I have on my table a violin string. It is free. I twist one end of it and it responds. It is free. But it is not free to do what a violin string is supposed to do — to produce music. So I take it, fix it in my violin and tighten it until it is taut. Only then is it free to be a violin string.
Sir Rabindranath Tagore
I‘m a Christian. My husband is not, and he’s making life miserable for me. He doesn’t want to make our marriage any better. Would you change him?”
It’s one of the most frequent, and most difficult, situations for a pastor — dealing with the unwilling family member. At times, this truly is the situation — the husband is simply unwilling to expend any energy to love his wife.
Other times, however, it’s hard to get the actual facts of the case. Maybe the husband’s unwillingness is only part of the problem. Perhaps the wife needs to make changes that will create the change in her husband.
“It happens all the time,” says one pastor in the Northwest. “Our staff jokes about it. If someone tells us ‘Everybody else is going crazy!’ that’s the person who’s driving everyone crazy. Despite the fact that he or she is the one coming to the pastor, often the person presenting the problem doesn’t want help. That person just wants us to ‘fix’ everyone else.”
Josh and Shirley, a couple in that church, are an example. Josh had been involved with several women before he and Shirley both became Christians. After indicating he wanted to grow in Christ, Josh then had another affair, and Shirley kicked him out of the house. He asked for her forgiveness, and she took him back.
But now after any squabble, she kicks him out of the house. “It’s become almost a reflex,” explains the pastor. “They’re so locked into roles where Shirley plays the innocent and Josh the bad guy that they both believe it, even though it’s a half-truth at best. That’s the way they’ve lived for seventeen years. When he cleans up one area of his life, she begins looking for something else on which to nail him.”
Shirley came into the pastor’s office one day to say “Josh did it again. He came home late without telling me. When I confronted him, he raised his voice, and I told him if he couldn’t control his anger, he could just get out of the house. So he left.”
“How would you like me to help?”
“I don’t want to lose my marriage, and my children are upset because Josh is gone, but I can’t let him keep acting so bad. Should I let him come back?”
The pastor asked if perhaps when she confronted Josh she could take a different approach to help create a calmer atmosphere. “Some people resist any hint of self-righteousness,” he said carefully. “There are two kinds of sins: outward and inward. Josh’s may be the visible sins, but we have to make sure no inward attitudes on our part drive him further off.”
Immediately he sensed Shirley shut him off.
“He doesn’t understand spiritual things, Pastor. Unless I spell things out directly, he doesn’t hear.” The rest of the conversation went nowhere. She stopped coming to see the pastor after that.
Helping families is a delicate and explosive undertaking. What are the lessons learned by pastors who have defused these powder kegs? How do you apply a deft hand without getting it blown off?
Work with the Willing
Traditional wisdom suggests that working with only one partner in a marriage relationship is not normally successful. And yet there are success stories. Occasionally the willing partner can learn some new patterns that begin to improve the behavior of the other.
Lutheran pastor and counselor William Backus writes, “I always stipulate at the outset that our target for change will be the behavior of the patient. I deliberately avoid shooting for major changes in the behavior of someone who is not present.… The patient and I agree to consider our work successful if he changes in ways which satisfy him. We will never gauge improvement on the basis of whether or not the absent partner changes, but only on positive improvement in the patient. But experience has proven otherwise. In spite of this careful focus on the patient, reports of change in the absent partner keep coming in.… Not only does my patient report that he is doing better and feeling better, but also that the behavior of the other person in the troubled relationship has improved.”
Reports come back: “He’s noticed the change in the way I behave, and he likes it. He doesn’t stay in his silent moods for days at a time anymore. And it’s been weeks since he lost his temper and swore at me.”1
What are some of the changes in the willing spouse that can affect the unwilling partner?
1. A new courage. One frequent difficulty in marriage is when one partner begins finding his or her greatest satisfaction outside that relationship. Perhaps it’s a preoccupation with tennis or fishing or a career or aerobics or another person. In many cases, strangely, the neglected partner never raises the issue.
“My husband is never home,” Eloise told her pastor. “He cares more about the job than about me. He’d rather work than see our kids’ soccer games.”
“Have you told him you feel this way?”
“Oh, no. He’d never listen. Besides he ought to see this himself.”
The pastor encountered surprising resistance to the idea of raising the subject with her husband. She seemed to think he would turn into a boogieman. So the pastor tried to get her to think the unthinkable. Boogies tend to shrink when exposed to light.
“What’s the worst that would happen if you did tell him how you feel?”
“Oh, it would be terrible.”
“How terrible? If you said, ‘John, I’m concerned that you’re working so many evenings the kids are feeling neglected,’ what specifically would he do?”
“He probably wouldn’t pay attention.”
“Is that so bad?”
“He might blow up.”
“How badly would he react? Would he murder you?”
“Well, no.”
“Do you think he would hit you?” the pastor asked, recognizing that if the answer were yes, then he’d touched one of the real issues.
But in this case, Eloise said, “Oh, no. He wouldn’t do that.”
“Would he raise his voice? Would he turn and walk out?”
“Yes, he’d probably yell. He’d say I don’t appreciate him.”
“Is that so awful?” Eloise seemed surprised that her pastor thought it would be OK to have her husband shout at her.
“But I can’t stand raised voices.”
“I’m not so sure about that. I think you could tell your husband that you appreciate him so much that you’d like to have him around a few evenings each week,” said the pastor. “Even if he yells, I think that would be a good investment in the health of the marriage. Could you picture his anger as a mosquito bite rather than a sword thrust?”
Eloise never did say anything to her husband, but over the next few weeks, as the counseling continued, she reported her husband was staying home more and the home atmosphere was less tense. She thought the change came out of the blue, but the pastor says, “I think it was a result of Eloise broadcasting different vibes, even though they were unconscious. She realized she could have some expectations for her husband, and that unspoken message began coming across.”
Even small changes in the one partner can yield enormous effects on the other. Another woman came to her pastor rather embarrassed.
“My husband reads pornographic magazines, watches X-rated videos, adult cable TV, and all that stuff. Then he wants me to go around the house bare-breasted. Once he had some buddies over for movies, and he insisted I serve refreshments braless. What should I do?”
Since both the husband and the wife were members of the church, the pastor said, “I want to talk with your husband, but I want to talk to you first. If your husband wants you barebreasted and braless privately for him, that’s one thing. Don’t fight him, but tell him you draw the line at making yourself available for voyeurs. Tell him you won’t stand for it because you have children and because you have dignity.”
After a couple days to give the wife a chance to discuss it with her husband, the pastor called the husband and asked him to stop by the church for a visit. The next day, after work, the husband dropped by.
“I talked with your wife this week, and she indicated she was uncomfortable with some of your sex-oriented practices at home. She mentioned specifically that you wanted her braless when you had some friends over. Is that true?”
“Yeah,” he said, slouching in the chair.
“She said she felt like she was on display. Did you know she was uncomfortable?”
“Aw, she made too much out of that. I was just having fun. She should be flattered I still think she has a great body.”
“Do you think a Christian should be demanding those things of his wife? Do you think it’s healthy to be reading off-color literature or looking at those kinds of films?”
“I enjoy them.”
“They may be enjoyable to you, but that sounds pretty selfish, don’t you think? You’re responsible for your wife and children, too. Would you want your daughter, at sixteen, to go baring her breasts for a stag party?”
“Well, no.”
“That’s what you’re asking of your wife. Sex is meant to be enjoyed but not exploited.” He and the husband eventually agreed that sexuality should be a private relationship between a man and his wife only.
A month later, the pastor called the wife. “How are things going?”
“He still watches things I don’t care for, but he’s doing much better.”
“Has all this ruined your sexuality in marriage?”
“Not at all,” she replied. “I appreciate it more when I have some dignity.”
2. A renewed power to love. At times, when dealing with only half the marriage relationship, the love has to be unilateral for a while. At these times, it’s especially important to pray for the power to love. Not much affection may be coming from the other spouse, but gradually, the ice may thaw.
One woman told her pastor that her husband wanted a divorce. After discussing the specifics, the pastor said, “Let’s do something drastic. Could you try loving him so much that you refuse to get upset even when he wants you to get upset?” She agreed to give it a try, and they prayed for God to give her the strength to be loving even when love was resisted.
That night when her husband came home, she asked, “Honey, what would you like for dinner?”
“I don’t want to eat with you,” he snapped. He walked past her, turned on the TV, and sat there until midnight.
She called her pastor the next day, and again they prayed that God would give her the power to love. That night when her husband came home, she again asked, “What would you like me to fix you, dear?”
“Spaghetti,” he said. “But I don’t want to eat with you.” She ignored the put-down, served him the spaghetti in front of the TV, and let him eat by himself.
For two weeks, he continued to tell her he didn’t want her around. She held her emotions in check, releasing them only to God in times of prayer with her pastor.
“The third week, the husband finally broke down,” reports the pastor. “He admitted to his wife that he’d been acting worse than a child. He started crying, and they both came in for counseling at that point.”
Thanks to God’s power, one person made a huge difference in the whole relationship.
3. An ability to turn criticism into contact. Love does not always mean passively receiving the criticism and nonverbal insults of another. At times criticism can be turned into a relationship-building experience.
A minister in Massachusetts began giving one woman some suggestions of ways she could respond differently to her husband’s verbal abuse. “Instead of just clamming up and listening to his diatribes,” he said, “try to enter in firmly but compassionately. You can retain your self-respect without becoming your husband’s adversary.”
“How?”
“Let’s role play a situation. You act the part of your husband,” said the minister. “I’ll show how you can respond.”
The woman played the part passionately, complaining about pressures at work and how miserable it is to come home to a wife who doesn’t meet his needs.
“In other words, you feel absolutely drained of any enthusiasm for your work,” the counselor-turned-wife said, restating the charge. “Am I reading you right?”
“Yes, absolutely.”
“And you feel like I have been largely responsible for the draining. Is that what you’re saying?”
“I sure am.”
“Boy, that really hurts me to hear that. I hate to think I’m doing that to you. Is there anything else I’ve done to hurt you?”
“Now that you mention it, I can’t stand it to come home and see you watching TV. Is the news more important than I am?”
“You feel I ignore you when you come home?”
“That’s right.”
“I’m sorry. Maybe I’ve been missing some things. I do need help to see things through your eyes. What can I do to help the situation?”
The woman was at a loss. She didn’t know what her husband would say.
“Your husband may not know what to say either,” said the minister. “But let’s find out.”
They worked out a five-step process for her to follow when her husband criticized:
• Take him seriously and listen to the criticism.
• Say it back to him to make sure you’ve heard it correctly.
• Ask if there are any other complaints.
• Restate any additional criticisms.
• Then honestly ask him to help you improve the situation.
When the woman came back two weeks later, she said, “It’s totally different now. I’m not just being dumped on; I feel like I’ve taken more control of the situation. When he criticizes it’s because I’m asking him, and it changes the atmosphere because we’re looking for solutions instead of just wallowing in complaints.”
This exercise turned criticism into contact. It requires a different set of mental muscles to look for constructive ways to redeem the situation than it does to lazily recite complaints. That exercise is good for the husband, good for the wife, good for the marriage.
4. A deeper understanding of the factors. Active listening also leads to seeing things from the other person’s point of view — almost always a helpful exercise.
One woman had tried for years to get her domineering husband to come to the pastor for marriage counseling. He refused. Finally, something within her seemed to snap. The children were raised; she decided to leave him. She got a job and made plans to move out. Suddenly he was the one wanting them both to see the pastor. He was ready to own up to his failings in the past, but she was saying, “I really like this new life. He wasn’t attentive to my needs for twenty-five years. Now I’ll make up for it.” She seemed ready to leave both family and spiritual roots behind.
Her husband finally got her to agree to see the pastor before she made any final decision.
“We talked about the aggravations she felt regarding her husband,” said the pastor. “I asked such questions as Why do you think he’s like that? What caused him to be insensitive? Especially as I met with her alone, I tried to help her see his inability to meet her needs not as an offense but as a handicap — coming out of weakness and fear. I tried to paint a picture of him as relationally wounded, limping. He wasn’t consciously trying to demean her. She began to feel compassion toward him instead of resentment. To me it was a case of ‘perfect love casting out fear’ — and resentment.”
She decided to try to salvage their marriage. They wound up staying together.
Helping people reframe their image of the situation from being victims of a conscious attack to being involved with a person who has deep wounds can encourage compassion and cast out fear, guilt, anxiety, resentment, and a whole host of negative feelings.
Another counselor said she’s found a helpful image.
“I was in a fire and badly burned a few years ago,” she said. “Even now, I can’t sit across the room from a fireplace. My skin is still too sensitive to heat. I use that story with people who are ‘burn victims’ themselves, or perhaps living with someone who was ‘burned.’ I explain that some people were abused as children — or maybe were torn down in some way. This burn leaves them oversensitive to certain things. Now whenever a spouse raises a voice even a little bit for emphasis, they recoil because the ‘burn’ is still sensitive.”
The key, she says, is to help the willing partners begin to look for ways they, or their unwilling spouses, have been singed in the past. That, too, builds compassion and understanding.
Involve the Unwilling Spouse
At times, however, working only with the willing spouse isn’t enough. Some contact needs to be made with the unwilling partner if the problem is to be solved. How can that be done most effectively?
One way is taking the initiative to track down the person. For this to work, however, the first step is getting permission from the willing spouse to use his or her name. And at times, that takes some coaxing.
The “you need to confront my husband, but you can’t let him know I’ve been talking to you” setup is virtually impossible to handle. It creates an unnatural situation. The person being confronted will inevitably ask, “How did you find out about me?” and you can’t say you read it in a fortune cookie.
A Methodist pastor has three questions he poses to anyone who wants him to confront someone else:
—Have you already tried confronting him yourself?
—Would you be willing to sit with me as I talk with him?
—Will you allow me to say you suggested I talk with him?
“If the answer to all three questions is no, then it’s obvious they care more for their reputation than for solving the problem. And I’m not going to intervene. I’ve got to be able to indicate what I know and who told me.”
Other pastors have found it relatively nonthreatening to ask the unwilling spouse to come “as a resource person.”
One woman was having problems with her husband, who had nothing to do with the church and wanted nothing to do with counseling. The pastor recognized a need to talk with him, but how?
“I called him and said, ‘I’ve been talking with your wife for the last several weeks. She’s got some real struggles in terms of who she is as a person and the relationship the two of you have. I’m not here to lay blame on either of you, but I want to help her the best I can, and I need your objective point of view. Would you be willing to come in and let me bounce some things off you? I need some feedback on how I might best help her.’ It’s amazing how many men come! They assume you have a professional interest and professional skills, and often they’re willing to help solve ‘their wife’s’ problem.”
When the husband, in this case, does come, the approach is important. Integrity demands you do precisely what you told him when you invited him to come.
“The first thing I do is try and put him at ease,” the pastor continued. “I repeat that I’m not here to knock him over the head but that I want to share a couple of the things Mary Jane has told me. This is the way she perceives what is going on in the relationship, and I wanted to see if her observations were accurate or not. Then I mention a couple of things and say, ‘Can you help me with that? This is the way she perceives it. How do you perceive it? And what do you sense is going on in the relationship?'”
This helps form a therapeutic alliance with the husband, and often he quits seeing the pastor as a prosecutor coming to indict him and instead begins to see him as a friend who can help ease a painful part of life.
The next step, after the unwilling spouse indicates willingness to enter into joint counseling as a participant rather than a colleague, is to identify with the hurts the unwilling spouse feels. In most cases he is sure the pastor is going to be on the wife’s side because she has already talked to the pastor about him. He resists counseling because he’s sure it’s going to be two against one.
One pastor, who does lots of family counseling, has found one way to break through that barrier. “I often begin by saying, ‘There is a reason why you feel so much pain and why you have experienced this pain for all these years. You’ve probably come now to the point of hopelessness and despair, so much so that you don’t even want to talk about it. When I see people in that much pain, I hurt with them.’ In other words, I try to side with this person, recognizing the real pain, and saying ‘I want to be a friend as you go through this time in your life. I know it hurts to even think of talking about it. And it’s been this way so long, it seems hopeless that any solution would ever be possible.’
“I make that speech when I first begin counseling; I even make that speech from the pulpit! When people begin to see that you mean it, it really opens the door. But that message has to be communicated over and over. Once isn’t enough. People have to see it is a consistent attitude.”
While not a guaranteed means to reaching unwilling spouses, these approaches do increase the odds of enlisting their help.
Beware the “Obvious Culprit”
In many family counseling situations, pastors find the obvious culprit is often not the real culprit.
“When a wife runs off in an affair, quite often we think, She’s obviously doing wrong, turn away from her, and focus our love and support on the husband,” observes a pastor from Southern California. “The wounded man does need our love and care, but it’s a mistake to withdraw from the person we’ve labeled the sinner. The question we need to ask is Why did she do that? What was wrong in the marriage? When you start digging, you may find the husband was more at fault ultimately than the wife.”
One of the other family situations where the obvious culprit is often not the real culprit involves the rebellious child.
Granted, even the best parents have children who choose wrong directions. But the frequent lament of pastors is that whenever you hear a parent saying “Straighten out my kid,” you can almost start looking for the problem between husband and wife that has prompted the child’s behavior. When pastors begin working with the teen who “doesn’t want help,” they discover in many cases the parents are the ones who don’t realize their need to become better parents.
Warren and Gloria Evans came to see Pastor Todd Frederick because they were worried about Andrew, their seventeen-year-old. The Evanses were solid church members, and Andrew usually attended youth group functions, although he seemed to remain on the fringe.
“He’s a liar and a thief,” said Warren, after sitting down in Todd’s office. “He constantly steals from his brother and sister. He even steals from his friends at school, and you can’t believe a thing he says.”
“What does he lie about?” Todd asked.
“That’s what’s strange. He lies about things that don’t even matter,” said Gloria. “He lies even when the truth would be to his benefit. For instance, he told us he’d gone to a movie with a friend from school whom we don’t particularly like. Later we found out he’d gone skating with the church youth group. Or we’ll be discussing a particular TV show at the dinner table, and he’ll say, ‘I didn’t see it,’ and later we’ll find out he did. It doesn’t make any difference if he did or didn’t. But why the lie?”
“That’s not as bad as his stealing,” inserted Warren. “He’s stolen money from my wallet. He goes over to a friend’s house and steals a ring from his friend’s dresser. What’s the problem with him?”
Todd admitted he didn’t know, but he said he’d like to talk with Andrew.
It took a couple sessions before Todd could get anything more than grunts, downcast eyes, and a mumbled “I don’t know” from Andrew. But when he did begin to open up, Andrew painted a different family picture than Todd had previously seen. Andrew’s complaint was that his mom and dad gave preferential treatment to Julie, his sixteen-year-old sister.
“She’s Miss Good Little Christian,” said Andrew. “I feel left out of the family. She gets all the special privileges, and I get none.”
Todd raised the obvious point. “Well, Julie doesn’t behave as badly as you do. Your parents don’t give you permission to do things because you haven’t been trustworthy. Aren’t you always grounded because of something you’ve done?”
Andrew turned the charge around. “No,” he said, suddenly animated. “I disobey because they make rules that I have to obey and she doesn’t.”
At first, Todd assumed it was natural sibling rivalry. But as he got specifics from Andrew, there truly was a preference shown.
“Dad likes to hunt, and I hate it,” said Andrew. “But in order to spend ‘quality time with his son,’ he drags me off hunting. I’d rather do anything else, but that’s the only time we spend together. When he spends time with Julie, she gets to pick the time and place.”
He continued with increasing energy. “If I want money, I have to earn it. But they give her an allowance. It’s not fair. She can drive the car and doesn’t have to put gas in it, but when I bring it home, it better be filled up! When I come home, Mom and Dad don’t even say hi before they ask ‘What have you been up to? Where have you been?’ I feel like a criminal even when I haven’t done anything.”
Todd had to admit there was more here than simple age difference between Andrew and Julie. But he could also understand why Warren and Gloria showed preference to Julie — she was the good kid. She could be trusted. Andrew was harder to like and harder to trust. But Todd decided to ask Warren and Gloria about it.
He knew he needed to broach the subject delicately. So he asked just the two of them to stop by the church. He began, “It’s taken some time, but I’ve finally gotten Andrew to open up a little bit. We may not agree with his opinions, but I think it’s important at least to respect what he’s saying. Andrew says he feels there are some major differences in the way you deal with him compared with how you deal with Julie. He thinks you have different attitudes toward the two of them. Do you think there could be anything to that?”
“Good grief,” said Warren. “We love our children equally, but of course we’re happier with Julie’s behavior than Andrew’s. Hers is acceptable; Andrew’s is not.”
“Let me mention a couple of specifics Andrew raised,” Todd said gently, and he relayed Andrew’s observations about the hunting trips, the allowance, and the gas policy for the family car. “Those are some examples of what Andrew feels is unfair. Right now, though, I’m not as concerned about Andrew’s opinion as yours. You’re closer to the situation than I am. Do you think those things are fair?”
As they discussed them one by one, Warren and Gloria admitted they’d never considered the possibility that Andrew felt wronged, but they didn’t think what they were doing was unjustified. “Maybe he does have a point,” Gloria said. “If you see it through the eyes of a teen, it would make you angry.”
“But we still can’t tolerate lies and stealing!” Warren said.
“No, and we won’t,” said Todd. “Let me work with him on that. But in the meantime, let me give you a homework assignment: Simply observe one another. Warren, I want you to see how Gloria deals with Andrew and Julie. Just stand back and watch her. And Gloria, I want you to see how Warren deals with the kids for the next two weeks. Try to be objective. Ask yourselves Is what I’m doing fair? And a second thing. I’ll be working with Andrew on his lying. If he admits to telling a lie, I don’t want you to jump on him or demand to know why he lied. Just calmly tell him thanks for telling the truth this time.”
Warren and Gloria accepted the assignment for the next two weeks.
When Todd met with Andrew that week, he told him what he’d discussed with his parents, then he said, “But one way you can begin to show yourself worthy of their trust is to stop stealing and lying.”
“I don’t know if I can stop lying,” said Andrew. “Sometimes I have to.”
“I won’t argue with that,” said Todd. “But do you think you could lie less frequently?”
“Probably.”
“Would you be willing to quit lying about little things? I mean, if it doesn’t matter if you went to 7-Eleven or to McDonald’s, tell your parents the truth.”
“Sometimes I lie before I even think about it,” Andrew said.
“At some point in your mental process you must think to yourself Well, I actually went to McDonald’s, not 7-Eleven.“
“But then I don’t want to tell them I lied.”
“Let me give you an assignment, Andrew. I want you to tell your parents when you lie. I’ve told them not to get on your case. I just want you to stop and say ‘No, no. I’m sorry. I didn’t go to 7-Eleven. I went to McDonald’s.’ Can you do that?”
“I’ll try.”
“That’s all I ask.”
Two weeks later, Warren and Gloria returned and admitted that some of Andrew’s observations were valid. “Maybe we have been somewhat uneven in our treatment of Andrew and Julie,” said Gloria. “Andrew does have a right to be angry and to want more attention than he’s been getting.”
“We just naturally thought Andrew was the one with the problem,” said Warren. “It never occurred to us that our handling of things contributed.”
At that point, Todd began meeting with the whole family and talking through their expectations and policies.
“It helped a great deal,” says Todd. “Andrew’s lying has gradually stopped, even about big things. He stopped getting in trouble in school. Things are going pretty well now.”
The key was recognizing where the real problem lay. It was not Andrew’s rebellion. It was the cause of Andrew’s rebellion. When the investigation went back far enough in the cause/effect relationships, it was able to avoid the temptation to settle for the obvious culprit and miss the real issue.
Another pastor observes, “We’re finding more and more that we need to get the whole family involved in counseling. For us to deal just with the one who’s knocked on the office door, or just the one who’s being pointed at, is not usually helpful at all.”
Relational problems involve more than one person. It isn’t that “my kid has a problem” or “my spouse has a problem.” No, we have a problem. It’s hard to rebel in isolation. Helping those who don’t want help means involving the whole network.
William Backus. Telling Each Other the Truth. (Minneapolis: Bethany House, 1985) pp. 17-18.
Copyright ©1986 by Christianity Today
