So, my wife and I are having some struggles in our marriage. We've been married for almost 20 years and recently left the church after a lifetime within.

Our overall marriage is good but we really have some communication issues that consistently result in huge, blow-out fights. We are both in agreement to see a counselor to get some tools that could help us communicate more effectively.

This morning, I kind of came to the conclusion that she might be suffering more than I from the results of realizing the church is a great big fraud.

She feels very unaccomplished in her life (has been a SAHM for most our marriage) and seems to be holding on to some regrets.

My question is, what type of counselor would be best for our situation? I started looking up some different "marriage counselors" but then it seemed some had different degrees and training so I thought I better put out a post and get some input.

Thanks fellow RfM'ers!

really good question. People on this board go with religious background.

I say, find a specialist in trauma if one of you has had trauma. There are specialists in behavioral, cognitive, cognitive behavioral, and specialists that use EM something techniques, others specialize in talk therapy, others are sex therapists.\

therapists aren't just therapists. They're not all the same. & expectations of what is a functional life, expectations about roles in life, from sex roles to work roles are established not just by their training but by inclination, class, maybe even race.

a hearing therapist thought a profoundly hearing impaired person I am aware of (classified as deaf but in the hearing community, aurally using speech, not sign) was thought by the hearing therapist to be non expressive (in their speech intonation which the hearing therapist, with no knowledge of the ASL they use part of the time, no knowledge of the tone and difficulty speech reading- made an inappropriate psychological judgement without handicap deaf awareness)... a therapist that was part of a team or a school would never have gotten away with that (unawareness because adults do not come with 504 plans and IEP lists of disability accomodations required to learn or hear) and this therapist was practicing alone.

differences in gestures, differences in urban words, or connotations or meanings- vary among not only culture, language groups, regions of the country and amongst people of different ages. a therapist has to understand what slang, word connotations, gestures mean - or they may make mistaken or confused responses or even plans.

a radical feminist therapist will have a different response to the same situation than a therapist from a conservative background, and politics and religion does vary even amongst therapists.

finally if you have a diagnosis you can waste years dollars hours of time with someone with no specialty training or using passe practices even not aware of effective data driven interventions for specific situations.

Both of you have to reconstruct your lives and your realities and feel many regrets.

Your being able to feel empathy for your wife despite fights is a very good sign.

A good therapist will help you both make inner needs clear and devise strategies to meet those needs.

Good luck.

But, is there any certain type of therapist that would be better than another? Or just a general marriage counselor? Here's a little background:

20 years married with great kids
No infidelity
Great sex life
She's very jealous, insecure, regretful, hot tempered
I'm very introverted, pacifist, avoider with a dominate ego

The fights are always the same....I do something that sets her off and she'll either hold it in and build quick resentment which explodes. Or, she'll just let me have it. She takes things very personal which builds emotions and almost always ends with a screaming match that can last for several hours.

It's been very hard on our kids....and, obviously, both of us. This has been happening about once a week for the past 2 months. And has really been an overall problem since we've known each other.

These fight are always over trivial things. Once the situation has calmed down, everything is fine and we're totally (mostly) in love.

I better be anonymous on this comment. My wife and I sort of left the Church together, I was ready to leave sooner than her, but we both reached the point where we could say we were out for our own reasons. I figured we had beat the odds, in other words, our marriage survived the Church and we could move on together. I'll spare the ten year history, but the reality that we have been discovering is that while the Church didn't break us up, the Church was really what brought us together. Looking back on our lives we are now reevaluating our goals, needs, wants, for life and realizing just how far apart we are and always have been. Our marriage is just about through. We have had some very big fights this year, but have re-centered around a pretty good friendship, but it still seems like we are so far apart that divorce may be our best option.

So, to the question. For the last several month's she and I have been seeing two different counselors, just for us, ie, one for her and one for me. We each found our own and have determined to allow each other work our personal stuff out on our own. I would highly recommend a course similar to this. It may make a lot of sense to just sit down with a counselor, without each other being able to hear, and find out what you want out of life before worrying about how to make your marriage a tool for that. I would definitely recommend a good counselor though. I sought out a relationship counselor who could help me understand my behavior in my relationships. So far it has been an invaluable experience for me. I highly recommend it.

Sorry, just to be a little more explicit because I think I might have been unclear. Just like vetting the counselor services and types, you ought to consider the types of counselling arrangements a little more broadly. At least for us, pursuing individual counselling before marriage counselling seems to have been the best. It's not resulting in our marriage being saved, but in helping us adjust and move on in a healthy way.

I would n outrage you to find someone trained in EFT. It is different than any other therapy, with the highest success rate. http://books.google.com/books/about/Hold_Me_Tight.html?id=mt0YlwEACAAJ

Should have said encourage. Stupid autocorrect.

I second the suggestion to find an EFT trained counselor.