Greetings!  I appreciate your work and have studied much regarding the on-going battle between psychology and the Bible.  I wanted to write to you to get any advice you might have… 

I was a youth pastor for the past eleven years.  I was experiencing problems in my marriage- mostly continual arguing with my wife- although it never really got elevated to yelling or name calling and definitely not ever violent in any way.  I continued to ask my wife to get into counseling with me.  For years she refused and then finally agreed.  The guy we went to was a “Christian counselor”, but seemed very psychological to me.  After a while I chose to stop attending due to his choice of language, some of his teachings, and, what I thought, was a disrespectful way of treating me in front of her.

My wife continued to see him on her own and after a while I suggested that she meet with a woman- if she were going to meet one-on-one w/ a counselor.  She finally agreed.  This counselor sent her to a lady who is supposedly a Christian counselor, but who uses Regression Psychotherapy and practices/ teaches RMT (recovered memory therapy)- which I didn’t find out ‘til 1.5 years later.

Soon after this I began to notice more and more stand-offish behavior from my wife.  Months went by and she began to accuse me of different kinds of abuse- focusing heavily on some things I did wrong when we were college kids- dating (some petting that shouldn’t have happened) and my arguing with her as a form of serious spouse abuse.  A month or two later she became suicidal, with the idea of having to live with me and shortly after- to my continued shock- she took the kids on a vacation to her folks as part of a meditated plan to separate from me.  She refused to bring them back home until I left the house.  I was stunned and shocked to no end.  I asked what I had done and she couldn’t give me any specifics other than she thinks that I might be potentially abusive somewhere down the road and that “we relate in an unhealthy way”.  I apologized over and over again asking her to not do this and that this was not how God’s Word tells us to deal with our problems.  She refused- I did not play hard ball with her legally.  I just did what she asked and the elders of our church were so afraid to say anything to her- even though they confided in me that they did not think this separation was biblical in any way.

All this to say that the years passed and we have been separated for 3 ½ years now.  The counselor she was seeing would not see me until I finally asked enough that she agreed a year and a half into our separation.  This lady was shocking to meet with.  She scolded me for asking her “why she never wanted to meet me after doing marriage counseling with my wife for so long”.  She couldn’t believe I would be so disrespectful to ask such a thing.  She went on to explain where my marriage problems come from- a so-called bad relationship with my mother (whom she has never met).  Then went on to tell me that my body parts store memories and that we need to go back into my childhood and use techniques, along with listening to my body parts, to help bring back to memory where certain people might have touched or abused me when I was a toddler or an infant.  Needless to say, I couldn’t believe what I was hearing, but it explained a lot of what I had seen my wife become and believe.

My wife is a nurse and believes whole-heartedly in the “science” of mental illness- more than she ever did now.  There’s much more I could tell you about what’s gone on and how her and even my beliefs have changed.  She says that she has read two books on biblical counseling and believes their theories and methods to be very wrong.

Needless to say after 5 months of this separation, I stepped down form my ministry position and I have been living in a constant state of grief over this- especially now that my children are growing up without me in their home.  My wife will not listen to anyone but “Christian psychologists”.  The only guys that she will listen to is a new pastor they got at the church where I used to youth pastor.  He’s young, but wants to be very biblical in what he does.  He says he wants to meet with us to encourage us to get back together.  He’s done this a couple of times in the past, but stops short of confrontation.

The years are going by and I can’t really find anyone to help.  My kids have cried often through the years.  I tell them I’m trying to get back home, but their mom just keeps saying that “dad hasn’t worked on his issues yet”… which I don’t think is true- especially since I haven’t ever been given specifics.  I’ve just been left guessing all this time.  I don’t want a divorce, but I don’t want to keep going like this either.  I’m heart-broken over this every day.

Any advice at all?  I’ve thought of trying to see a judge to at least get a parenting plan as the kids and I don’t see enough of eachother.??

I recently purchased a seminar/ sermon series on cd and listened to it.  It really complimented what I’ve learned from Jay Adams and the men at the Master’s college and seminary.  Sorry this email is so long and yet so disconnected and rambling.  I’m just wondering what you think…?

Thank you for any time you can give to this…