The author/counselor Jacob Wilhelm of this article is no longer with MyCounselor; however, wanting to continue to share their expertise on the subject, we would like to cite, credit and thank Jacob Wilhelm for their contributions to our clients.
Going through doubt from either the questioning side or the supporting side can be difficult and, at times, lonely. You don’t need to go through it alone and there is help sifting through the thoughts and feelings. This article will highlight some tips for the questioning spouse exploring their faith and tips for supporting spouse.
“I don’t think I believe in God anymore. I’ve done everything a good Christian was supposed to do, if God is real and cares, He wouldn’t have let this happen.” Seeing a spouse lose faith, or experience weakened faith is a difficult path to navigate. There are a variety of reasons that a spouse may lose their faith such as: intellectual inquiry, loss, trauma, or hope deferred (Proverbs 13:12) to name a few.
This article will highlight some tips for the questioning spouse exploring their faith and tips for supporting spouse.
To the struggling spouse, questions are not bad, they can lead to greater depth of understanding. Before we continue to mention some tips I want you to take a step back, take a breath, recognize what you’re feeling right now, recognize what you feel when you think about God or your relationship with God. Do you notice any tension in your body? Do you notice any racing thoughts, or any negative emotions? Evaluating your experience and your bodily reactivity can be an important piece of information to help bring to light underlying feelings or beliefs about God.
Exploring the Issue
To help investigate these feelings and beliefs check out the following tips:
- Share with your spouse that you’re exploring your faith. During this time the goal to be safe, secure, heard, and understood.
- Explore and write the questions down with associated feelings.
- Get to the root of the question. Some questions may present as “intellectual” or “philosophical” and they can stem from a place of hurt or pain. For example, “Why is there suffering in the world?”; try to understand if the question is an attempt to understand your own suffering.
- Explore any unmet expectations. Expectations can involve your spouse, your job, your health, other people’s health, your children, your parents, your siblings, etc.
- Make a timeline of when your faith started to diminish. What was going on in your life at that time.
- Consider sharing with a friend who is safe and non-judgmental.
- If you notice some level of loss, grief, or trauma, consider talking to a professional to explore how painful experiences can influence faith.
Remember: “The value of doubt is to keep you open to God’s revelations. If you don’t doubt, you don’t change. If you have to have finite answers to infinite questions, you’re not gonna move.”
“The second I’m furious with God, I’m totally close. Because you cannot be furious with somebody who’s not there.” – Madelein L’Engle.
Pursuing Your Doubting Spouse’s Heart
For the supporting spouse, it is important to not only be a safe space for your spouse, but still pursue your spouse’s heart. Seeing your spouse wrestling with their faith can engender your own questions or doubts and that can feel unsettling, you might feel even slightly afraid, hurt, confused or abandoned.
Focus of the Family’s, Dr. Greg Smalley, offers some tips on how to support your spouse during this time:
- Don’t try and change your spouse. Give your spouse room to talk, to explore, and to express their questions.
- Model a vibrant faith. 1 Corinthians 16:13, “Be on your guard; stand firm in the faith; be courageous; be strong.“
- Pray for your spouse.
- Get community support. Seeing someone you love wrestle with belief can be challenging; scripture offers some insight on making sure you feel encouraged. Hebrews 10:24-25, “And let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day drawing near.”
Be A Bridge
Be cautious! It may be easy to “intellectualize” what they’re going through to make sense of everything. What you don’t want to do is invalidate their feelings and thoughts by telling them how they are wrong, or to tell them what the correct perspective is. Be aware of when you want to fix it and pay attention if that is coming from a place of fear or confusion, which is normal. This is why it is important to have a community where you can share openly your fear or pain. Reacting out of fear of pain can push the spouse away, but rather you will want to keep one hand in God’s hand and that other in your spouse’s. How you show up in the marriage to your questioning spouse may be the bridge between your spouse and reconnecting with God.
Henry Blackaby and Claude King, from Experiencing God, “The crisis of belief is a turning point…that demands that you make a decision. You must decide what you believe about God.”
Going through doubt from either the questioning side or the supporting side can be difficult and, at times, lonely. You don’t need to go through it alone and there is help sifting through the thoughts and feelings. Contact us at MyCounselor.
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