selective hearing

The first time I met him I went in there alone. I'd reached a place in my marriage where I just didn't know what to do. I'd been telling my husband that things weren't working; we weren't connecting. He disagreed, which was the way this script played out in our relationship, so I made the decision to see this counselor on my own, hoping that I could at least learn how to be married to someone I didn't know at all and to someone who seemed perfectly ok with the idea that his wife was extremely unhappy.

On my very first meeting with the counselor I spilled everything. The good, the bad, the ugly, the really really ugly---about my husband and myself. About how our marriage just never seems to be going in the right direction. About the desperation I felt---and had felt for years---and I didn't know how to make this work if my husband didn't pick up some of the burden and help. How do you pull a train uphill by yourself?

My husband decided to come after my first session. In his own words he wanted to "defend himself" against what I'm sure he considered to be slanderous accusations against him. So he came. He sat. He listened. I don't know that he ever engaged, though. But he kept coming---WE kept coming for nearly 2 years.

I listened to the counselor tell me how great it was that my husband was even here----because "most" wives have to drag their husbands in kicking and screaming. I listened to him tell me how great a guy my husband was. That he "has a good heart" and really wants to make this work although there was no behavioral evidence to support these notions. I listened. I attempted (though not always cheerfully) to follow through on the practical application part of our sessions. Like the time when I was told that I needed to write down everything during the day that I wanted to talk with my husband about, and when he got home from work and was ready, HE could decide which 2 or 3 things to talk about from my list.

I really tried that. For 2 days. This exercise was something my husband thought was great---it exempted him from engaging in our whole life. He could pick and choose a couple simple, easy topics to talk about and appease me and then go hibernate in the garage for the rest of the night knowing that his part was done. I, on the other hand, realized quickly that this wasn't solving our problems. The lack of engagement in our life. The lack of intimate conversations with each other that weren't assigned by the counselor. The lack of trust. My need to really connect with my spouse wasn't even being considered, nor were the big ticket issues that are really at the heart of our soured relationship.

The last time we saw the counselor was about 6 months ago. It was after I had seen an attorney. I was trying to figure out what to do when none of the options seemed appealing. Do I stay in a marriage where betrayal and dishonesty are the only things my husband provides on a regular basis? Do I dissolve this union, be outcast by friends, family, and possibly the church, and change the course of my children's lives forever? It was like being asked "How would you prefer to die? By being shot in the head or run over by a train?" There is no good outcome.

My husband actually set up the appointment this time. A first for him. We went and sat, awkwardly, in the tiny counseling room we'd been in many times before. The first words out of the counselor's mouth were, "I had NO idea it was this bad."

I remember saying something the effect of, "Am I invisible? Because I TOLD you all these things on my first visit. I EXPLAINED in detail what our issues were and how long I'd been confused about what to do. You KNEW, you just got sidetracked when the handsome church boy saying all the right things came in and sat down. He LOOKED the part to you---while I was the emotional wreck of a wife---and he won you over. Just like he has won 2 other pastors over. He looked the part."

I don't remember what was said after that. It's all a blur. But I do remember thinking that here is a man (the counselor) with a really good heart, doing really good things for people in need. But he's human. And he did miss the mark with us. And he didn't really "hear" me for all of my transparency and honesty...he didn't hear me.

The good thing--if there can be a good thing from this--- is that it helped me to see that the only one who really knows my heart---really hears my cries, is God. And maybe that needs to be where my focus lies. I'm fairly certain God doesn't have selective hearing.