality was celebrated inside a community of belonging. Women shared their gifts, their stories, their brilliance — and they were witnessed.

Today, that mission is just as urgent.

Because when a woman knows who she is and allows herself to be seen — she doesn’t just change her life, she changes the energy of every room she walks into.

So my invitation is simple:

Stop waiting to be seen.
Start showing the world who you are.

That’s where importance is born — not from validation, but from visibility.

Ready to Be Seen?

If you’re a woman who’s done being invisible — and you’re ready to step into your power, your voice, and your identity — I invite you to join my private Facebook community:

She Who Decides

It’s a space for women who are ready to stop hesitating and start becoming.
A place to be witnessed, supported, and celebrated as the individual you are.

JOIN MY PRIVATE FACEBOOK GROUP: SHE WHO DECIDES

Because the moment you decide to be seen…
everything changes.

— Kimberly Brenner, The Gutsy Goddess

11/25/2025

The moment you stop waiting… everything shifts.
There’s a quiet pull you’ve been feeling — that whisper that says you’re ready for more clarity, more self-trust, more you.

She Who Decides is for the woman who’s done doubting herself and ready to choose her own life with intention, softness, and power.

Inside, you’ll create your own Directional Mantra — your inner compass for the days life feels loud.
And you’ll step into my private weekly space, The Gutsy Goddess Gatherings — this Wednesday at 8 PM CST.

If your heart is pulling… trust it.
You’re not meant to wait.
You’re meant to remember.

Join She Who Decides → https://www.facebook.com/share/g/1Ce828q4k8/?mibextid=wwXIfr

Sending you all the love in the world… and remember to Be Love.
— Kimberly Brenner