If you don’t mind me asking, what was your experience of marital counceling? How does that work? What are people expected to do? What is supposed to happen during the process? I know that you can only tell me about your own experience, but maybe it could give me an idea of what to expect, as a general guideline.
No, I don’t mind your asking, although in our case, I don’t think it was particularly effective. Perhaps because DH really thinks that our problems are caused by ME, so he personally has no responsibility to make changes…And he’s got some fair amount of narcissism, or empathy deficit syndrome
which makes it difficult for him to actually CARE enough about anyone else to want to change.
But anyway…The counselor will usually start with asking why you’re there. He or she will ask each person to put into words what the problems are. Then you work on a plan of action to fix those things. You will probably have “homework assignments” such as being told to go on a date, or spend time talking about or doing some activity. I would suggest getting some sort of timeline and having a true plan with goals and measurable progress, not just open-ended talking about problems, which I do not believe is ultimately helpful. Endlessly rehashing painful experiences does not reduce their power, but reinforces them, IMO.
Communication is usually addressed…The counselor would ask DH a question and watch my response, and if I cried, would draw DH’s attention to that response and ask him what he thought it meant. “What do you think your wife is feeling right now?” That showed me that he did see the lack of empathy and tried to help - but DH usually didn’t understand at all…that made me even sadder. Most men don’t quite understand female emotions but it went deeper than that…He usually didn’t care a whole lot that I even WAS crying. But the counselor will help you learn to actually talk and listen better, and hopefully speak the truth of yourselves.
One problem with us is that our sexual relationship was a big part of the problem, yet we could not discuss it with the counselor. The subject was never approached, and even if it had been, the counselor would not have known how to address it, since he was Christian and not Catholic. Sex in and of itself was never the primary problem, but our other problems affected our sex life and the lack of communication and intimacy only increased the gap between us sexually. I am sure we would have made more progress had THAT specific area been addressed. It is an area where our differences have been highlighted and that causes pain for both of us.
I was insistent that we only see a Christian counselor (would have preferred a Catholic, but didn’t find any) but now I understand that part of the problem was that my husband felt ganged-up on and could not cooperate in that situation. The counselor and I were speaking a common language that my husband does not speak. So in your case, I would be open to a secular counselor that is excellent at what he does, WITH THE CAVEAT that you always have to be aware of any bias toward divorce. It should not happen with a true professional - they should always work for the client’s goals and not their own agenda - but everyone has his/her biases. After 2 separate tries at counseling with the same therapist, I gave up and will let DH contact the next therapist if we decide to try again. We saw one for our son that he liked a lot, I’m willing to cooperate because if there is a good rapport on his part, perhaps we will get farther along.
The risk, of course, remains that DH will discover that he really just wants out of the marriage in the end, but that could happen without counseling too.
I have faith that one day, he will let go of his anger at God and return to the devotion he had as a child.
I don’t know what has caused my husband’s atheism. I hope he will be cured of it in this life, even if I never find out about it.