Navigating Relationship Challenges: When One Partner Resists Therapy

"We just don’t match. Rami is so materialistic and shallow; he only cares about soccer, business, and partying. You have no idea how many times I've tried to influence him. I wanted him to pray three times a day in a minyan, to attend Torah classes, to strengthen his observance, to become a more spiritual person. He just stays stuck in his superficial world. Our worldviews are so different; we are just opposites of each other. He refuses to come with me to couples therapy. Can you do couples therapy if he doesn’t come?" Noa asked.

"Maybe it really is worth understanding what couples therapy is first. Couples therapy isn't therapy for you or therapy for Rami…" -

"It's therapy for both of us," Noa interrupted me.

"It's therapy for the relationship structure between you, in the way you express the marital connection. It's therapy that you go through together, because both of you need to commit to the therapy. Otherwise, it's not couples therapy."

"So what can I do? He doesn’t want to come! Maybe I’ll just set a condition for him: if he doesn’t come, then I’ll divorce him?" she asked helplessly.

"What we can do is start a personal process together, and I believe that when you make a change in your field, Rami's stance towards you will automatically change. Personal therapy can help you deal with the relationship issues better from your side."

"And what about our different worldviews? How can we overcome that?" she asked.

"Different worldviews are a blessing; they can enrich each other if communicated correctly," I answered.

"He spends money endlessly, inundates the kids with gifts, takes them to soccer games in Europe, lives a life of pleasure. He doesn’t ask me if it's okay to spend that money or not."

"The way you describe your husband as shallow, wasteful, and materialistic makes you experience him as an inferior husband, and it causes you to look down on him. You are such a spiritual woman; what did you find in a materialistic husband like that?" I asked.

"I met him after a very big crisis I went through, after my partner abandoned me, and I lost my grounding. His kindness, generosity, and self-confidence drew me to him immensely," she said.

"I hear that alongside your disdain for him, there’s something else. I hear there’s a connection point here, a substance that connects you both.

"When you look down on him because he’s very shallow, materialistic, and frivolous, you are actually saying: he has a very broad heart, to the point that he gives and wastes recklessly. Deep down, you expected to receive all of that kindness from him, which would take you out of the place where you feel trapped, and make your life better and more interesting. All that materiality he brings, the financial stability and his ability to squander without thinking, gave you a feeling of security.

"And then, suddenly, you discovered the truth! You discovered that behind his outward confidence is a scared soul, and that broke you, realizing that you cannot obtain the security you so desperately wanted.

"The disappointment from all that kindness and unconditional love you wanted from him but didn’t get created a great frustration, leading to a deep sense of disdain towards him. You found out that behind the wastefulness and indulgence is actually a very anxious and insecure person. Those outer trappings are actually his way of solving his fears. That's how a very large wall was built between you."

"What exactly does that wall help him with?" she asked.

"When you send him the message that all those outer trappings he built are worth nothing, he in turn develops a sense of numbness. It frightens him immensely to feel that vulnerability, so he becomes indifferent to your feelings and builds a protective wall around himself."

"It basically turned him into a bad and insensitive person; I felt it all the time."

"Not because he’s a bad person, but because you expose him to a level where he can’t tolerate it. So that wall protects him, and that’s also why he’s not at all interested in going to couples therapy."

"So what can we do?" she asked.

"What we need to do is work on the ability to melt that wall, and then we can work together on the relationship."

"How can I melt a wall he built against me? That’s his wall," she asked.

"That wall he has has two sides. There’s his side, and then there’s your side. The part of you in his wall, you are building and nurturing, and it serves you."

"I’m building? He’s the one building it."

"Let’s try to recognize your side in this construction. Let’s see how the wall that was built against him starts to be built on your side too.

"The disdain – that’s essentially the building material of the wall. That he’s shallow, worthless, and you can’t see yourself as his wife."

"So what do we do?" she asked.

"Since you are the only one sitting here in the therapy room, the arena is yours, so let’s focus on your field.

"Let’s first start by removing the disdain. To remove disdain, you need to understand what’s underneath it. Underneath disdain, there’s a deeper internal point that is the root, which is – despair. The despair that you think you will not be able to receive what you need from Rami created disdain in you and raised a wall.

"All that despair is something internal to you, not at all related to Rami’s essence, but due to a place within you, where you can’t trust someone to give you something.

"Gradually, as we go through this process here, you will start to agree to feel the places where you feel lacking. The places that want to be filled and receive value from places that cannot give you value, and primarily we will work on the point of trust that with Rami is the exact abundance you need.

"Maybe this will be the first time you agree to feel vulnerability, but this time from a place of trust that there will be someone there to embrace you. We will learn to speak in a different internal language than what has been until now."

Hanna Dayan [email protected]

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