One thing that is important to tell you is in the middle of our difficult marriage I confided in few people. This was important! People genuinely care, love, and want to help and they can be well meaning but wrong. They are not privy to all information and shouldn’t be. Their advice is only words and can bring tremendous distraction to you. What bothers them about your situation may not bother you and it could cause you to concern yourself with things that God does not want you to concern yourself with.
Besides our Pastor’s and Licensed Counselors I picked two people to fully confide in. These were people that had solid relationships with God. They had faith for our situation. They had patient faith. I can tell you they rarely offered me advise they were simply my sounding board. I would tell them this is what I feel God is telling me to do and they would believe with me that God would work through it. I’m sure as friends it was easier to listen and not give advice because they new I was going to a professional counselor. I aspire to be a friend to others as they were to me. I will never forget there ability to connect with my Faith and see our situation through God’s eyes.
One day I was wondering if I should ‘spill the beans’ and tell someone else what was going on. I decided before I did this to read Proverbs. This was at the beginning of the chapter for that day.
Proverbs 25:2
It is the glory of God to conceal a matter; to search out a matter is the glory of kings.
Needless to say after I read that verse I did not reveal anything to that person.
Important to note:
Another thing regarding counseling that we feel helped us tremendously is going to someone who didn’t know either of us. Our first licensed counselor was referred to us by someone we trusted but she did not know us personally. This was very important to Darin which became very important to me. Our counselor had no expectations or pre-conceived ideas of who we were. The reason this is so important is, you must be able to trust a counselor is looking at you as equals. Also you have to be able to tell them anything without fear of it coming back to bite you! You cannot get free if you hide what is in your heart. You can’t! It is impossible!
Another way I fought for our marriage.
I had a dear friend years ago that I worked with that said her parents divorced when she was very young. When this happened she got to sleep with her mom every night which she loved to do. I’m not sure how long she slept with her mom but probably for several years. Later her mother started dating someone they married and he moved in. My friend could no longer sleep with her mom and as a little girl it broke her heart. I did not want Macy to ever have those feelings of brokenness and resentment toward Darin when he moved back home so in faith I made the decision that she would not sleep with me while Darin and I were separated.