Setting the Scene

The average woman shudders at the thought of undergoing marital counseling. Even so, she has no idea how traumatic men find it. She mistakenly thinks a man’s refusal to see a marriage counselor proves he doesn’t love her.

So let’s put aside the notion of actually seeing a counselor. Instead, let’s face the implications of living with a woman who thinks she should humiliate herself and her husband by subjecting her marriage to counseling. Let’s together search for the best way to handle this awkward situation.

The Nitty Gritty

“If it ain’t broken, why fix it?” That’s the seemingly sensible attitude most men have toward relationships. In reality, however, a marriage is like an aircraft. Not only will regular maintenance and tuning significantly improve a plane’s performance and one’s enjoyment of flying, once something is allowed to break down, the whole plane usually crashes. Then it’s too late to fix anything.

It is astounding how many men suddenly get motivated to improve their marriage, only to discover that it is too late. Statistics indicate that most divorces are initiated by women and that most men did not even see it coming. Yes, their wives complained about various things, but the men weathered each storm and things always seemed to settle down again. Women typically let their anguish build up within them until they explode at the time of month when they are least able to hold it in any longer. After letting some words gush out they yet again suppress their marital pain and frustration. Men conclude that these cycles are simply a symptom of normal womanhood and so can be safely ignored. What is actually happening at such times, is that men are being granted an invaluable glimpse of what is really troubling their wives. Their marriage has a problem that can only be temporarily hidden.

Left untouched, such a problem will come back to haunt you and possibly destroy your marriage.

Most men who kill their marriage had no idea what they were doing. Confusion runs wild because none of us can climb inside our partners’ brains to evaluate just how serious a matter is. No one can feel another person’s pain. We can only guess.

Men regularly underestimate how much their wives are hurting and overestimate their wives’ ability to tolerate marital disappointments. Husbands tend to assume women are like hypochondriacs, making a big fuss about nothing, when most wives are actually stoically trying to endure things they find almost unbearable. If your wife is an exception and really does complain without reason, this is a particular concern because at any moment she could cry, ‘Wolf!’ and it be genuine.

Wives are easily shattered. Not realizing that they have married delicate crystal, husbands think it’s safe to treat their wives as if they are made of rubber and will bounce back. The consequences of this misconception are frightening.

A significant reason for men so tragically misreading the seriousness of their marital situation is that the sexes are so different. What for one partner is essential for marital survival might hardly matter at all for the other.

If a woman thinks a marriage counselor is needed, it’s as serious as a warning light on an aircraft’s instrument panel. You ignore it at your peril. To the pilot, everything seems to be functioning perfectly, but the warning light reveals things his own senses cannot detect. To wait until it is obvious that the plane is in trouble would be suicidal. The warning light indicates that now is the critical moment – the one window of opportunity before it is too late. If he is to avoid disaster he must disregard his own perceptions and believe what the instruments are telling him.

No matter how happy you are with your marriage, it takes just one person to file for divorce. As it takes two wings to fly, so it takes two people to keep a marriage from crashing. If one wing is about to fall off, the condition of the other wing makes no difference. You know how your wing is going, but only your wife knows exactly how her wing is faring. If one partner says there is a serious problem in the marriage, that marriage is headed for disaster, no matter how secure the other partner feels. Your certainty that your wife will tough it out has no relevance as to whether you will end up yet another statistic in the long line of men shocked to suddenly find themselves without a marriage.

Alternatives to Counseling

Who can best determine exactly how much your wife will tolerate before walking out on the marriage? Given the uniqueness of every person, the person most able to know what for a specific woman is essential for marital survival should not be a counselor, but the woman herself. You have access to this goldmine of unique and vital information. Have you made full use of this invaluable resource? Do so, and there is a good chance that you will eliminate the need for a counselor. And when there really is no need for a counselor, your wife will know it.

Men so often try hard to please their wives, only to have little of it appreciated. Loving husbands can completely miss it because a wife’s needs and marital priorities can be wildly different to what her husband had always assumed. The key issue is not the amount of effort you make, but whether the effort is misdirected. The only way to know is to coax your wife to tell you, to listen carefully and then take seriously what she says.

Counseling becomes necessary when a husband has not believed his wife’s complaints. His last chance is that he might at least believe the counselor even if he refuses to believe his own wife when she says she is hurting and their marriage is in bad shape. Many a trip to a counselor or a divorce court could have been avoided had a man simply believed his wife. It is noteworthy that over and over the Bible tells husbands to love their wives, and 1 Corinthians 13:7 says that love believes all things.

If your wife says she is thirsty, do you believe her? It makes no difference that you don’t feel thirsty or that it seems to you that she has already had enough water. Perhaps she has a natural need for more water than you or maybe she has an undiagnosed medical condition. Regardless of the reason, it would be heartless (and proof of your own foolishness) to think she must be stupid or mistaken because she says she is thirsty, and it would be cruel to deny her water and force her to be continually thirsty. The same applies to any other feelings a wife has.

Marriage is a partnership in which constant feedback from the other person is essential. It is like blindfolding a person, handing him a tail and asking him to place it on the correct part of a drawing of a donkey that is somewhere on a wall. Unaided, it becomes a matter of sheer chance. There is no opportunity to display the slightest skill, because all feedback has been eliminated. Every part of the wall feels the same. Not even memory can help, because the person was not allowed to view the wall before being blindfolded. When done as a partnership, however, in which a seeing person guides the blindfolded one to the exact spot, the frustratingly impossible task becomes ridiculously simple.

Much of marriage is like that – easy if you let your partner guide you; near enough to impossible, should you ignore your partner’s guidance and resort to guesswork.

Try not to be like Leopold Fechtner. ‘My wife is always talking to herself,’ he complained. ‘The worst part is, she thinks I’m listening.’ It is tragic how many men, after years of supposing they were adequate lovers, are devastated to discover that their wives had always found their attempts at lovemaking almost as exciting as eating cardboard. When the bliss of ignorance inevitably crashes into the horror of reality, these deluded Casanovas discover to their humiliation that on a scale of one to ten they rate minus three. The astonishing thing is that had they let their wives guide them, as all men should, these men would have both multiplied their own pleasure and sent their wives to the moon with delight. They could have been heroes between the sheets. Instead, they turned what God meant to be partnership into a one-man disaster; what should have been an exquisite duet into their version of solo sex. Not even in the most intimate aspect of marriage do some men have the sense to realize the necessity of moment-by-moment feedback from their wives.

Some women are so astoundingly kind and loving that for years and years they deliberately sacrifice their own happiness for the sake of their husbands’ egos. Eventually the pain of their sacrifice, coupled with their husbands’ indifference to their needs, causes the one-sided nature of the relationship to become so intolerable that the women start complaining. Ignorance of their wives’ needs should have never been allowed to drag on for so long. These men should have made them feel so loved and secure that their wives would have freely shared their secret feelings, knowing that their husbands would far rather feel inadequate than have their wives miss the slightest pleasure.

A married couple are supposed to be one flesh. If you are one flesh with your wife, her pain is your pain; her pleasure is your pleasure. The extent to which this is not true is the extent to which your marriage is dysfunctional. To hide feelings from each other or to let oneself remain ignorant of the other’s feelings is as contrary to the essence of marriage as sexual unfaithfulness.

Men should be the leaders. To be the leader, you must assume responsibility for any failure to create an emotional environment in which your wife knows it is safe to reveal all. You should take the lead in transparent honesty and gentleness and servanthood. It will be obvious to her whether your passionate longing is to thoroughly know her and give her your best. How shallow is your love?

Many men have missed out on more than they can imagine, simply because they have misunderstood what it means to be head of the house. The role of the head is to be constantly alert to the needs of the body. The moment the body is in pain (a hand on a hot stove, for example) the head immediately knows it and takes swift action to protect the body from further pain and harm. The head makes the decisions, but with a total awareness of the body’s feelings. In reality, you are the head only to the extent to which you seek total awareness of your wife’s feelings and sensitivities. That is a measure of your success or your failure to assume the male role in your marriage. In the fool’s joy of ignorance too many men think they are head of their wives, when they have actually run from their leadership role in sheer cowardice, emotionally deserting the partner they were supposed to lead.

‘Is your wife outspoken?’ a man was asked. ‘Not by anyone I know of,’ came the reply. In general, women are the talkative sex. We men can find that tiresome at times but when you stop to think about it, God got it perfect – as usual. Only if women talk about their feelings can husbands know what is going on inside their wives, and only then can husbands function as the head.

Many men think themselves great husbands because they spend lots of time with their wives, when they spend surprisingly little of it actually sharing heart-to-heart. Little wonder that pleasing each other degenerates to blind hit or miss. Not only is it essential for knowing how to please each other, wives long for intimate sharing because no matter how low an opinion a man might have of himself, his wife craves him as a person, not as a bank account or a lump of flesh.

Anyone acting like a head – constantly monitoring signals from the body and alert to respond the moment the body is in the slightest discomfort – is well on the way to never needing a counselor. A head that is unaware or unconcerned that its body is suffering, however, is so dangerously dysfunctional that it desperately needs outside help.

Grave mistakes are inevitable whenever we approach Christian teaching with an unchristian mindset. ‘ . . . the head of every man is Christ, and the head of the woman is man’ (1 Corinthians 11:3) was obviously intended only for people who have Christ as their head and who through that spiritual union have been supernaturally transformed. This divine transformation goes way beyond merely accepting Jesus’ teaching. It even goes beyond striving to live that teaching. It involves actually having Jesus’ teaching and attitude to life as part of your very personality. So let’s for a moment consider Jesus’ teaching.

Matthew 20:25 Jesus called them together and said, ‘You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their high officials exercise authority over them. (26) Not so with you. Instead, whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, (27) and whoever wants to be first must be your slave – (28) just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.’

Luke 14:11 For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled . . .

To use ‘the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church’ as an excuse for selfishness, instead of an opportunity for sacrifice, is a hideous perversion of God’s Holy Word. Headship implies laying down one’s life to serve another. The apostle Paul could not have made this clearer when he said:

Ephesians 5:23-24 For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church . . . wives should submit to their husbands in everything. (25) Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her (Emphasis mine.)

The Bible always explains that by headship it means acting like Christ. The Lord Jesus constantly knows our every need, our every thought, our every feeling. He literally understands us better than we understand ourselves. Not only that, our crucified Lord spares no pain or effort or humiliation to satisfy our needs and bring us comfort. Our eternal happiness means everything to him. He guides, and yet allows us to make mistakes. He has power, but never abuses it.

Guidance stemming from a passion to thoroughly know your wife as Christ knows you, and a sacrificial devotion to her happiness, is what the Bible means by being the head. It means Christlike gentleness and selfless preoccupation with identifying and meeting a loved one’s needs.

We latch on to Paul saying ‘wives should submit to their husbands’ and completely forget such statements of his as:

1 Corinthians 7:4 The wife’s body does not belong to her alone but also to her husband. In the same way, the husband’s body does not belong to him alone but also to his wife. (5) Do not deprive each other except by mutual consent . . . (Emphasis mine.)

The equality implied in that Scripture deserves careful thought. It shows that Scripture’s conception of headship is very different to the one many Christian men have.

Peter is the other Bible writer who spoke of wives submitting to their husbands. To avoid serious distortion of the Word of God, Peter’s advice to wives to be ‘like Sarah, who obeyed Abraham and called him her master,’ (1 Peter 3:6) must be read in the light of the Scripture that Peter knew his readers were very familiar with:

Genesis 21:9-10 But Sarah . . . said to Abraham, ‘Get rid of that slave woman and her son, for that slave woman's son will never share in the inheritance with my son Isaac.’ (11) The matter distressed Abraham greatly because it concerned his son. (12) But God said to him, ‘Do not be so distressed about the boy and your maidservant. Listen to whatever Sarah tells you . . .’ (Emphasis mine.)

Yes, Peter said, ‘Wives, . . . be submissive to your husbands,’ (1 Peter 3:1) but in the same breath he said, ‘Husbands, in the same way be considerate as you live with your wives, and treat them with respect as the weaker partner and as heirs with you of the gracious gift of life, so that nothing will hinder your prayers’ (1 Peter 3:7).

So important to God is gentle consideration of a wife’s needs that the Almighty could turn a deaf ear to a Christian husband who does not display this type of love.

For a good marriage, not only must a husband know his wife’s secrets, he must ensure she knows his secrets. Without this there will be needless pain. For years, Margaret had been relishing a trip to a marriage counselor as her chance to pour out a long list of complaints to a sympathetic ear. Instead, she found herself reeling. The tables had been turned, with her husband, Tom, detailing to the counselor all sorts of hurts and injustices he had suffered because of her. The tragedy is that Margaret had been largely unaware of Tom’s hurts. On the surface, Tom’s silent suffering seems noble. In reality, it had been largely senseless and needless. Had he adequately communicated his feelings, Margaret would have changed years ago.

Nagging, whining and angry outbursts are usually counter-productive. Taking the time to lovingly open one’s heart and explain one’s hurts, however, is as different as surgery differs from a knife attack. Couples tend to suppose that one attempt to explain should suffice. Realistically, we are so different from each other that it usually takes numerous attempts for a partner to finally understand the other’s point of view. Effective communication of one’s needs and motives takes skill, patience, gentleness, good timing, persistence and courage. As you develop these qualities you reduce the need for outside help.

When is it Safe to Give Counseling a Miss?

If your wife goes quiet about seeing a counselor, it might be good news for the marriage, but most likely it is the worse possible news. Women tend to eventually stop complaining about a matter. Men heave a sigh of relief, imagining that at last their wives have adjusted. Usually, the real reason is that their wives have simply resigned themselves to an inferior marriage. If so, your wife will at best end up going through life needlessly unhappy and, although you will suffer the consequences of living with an unhappy woman, you will not even know the reason. But that’s the best case scenario. More likely, your wife abandoning the idea of involving a marriage counselor is like trying to convince herself that she can live with a cancerous tumor without seeing a doctor.

It’s been wisely said that to put off something makes a difficult task hard, and a hard task impossible.

Burying a marital problem can only make it more putrid. When it eventually resurfaces – and that’s inevitable – it will cause a bigger stink than ever. And by then it could have infected the whole marriage beyond the possibility of restoration.

All too often, men leave resolving marital problems until it is too late to save the marriage. They keep avoiding the issue, vainly hoping that the problem would magically vanish in a puff of smoke. They do this because men usually feel as uncomfortable trying to fine-tune a relationship as they do about engaging in brain surgery. The difference, however, is that if a man has a loved one who needs brain surgery, he has no qualms about calling in an expert. Paradoxically, if his marriage needs a little work, he feels too ashamed to call in an expert. Yes, it’s humiliating. A man finds it hard even to ask for directions when he has lost his way driving. Stubborn determination to solve things independently can sometimes help a man reach his full potential. Like brain surgery, however, there are times when the only smart option is to call in an expert.

If you don’t think understanding the opposite sex is a matter in which one needs additional help, you are either a cross between Einstein and Sigmund Freud, or too thick to realize the magnitude of the problem. A biblical pointer to the need for outside help in understanding one’s partner is found in Titus 2:3-4, where it speaks of older women training the younger women to love their husbands and children.

When a woman says counseling is needed, what makes her husband think he is more perceptive than not just his wife but all the other men who blindly careered to marital breakdown because they left seeking outside help too late? Men find it enormously difficult to seek help and to bare their souls. Nevertheless, Christians have the advantage of knowing that ‘whoever humbles himself will be exalted’ (Matthew 18:4; 23:12). Most other people are too dense to realize it.

Perhaps your wife is in the wrong and needs to change. It seems she needs independent confirmation of that fact, however, if she is wanting counseling. You’ve been unable to convince her, so call in reinforcements. If she is wrong, it should be easy to prove. Not all counselors are good, but even an average one should be neutral and not automatically take the woman’s side. Many a woman, elated to be finally dragging her husband to a counselor, has found herself rudely shocked to be shown the log in her own eye. You would need to be present, however, to ensure the counselor is not given a biased view of the real situation.

If you feel uncomfortable with your wife’s choice of counselor, then by all means find one more suited to you both. For example, I can well understand at least one of you reeling at the thought of discussing embarrassing details with someone you will afterward rub shoulders with in a social or church setting. If this bothers one of you, please don’t risk your marriage because of a false feeling of loyalty to your pastor. Even the most skilled counselor can do little if one of you clams up. A caring pastor would be anxious about your choice of counselor because there are plenty of fruitcakes around. Nevertheless, if you or your wife feel inhibited with your pastor, a wise pastor would prefer you to choose someone you and your wife can be open with. So, if necessary, find another counselor, even if it means traveling across city. Still greater anonymity or distance might be available over the internet.

Nevertheless, I urge that you find an authentically Christian counselor.

1 Corinthians 6:1 If any of you has a dispute with another, dare he take it before the ungodly for judgment instead of before the saints? (2) Do you not know that the saints will judge the world? And if you are to judge the world, are you not competent to judge trivial cases? (3) Do you not know that we will judge angels? How much more the things of this life! (4) Therefore, if you have disputes about such matters, appoint as judges even men of little account in the church! (5) I say this to shame you. Is it possible that there is nobody among you wise enough to judge a dispute between believers? (6) But instead, one brother goes to law against another – and this in front of unbelievers!

Although seeing a counselor is not going to law, is it seeking someone to help resolve a dispute, so the principle in the above Scripture is highly relevant. It goes on to say:

1 Corinthians 6:7 The very fact that you have lawsuits among you means you have been completely defeated already. Why not rather be wronged? Why not rather be cheated?

So the ideal is to resolve disputes with your wife by yielding to her wishes. If you are unwilling to do this, the alternative is to seek a wise Christian to help resolve the dispute.

There are counselors who are Christian but whose counseling springs from secular training rather than from the Spirit and wisdom of God. Also to be avoided are those who are spiritual but have less wisdom than skilled secular counselors. So much is required of a marriage counselor that I freely admit that I don’t make the grade. I can help some people understand their partner’s point of view – and that’s helpful – but marital counseling is beyond my ability.

So it is wise to make your choice of counselor a matter of earnest prayer. Of course, give a counselor a fair chance and don’t reject someone because he or she does not support your selfishness. Nevertheless, don’t be afraid to change counselors until you find one whose wisdom and godliness you both have faith in.

We earlier mentioned the biblical revelation that being inconsiderate toward one’s wife could hinder a man’s prayers.

The biblical link between sin and having one’s prayers hindered is exceptionally strong. For example:

Isaiah 59: 2 But your iniquities have separated you from your God; your sins have hidden his face from you, so that he will not hear.

Psalm 66:18 If I had cherished sin in my heart, the Lord would not have listened

Proverbs 15:29 The LORD is far from the wicked but he hears the prayer of the righteous.

Proverbs 28:9 If anyone turns a deaf ear to the law, even his prayers are detestable.

Isaiah 1:15 When you spread out your hands in prayer, I will hide my eyes from you; even if you offer many prayers, I will not listen. Your hands are full of blood; (16) wash and make yourselves clean. Take your evil deeds out of my sight! Stop doing wrong

Zechariah 7:13 ‘When I called, they did not listen; so when they called, I would not listen,’ says the LORD Almighty.

So anyone steeped in the Bible will realize that Peter is saying that merely being inconsiderate toward one’s wife is to sin against her and against the Lord, and it is such a grave matter that it could interfere with your prayers. If you don’t love and fear the Lord enough for that to scare you, then consider the implications of Jesus’ teaching that unless resolved to the offended party’s satisfaction, sinning against someone should result in public exposure and church discipline.

As we consider Jesus’ words on this matter, the first result will be to reinforce what a grievous sin being inconsiderate to one’s wife is.

Matthew 18:6 But if anyone causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him to have a large millstone hung around his neck and to be drowned in the depths of the sea. (7) Woe to the world because of the things that cause people to sin! Such things must come, but woe to the man through whom they come!

Clearly, doing anything that exposes a person to temptation is a grave offense. To make a wife unhappy with her marriage is to sin against her and against God by tempting her to break her marriage vows. Making her unhappy is as much a sin against your wife and your marriage as it would be for someone to try to seduce her. Either way, it is tempting her to break her marriage vows.. Whether she yields to the temptation is her responsibility. Whether you do something that causes the temptation to come, however, is your responsibility, and God will hold you accountable.

Jesus goes on to say:

Matthew 18:15 If your brother sins against you, go and show him his fault, just between the two of you. If he listens to you, you have won your brother over. (16) But if he will not listen, take one or two others along, so that ‘every matter may be established by the testimony of two or three witnesses.’ (17) If he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church; and if he refuses to listen even to the church, treat him as you would a pagan or a tax collector.

So the biblical principle is that if someone feels a Christian has sinned against her, and all her attempts to resolve it privately fail, she should escalate the matter by involving other Christians. Seeking counsel from Christians fits this principle and dovetails with Paul’s teaching about dispute resolution. If that attempt to resolve the problem fails – such as his refusal to even involve a counselor – it seems she has every biblical right to take it further in the church and involve still more people.

Bringing it Together

We have seen that regardless of how you feel about it, if your wife feels the need to see a counselor, it indicates a serious need in your marriage. If you haven’t felt desperate enough to seek outside help, it is because the problem is devastating your wife – and hence threatening your marriage – more than you realize. Like signs that you have bowel cancer, getting it checked might be very embarrassing, but ignoring it is not a sign of bravery; it is proof of cowardice. There’s nothing macho about burying one’s head in the sand. Like a person with cancer, your marriage is probably fully curable in its early stages, but it will end in an agonizing death if you delay calling in an expert.

It is natural for anyone to recoil at the thought of consulting a marriage expert. So, by all means, think outside the square in a hunt for ways that you feel more comfortable with that are just as effective as counseling.

Careful listening to your wife and taking seriously her perception of the marriage’s health will do much to reduce the need for counseling. If, after giving it your best shot, however, your wife still thinks counseling is needed, then it really is needed.

Your wife will eventually stop trying to drag you to a counselor. It is vital that you don’t misunderstand why she no longer talks about seeing a counselor. If is because she has given up hope of ever having a truly happy marriage; supposing you will never exercise sufficient Christlike humility or care enough about the marriage to meet her needs, then it is essential that you see a counselor without delay.

By the time many men are desperate enough to try a marriage counselor, it is often too late to save the marriage. Don’t become another statistic.

Not to be sold. © Copyright 2003, Grantley Morris. May be freely copied in whole or in part provided: it is not altered; this entire paragraph is included; readers are not charged; if used in a webpage, the new page is significantly different to this one. Many more compassionate, inspiring, sometimes hilarious writings available free online at www.net-burst.com  Freely you have received, freely give.
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Some names have been changed to preserve people’s privacy. Scripture quotations are from the New International Version © Copyright, 1978 by New York International Bible Society.