October 10, 2025 • 11 mins
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Do you ever wonder how to feel more alive in your marriage again? That spark you felt in the beginning doesn’t have to fade forever. In this video, Kimberly Beam Holmes, CEO of Marriage Helper, shares 5 proven ways to reignite passion, intimacy, and connection with your spouse so you can feel fully alive in your relationship again.
Research shows that “being madly in love” is often just limerence—a temporary stage fueled by brain chemistry. But real, lasting love is built on intimacy, passion, and commitment. The good news? You can rekindle that passion and start thriving together no matter where your marriage is today.
Inside this video, you’ll discover:
- How a shared purpose can pull you and your spouse back together when life pulls you apart
- Why adventure and play boost bonding and create lasting memories
- The role of emotional safety and vulnerability in building trust and passion
- How affection and desire keep love fresh through small daily actions
- Why supporting each other’s growth leads to a stronger, more secure marriage
If you want to know how to feel more alive in your marriage, these five steps can transform the way you love, connect, and grow together.
👉 Watch until the end for practical ideas you can start using today to bring intimacy and passion back into your marriage.
If you're struggling in your marriage, don’t wait. Get our FREE resource: The 7 Steps to Rescue Your Marriage 👉 https://marriagehelper.com/free
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
SPEAKER_00 (00:00):
What can you do in order to feel more alive in your
marriage?
If you're anything like themajority of marriages, then
after a couple of years, thatfeeling of being madly in love
with your spouse may have wornoff.
And that's not a bad thing.
In fact, what we know fromresearch is that many times when
people initially start datingand fall in love, that feeling
(00:22):
that they are experiencing, thatfeeling of being madly in love,
where you're thinking about theother person 85% of the time,
where all you can do is imagineyour future together, all of
those things, that is calledlimerence.
And limerence isn't a bad thing,but the thing about limerence is
it always fades.
So even if you and your spousewere in limerence with each
(00:45):
other when you were dating, andthen you get married, and then
you realize that over time thatlimerence has worn off, it
doesn't mean that you marriedthe wrong person.
It doesn't mean that yourchemistry is gone.
Biologically, limerence has toend in order for something
stronger and deeper and moretime committed to take over
(01:06):
because limerence is all aboutthe here and now, so to say.
It's about that feeling in themoment.
It's those initial biochemicalreactions that happen in our
body that lead us to quoteunquote fall madly in love with
each other.
But we can't live like thatforever.
Something more stable and morelong-lasting has to end up
taking over.
(01:27):
And that's what's called love.
We know that love is comprisedof three elements.
It is intimacy, it is passion,and it is commitment.
But even with that passion partbeing an important part of
falling in love and staying inlove for the lifetime of your
marriage, passion can also wane.
Passion is actually, when welook at those three components
(01:49):
to love, the first thing totypically fade in a
relationship, but it doesn'thave to.
The thing about passion, it'snot just about sex, it's about
feeling oneness with each other,yearning for the other person,
desiring to be around the otherperson.
And that passion is what canhelp you feel alive in your
(02:10):
marriage.
So today I'm going to talk aboutfive things that you can do to
keep that passion alive so thatyou can feel alive in your
marriage.
The first is shared purpose.
Now you might be thinking, howin the world is that going to
increase this desire for onenessfor my spouse?
Here's why.
Because when life starts to getcrazy, it starts to pull you
(02:34):
apart.
You start working on your job,your spouse starts working on
their job, maybe the kids starthaving different things they
have to go to.
And so you're not spending asmuch time together as you used
to.
You have two different thingsthat you might be pursuing in
your life, and life startsripping you apart.
But when you have a sharedpurpose to bring you back
together, it allows you tocontinue to cultivate that
(02:58):
feeling of oneness and thatcraving for oneness of being
with each other because this isthe thing.
This is the habit, this is theritual, this is the focus that
you have that's going to bringyou back together when life
tries to pull you apart.
I have a close friend and herand her husband, one of the ways
that they have shared purpose isby volunteering together.
(03:19):
Every weekend that they can,they're going and doing food
drives with a local nonprofitthat feeds food and does uh like
grocery delivery and things likethat for people who are in need
of food.
And so even though they both arehigh-driven career individuals,
this is their way of constantlycoming back together every week,
nearly.
(03:39):
It's nearly every week that theyhave that one thing that they do
together that gives them ashared purpose.
So, what could that be for you?
That's an important question tofigure out.
Shared purpose, actually, whenwe talk about the love path,
which is marriage helper's modelof how people fall in love and
stay in love and havelong-lasting love, we know that
(03:59):
a shared purpose, what we callaspirations, is that fourth and
final step of the love path.
It's the one that most peoplenever even get to.
But when the marriages do getthere, they have stronger, more
satisfying, long-lastingmarriages than ever before.
It's the quintessential level ofthe love path that you want to
(04:20):
try and get to.
And so I'm telling you one ofthe best things up front, find a
shared purpose.
It will increase your passion.
It'll help you feel more alivein your marriage.
The second thing that you can doto feel more alive in your
marriage is adventure and play.
There's some really fun thingsthat happen neurologically and
neurochemically within us whenwe have new experiences.
(04:42):
And so I encourage you to go andtry something new with your
spouse.
It actually helps you to bondbetter to that person when two
people are experiencingsomething new together.
There's some dopamine stuff thathappens in there, a lot of other
fun stuff.
But the bottom line of it isyou're experiencing something
new together, which is a sharedmemory.
(05:02):
It's many times leads to thoseinside jokes that we talk about
and something that you'llremember for years to come.
Honestly, this one, Adventureand Play, is one of my favorite
ways to keep passion alive inthe marriage.
And this is the way my husbandand I are constantly, constantly
continuing to come back togetherwhen life tries to pull us apart
(05:23):
because we both love to travel.
We absolutely make it a pointevery year to at least do one
vacation to a new place neitherof us have been to, just the two
of us, and then at least onetime a year with our kids to go
somewhere new as well.
We both love travel.
Not everyone loves travel.
It boggles my mind.
I can't understand it, but noteveryone loves travel.
(05:45):
And so even if that's not you,that's okay.
You can do things in your localarea for newness.
Go and try a new restaurant, goand hike at a new park, go and
do something new, try a newhobby together, try dancing
together, watch a new showtogether.
But the idea is do somethingnew.
Get out of your comfort zone,laugh and play.
(06:05):
These are the things that likelydrew you together to begin with.
And so these are the things thatcan help reignite intimacy and
passion now and really help keepyour marriage feeling alive.
But here's the thing (06:17):
feeling alive in your marriage isn't
just about excitement, it's alsoabout intimacy, which brings us
to point number three, which isemotional safety and
vulnerability.
At our core, while we want to bedesired, more on that in a
minute, we also want to feelsafe and soothed and secure in
(06:38):
our relationships.
One of the best things that wecan do to increase passion is
actually work on how good we aredoing at being our spouse's best
friend.
Because at the end of the day,we don't really want to be
passionate with someone that wecan't trust.
So creating that emotionalsafety, knowing that you can
(07:01):
share anything with your spouseand they will love and accept
you, and that your spouse canshare anything with you and you
will love and accept them forwhat they share with you is
incredibly important.
In fact, acceptance is the keyto love.
It is the absolute basis of howlove happens.
It is that intimacy part of thethree parts of love.
(07:22):
We have passion, we havecommitment, we have intimacy.
While we're talking about how toincrease passion, we can't
negate the fact that intimacyhas to increase as well.
In fact, one of the things mydad, who is a sexologist, has
always said is that everythingthat happens inside the bedroom
affects what happens outside thebedroom.
And everything that happensoutside the bedroom affects what
(07:45):
happens inside the bedroom.
So if you're wanting to feelmore alive in your marriage,
start by trying to be a greatfriend, your spouse's best
friend.
And that is going to paydividends.
The fourth way to feel morealive in your marriage is
affection and desire.
Pursue your spouse.
We want to be desired.
(08:06):
We want to feel like we aredesirable.
And so the way that you can dothis, because right now you're
the one listening to this video,begin being flirty again with
your spouse.
Tell them how great they look.
Maybe just squeeze yourhusband's arms and be like, ooh,
look at those muscles.
Or look at your wife and say,man, you look really good today.
(08:28):
Do the things that you did toflirt with your spouse in the
beginning.
Physical touch matters here.
Holding each other's hands whenyou're watching a movie or
walking down the streettogether.
Hugs, so important.
A 20-second hug and a 20-secondlong kiss each day can do
wonders for the amount ofpassion that you feel for each
(08:48):
other.
So affection and desire andshowing your spouse that you
have affection towards them andyou still desire them,
incredibly important.
And then the fifth way that youcan increase intimacy and
passion and feel more alive inyour marriage is by supporting
each other.
You want to grow individuallyand you want to grow together.
(09:10):
In fact, marriages start to diewhen people in them stop
growing.
That's what happens to plants.
That's what happens to so manythings, and it happens to us as
people and in our marriages aswell.
When we stop growing, ourmarriage starts dying.
So continue to grow together,but also growing separately, as
(09:31):
long as it doesn't tear youapart from each other.
Being able to support each otherin your individual goals and
pursuits is a huge part of whathelps us to feel seen, helps us
to feel like we have an identityoutside of our marriage and
allows us to actually end upbeing more confident inside of
our marriage, have more of asecure attachment inside of our
(09:52):
marriage.
Again, as long as those desiresaren't ripping us apart.
So my husband is in flightschool to become a commercial
pilot.
And while we are well aware ofthe time, the effort, the
investment that that takes intohim pursuing that, I support
him.
In fact, there has rarely been atime that I have not supported
(10:14):
my husband in anything that he'swanted to do, even when those
things haven't always paid offthe best.
Because I know the importance ofshowing my husband that I
support him and how much that'sgoing to come back to him
supporting me, which he does.
He understands that for my job,I have a lot of travel, speaking
(10:35):
engagements, things that I needto do, and he supports me.
That also fills me up so thatwhatever he wants to do, I
support him as well.
Now, that doesn't mean that weboth just have blind eyes to
each other and say, do whateveryou want to do.
We talk about it.
We talk about the pros, we talkabout the cons, we pray about
it.
But at the end of the day, weget to a place where we can have
(10:56):
mutual support for each other,even if compromise has had to
happen along the way, because weknow that that leads to growing
intimacy, growing passion, andhelping us feel more alive in
our marriage.
My name is Kimberly Beam Holmes,and I'm the CEO at Marriage
Helper.
As always, we would love for youto subscribe to this channel as
we are always putting out newand hopefully relevant content
(11:17):
and some fun content.
In fact, I highly recommend thatthe next video you watch be some
fun ideas for date night thatyou can use that are free all
the way to something that youpay for, but something that
could really help to spruce upyour next date night.
What can you do in order to feel more alive in your
marriage?
If you're anything like themajority of marriages, then
after a couple of years, thatfeeling of being madly in love
with your spouse may have wornoff.
And that's not a bad thing.
In fact, what we know fromresearch is that many times when
people initially start datingand fall in love, that feeling
(00:22):
that they are experiencing, thatfeeling of being madly in love,
where you're thinking about theother person 85% of the time,
where all you can do is imagineyour future together, all of
those things, that is calledlimerence.
And limerence isn't a bad thing,but the thing about limerence is
it always fades.
So even if you and your spousewere in limerence with each
(00:45):
other when you were dating, andthen you get married, and then
you realize that over time thatlimerence has worn off, it
doesn't mean that you marriedthe wrong person.
It doesn't mean that yourchemistry is gone.
Biologically, limerence has toend in order for something
stronger and deeper and moretime committed to take over
(01:06):
because limerence is all aboutthe here and now, so to say.
It's about that feeling in themoment.
It's those initial biochemicalreactions that happen in our
body that lead us to quoteunquote fall madly in love with
each other.
But we can't live like thatforever.
Something more stable and morelong-lasting has to end up
taking over.
(01:27):
And that's what's called love.
We know that love is comprisedof three elements.
It is intimacy, it is passion,and it is commitment.
But even with that passion partbeing an important part of
falling in love and staying inlove for the lifetime of your
marriage, passion can also wane.
Passion is actually, when welook at those three components
(01:49):
to love, the first thing totypically fade in a
relationship, but it doesn'thave to.
The thing about passion, it'snot just about sex, it's about
feeling oneness with each other,yearning for the other person,
desiring to be around the otherperson.
And that passion is what canhelp you feel alive in your
(02:10):
marriage.
So today I'm going to talk aboutfive things that you can do to
keep that passion alive so thatyou can feel alive in your
marriage.
The first is shared purpose.
Now you might be thinking, howin the world is that going to
increase this desire for onenessfor my spouse?
Here's why.
Because when life starts to getcrazy, it starts to pull you
(02:34):
apart.
You start working on your job,your spouse starts working on
their job, maybe the kids starthaving different things they
have to go to.
And so you're not spending asmuch time together as you used
to.
You have two different thingsthat you might be pursuing in
your life, and life startsripping you apart.
But when you have a sharedpurpose to bring you back
together, it allows you tocontinue to cultivate that
(02:58):
feeling of oneness and thatcraving for oneness of being
with each other because this isthe thing.
This is the habit, this is theritual, this is the focus that
you have that's going to bringyou back together when life
tries to pull you apart.
I have a close friend and herand her husband, one of the ways
that they have shared purpose isby volunteering together.
(03:19):
Every weekend that they can,they're going and doing food
drives with a local nonprofitthat feeds food and does uh like
grocery delivery and things likethat for people who are in need
of food.
And so even though they both arehigh-driven career individuals,
this is their way of constantlycoming back together every week,
nearly.
(03:39):
It's nearly every week that theyhave that one thing that they do
together that gives them ashared purpose.
So, what could that be for you?
That's an important question tofigure out.
Shared purpose, actually, whenwe talk about the love path,
which is marriage helper's modelof how people fall in love and
stay in love and havelong-lasting love, we know that
(03:59):
a shared purpose, what we callaspirations, is that fourth and
final step of the love path.
It's the one that most peoplenever even get to.
But when the marriages do getthere, they have stronger, more
satisfying, long-lastingmarriages than ever before.
It's the quintessential level ofthe love path that you want to
(04:20):
try and get to.
And so I'm telling you one ofthe best things up front, find a
shared purpose.
It will increase your passion.
It'll help you feel more alivein your marriage.
The second thing that you can doto feel more alive in your
marriage is adventure and play.
There's some really fun thingsthat happen neurologically and
neurochemically within us whenwe have new experiences.
(04:42):
And so I encourage you to go andtry something new with your
spouse.
It actually helps you to bondbetter to that person when two
people are experiencingsomething new together.
There's some dopamine stuff thathappens in there, a lot of other
fun stuff.
But the bottom line of it isyou're experiencing something
new together, which is a sharedmemory.
(05:02):
It's many times leads to thoseinside jokes that we talk about
and something that you'llremember for years to come.
Honestly, this one, Adventureand Play, is one of my favorite
ways to keep passion alive inthe marriage.
And this is the way my husbandand I are constantly, constantly
continuing to come back togetherwhen life tries to pull us apart
(05:23):
because we both love to travel.
We absolutely make it a pointevery year to at least do one
vacation to a new place neitherof us have been to, just the two
of us, and then at least onetime a year with our kids to go
somewhere new as well.
We both love travel.
Not everyone loves travel.
It boggles my mind.
I can't understand it, but noteveryone loves travel.
(05:45):
And so even if that's not you,that's okay.
You can do things in your localarea for newness.
Go and try a new restaurant, goand hike at a new park, go and
do something new, try a newhobby together, try dancing
together, watch a new showtogether.
But the idea is do somethingnew.
Get out of your comfort zone,laugh and play.
(06:05):
These are the things that likelydrew you together to begin with.
And so these are the things thatcan help reignite intimacy and
passion now and really help keepyour marriage feeling alive.
But here's the thing (06:17):
feeling alive in your marriage isn't
just about excitement, it's alsoabout intimacy, which brings us
to point number three, which isemotional safety and
vulnerability.
At our core, while we want to bedesired, more on that in a
minute, we also want to feelsafe and soothed and secure in
(06:38):
our relationships.
One of the best things that wecan do to increase passion is
actually work on how good we aredoing at being our spouse's best
friend.
Because at the end of the day,we don't really want to be
passionate with someone that wecan't trust.
So creating that emotionalsafety, knowing that you can
(07:01):
share anything with your spouseand they will love and accept
you, and that your spouse canshare anything with you and you
will love and accept them forwhat they share with you is
incredibly important.
In fact, acceptance is the keyto love.
It is the absolute basis of howlove happens.
It is that intimacy part of thethree parts of love.
(07:22):
We have passion, we havecommitment, we have intimacy.
While we're talking about how toincrease passion, we can't
negate the fact that intimacyhas to increase as well.
In fact, one of the things mydad, who is a sexologist, has
always said is that everythingthat happens inside the bedroom
affects what happens outside thebedroom.
And everything that happensoutside the bedroom affects what
(07:45):
happens inside the bedroom.
So if you're wanting to feelmore alive in your marriage,
start by trying to be a greatfriend, your spouse's best
friend.
And that is going to paydividends.
The fourth way to feel morealive in your marriage is
affection and desire.
Pursue your spouse.
We want to be desired.
(08:06):
We want to feel like we aredesirable.
And so the way that you can dothis, because right now you're
the one listening to this video,begin being flirty again with
your spouse.
Tell them how great they look.
Maybe just squeeze yourhusband's arms and be like, ooh,
look at those muscles.
Or look at your wife and say,man, you look really good today.
(08:28):
Do the things that you did toflirt with your spouse in the
beginning.
Physical touch matters here.
Holding each other's hands whenyou're watching a movie or
walking down the streettogether.
Hugs, so important.
A 20-second hug and a 20-secondlong kiss each day can do
wonders for the amount ofpassion that you feel for each
(08:48):
other.
So affection and desire andshowing your spouse that you
have affection towards them andyou still desire them,
incredibly important.
And then the fifth way that youcan increase intimacy and
passion and feel more alive inyour marriage is by supporting
each other.
You want to grow individuallyand you want to grow together.
(09:10):
In fact, marriages start to diewhen people in them stop
growing.
That's what happens to plants.
That's what happens to so manythings, and it happens to us as
people and in our marriages aswell.
When we stop growing, ourmarriage starts dying.
So continue to grow together,but also growing separately, as
(09:31):
long as it doesn't tear youapart from each other.
Being able to support each otherin your individual goals and
pursuits is a huge part of whathelps us to feel seen, helps us
to feel like we have an identityoutside of our marriage and
allows us to actually end upbeing more confident inside of
our marriage, have more of asecure attachment inside of our
(09:52):
marriage.
Again, as long as those desiresaren't ripping us apart.
So my husband is in flightschool to become a commercial
pilot.
And while we are well aware ofthe time, the effort, the
investment that that takes intohim pursuing that, I support
him.
In fact, there has rarely been atime that I have not supported
(10:14):
my husband in anything that he'swanted to do, even when those
things haven't always paid offthe best.
Because I know the importance ofshowing my husband that I
support him and how much that'sgoing to come back to him
supporting me, which he does.
He understands that for my job,I have a lot of travel, speaking
(10:35):
engagements, things that I needto do, and he supports me.
That also fills me up so thatwhatever he wants to do, I
support him as well.
Now, that doesn't mean that weboth just have blind eyes to
each other and say, do whateveryou want to do.
We talk about it.
We talk about the pros, we talkabout the cons, we pray about
it.
But at the end of the day, weget to a place where we can have
(10:56):
mutual support for each other,even if compromise has had to
happen along the way, because weknow that that leads to growing
intimacy, growing passion, andhelping us feel more alive in
our marriage.
My name is Kimberly Beam Holmes,and I'm the CEO at Marriage
Helper.
As always, we would love for youto subscribe to this channel as
we are always putting out newand hopefully relevant content
(11:17):
and some fun content.
In fact, I highly recommend thatthe next video you watch be some
fun ideas for date night thatyou can use that are free all
the way to something that youpay for, but something that
could really help to spruce upyour next date night.
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