Case Study

In the Symptoms and Treatment Text (Materials tab), you will see the potential impact of spiritual issues on a marital relationship. Such as, escalating arguments, silent treatment, lack of openness and transparency, resentment, household tension, coldness in relationship, parenting disunity, avoidance of verbal and emotional abuse, financial and scheduling disputes, domestic abuse, little or no intimacy, dominance and controlling spouse. As the counselor assessing the client’s behaviors, it is easy to just see the symptoms, considering treatment to address the presenting problem, not realizing what is underneath the surface.

Let me take it down to the real practical in this particular case. The parents came to me concerned over their daughter (presenting problem). The woman came first, describing her daughter's behavior as belligerent. She'd yell and scream. She would slam doors, she would disobey. After talking to the mother, I realized that the daughter was imitating her mother. The mother was fairly sincere, but very strong willed. And the father was probably either just fed up or had given up. He may be anything from an active to a passive person. He could be just a manipulator or like to control through emotion and playing the victim. So, I said to the woman, “I think that the problem with your daughter is at least partially you, and probably you and your husband. Your relationship to her is probably not one that promotes security. Perhaps your marriage relationship is not one that gives her confidence, a sense of safety or strength.” Needless to say, she was pretty upset. I was not sure I would see her again. 

She did come back, and was willing to bring her husband. I saw them separately, and the first thing that he said was, “This marriage has absolutely no love in it. It is loveless, sexless, and I absolutely hate it. If I wasn't a Christian committed to Christ, I would leave the whole family and just get out.” When I talked to the wife, her statement was that the marriage was one of disrespect, and that she felt disgusted with her husband for his lack of leadership. She didn't have any respect for him. That was where the problem was coming from. Once again, another example of “the rock and the ripple” metaphor; daughter as the ripple, the parents’ resentment and disrespect as the rock.  The daughter, who was fairly strong willed and active personality, had a sense of discernment. She knew there was unrest there, and saw that in the way they parented, then displayed in their AQAL scores. 

Please look at the man’s Agape Love Analysis Profile (ALAP). It turned out that he really wasn't a passive person at all. His strongest scores are: B kind (15), C envy (15), D boast (19), G self-seeking (18). He had some problems with: E pride (13), F rude (11), I keep a record (12), L protect (11), N hope (11), and O persevere (11). The lowest scores were in: A patience (9), H easily angered (8), J-K delight in evil ((9), M trust (6), and P fails (8). These scores show his tendency to fly off the handle and get mad. He had come to the point where he just got quiet and gave up. He had trouble with hopes and perseveres. He tried to do things on his own strength, even if it was giving up, which is a form of saying, I can't do anything about this, and God can't help me. His biggest trouble was with the area of patience, because when he tried to be patient, she wouldn't listen. He wasn't getting through, because he tended to be easily angered and provoked all kinds of fear and emotions in her. He went from one extreme of being angry to the other of being quiet. From the beginning of their marriage, they had a lot of power struggles. He also had sort of a perpetual dark cloud over his head, and saw the worst in a situation. He had a lot of trouble with trust, because he didn't know God very well. In growing up he was somewhat abandoned by parents who were not very active in their faith. So, to him the person of God was distant and not trustworthy. His understanding of God’s nature wasn't very well established at all. 

He has the basic score pattern of an active person: the low score on patience, build to a high point at envy or boast, then that downward slope towards easily angered. It's a little unusual for the high score on self-seeking. It's usually a little bit lower. His scores bottom out on easily angered and trust. If you remember, the pattern for an active person in general is that their low scores will be in patience, easily angered, trust, and never fails. And that's a pattern. He has his scores come up a little bit on I keep records. The scores level out through the rest of them showing his poor concept of God.  His tendency of being active altered over time. When they first married, he was quick to make decisions; to go from perception to reaction. He was doing things on his own strength, did not stop to seek God, and was absolutely confused over why he had problems. He was not getting the insight and perceptions he needed from the Holy Spirit, because no one taught him how. 

Now looking at hers, you will notice that she doesn't tend to be envious or boastful, nor does she tend to be selfish or hold grudges to keep records of wrong. She's somewhat different than he is in that she doesn't see things in a negative sense (delight in evil), and she wants to be protective which goes along with her being active-sincere. Now her problems start with not understanding how to deal with situations, impatience (15). His score was worse (9). So, you can imagine what happened when they tried to solve problems. Both are quick to make decisions, and neither one really willing to back off. Neither of them knows how to gain insights or perceptions, nor has a clue about the process of patience. Rather than attempting to relate to each other with kindness, they would argue about their views through that haze of impatience. She has a problem with kindness, understanding how to relate in a way that's useful or that builds him up or is good for herself. One of their main concerns was that her presence although not domineering, was something sensed immediately in just her appearance, and tone of voice. When in a good mood, she was a perky individual with bright, sparkly, and flashing eyes. She was the kind of person who was noticed by everybody, not because she was pushy, but she was fun, likable, happy and talked a lot. 

When she was mad, she could push with that same force of personality which would go from entertaining to this extremely strong presence, demanding action no matter what. This strong angry person was threatening to him. Initially, he liked her spunk and liveliness. But recoiled at this angry, demanding person acting inappropriately, and over time their relationship deteriorated. She became sarcastic, loud, caustic and quick-tongued, and very cutting and manipulative. This action was more out of frustration than anything. Her low score on rudeness shows that she could be doing this to manipulate. She wasn't really a rude person, no attempt to feign ignorance, or pretend she wasn't trying to be honest. She gave that appearance because of her personality type, her tone of voice, her physical bearing and presence. His score on being easily angered, resulted from her ability to provoke anything from a sense of security, love and tenderness to the opposite of fear and self-defense. Because her daughter was more like her; they tended to get into power struggles. One of her lowest scores was pride. The active-sincere person gives the impression of pride, but it's not a true impression. Because the active-sincere person is inconsistent in solving issues with so much effort, they can appear to be prideful to other people. Her other low scores are like his in trust through persevere and feeling like a failure. In a case of an active-sincere person, the extreme variance of the scores will be the issue because they are confusing. Her low score being P never fails (9), and her highest score being G self-seeking (23). You can see how he was confused. The initial reasons he was attracted to her were: she wasn't G selfish (23), had a forgiving spirit, I didn't keep a record (22), and wasn’t boastful (22) so she did have an appearance of being that way. And yet, after a time, he began to get confused, because she could appear to be E prideful (14), or hard to M trust (12) or like she was headstrong and lived life on her own strength, O persevere (14). 

These types of people give mixed signals. They're confusing. They're not boastful, and yet they can appear to be proud, they're not selfish, and yet they can appear to be rude and easily angered. They don't keep records of wrongs, and yet, at times they're hard to trust. They have a sense of being positive, JK delight in evil (19), and yet, sometimes they feel like failures. After about 12 or 13 years of her pattern, it had just about driven them both crazy. She grew up in a church family where her father was a pastor and extremely strong, willed and dominating. Her mother gave in to it and allowed it. She witnessed many times where the mother was yelled at and picked on, and mistreated without doing anything about it. As a young girl, she made a decision in her mind that was not going to happen to her. She sought out her husband because he tended to be soft spoken, had a gentle appearance, and would be tender and compassionate. 

Both husband and wife brought their spiritual immaturity into the relationship. See their ALAP scores from L protects (except for wife’s protect score, a sincerity strength) through P never fails. Both have the same trend of low to lowest scores that drop down from their average scores from B Kind through G Self Seeking. Second, these L - P scores are fairly clustered together. Remember, this scoring pattern can identify their lack of relationship with God and/or spiritual immaturity found in nominal believers, as discussed earlier. Along with their other low scores impacts their ability to express Agape love towards one another in their marriage, as parents and be an example for their daughter. I explained to them all of the spiritual issues as I have described them to you. She appeared to be proud, but instead she put up a wall to protect yourself when you get frightened and scared. When she didn't like what her daughter or husband did, she would use old behaviors of getting mad and demanding, and she justified what she did. All these behaviors, like being impatient or appearing to be proud, or actually being proud, or not trusting God, they all came out.

She listened and agreed and was very willing and ready to find help. They had both been praying for over six months that the Lord would send them to someone, who was be a Biblical counselor. This case was rather unique in that they were very willing and ready to hear what I said, and act on it. She was very thankful for understanding, finally, what had gone wrong: to learn how she had reacted to her parents, why she was having trouble, and what to do about it. He reacted the same way. I explained to the man, that he was not necessarily being prideful or rebellious against God, but his tendency to go from a perception to a reaction is what has caused your problems. In order to change that, you have to stop this quick reaction by using the process of patience, in order for the Holy Spirit to guide you in your perceptions, and how you should react and speak. It only took about three months of counseling for the two of them to get to an absolutely new relationship through their surrender to God and growing in their relationship to Him.