Kimberly, thank you for this challenging question. I’m guessing that this is a circumstance that you engage frequently in your coaching (btw, great website, http://www.kimberlydinsdale.com).

We see unequally yoked partners in the following scenario: One or both initiates marriage coaching because they are in pain and/or feel like their marriage is at risk. Thus, they are usually both motivated to get some help, and they feel like they are in crisis. As part of our informed consent we tell them that we are Christ followers and that we come at relationships from a Christian worldview. With that said, we promise to not to force anything down their throat, but we do ask their interest in a relationship with Jesus. It is rare for a person to say that they are not interested. The typical response is either, “I’m open to anything that might help at this point”, or “I was raised in religion and have gotten away from it, so I’m definitely open to learning about what you’re talking about, a relationship with Jesus.” On the rare occasion that a person says that they would prefer just to learn skills to solve their problems we will teach and facilitate their use of effective skills. Often the results are a pleasant surprise to them (the effectiveness and efficiency of the coaching approach), and they even ask for some information about “that spiritual stuff you were talking about”, or “Now that I see you know what you’re talking about with these skills (listening, asking, exercises to mediate emotional and difficult conversations), I’m open to hearing about the Jesus stuff you said you could tell me!”

I know this might seem a long way around the barn, but I wanted to set the context of coaching the woman you describe.

We only coach spouses individually when they are both willing to commit to a course of couple’s sessions. In other words, both are motivated for something from the marriage coaching. During individual sessions with the Christian wife of a non-Christian husband we would be encouraging her to take 100% responsibility for her part of the relationship, and trust God through the coaching process to motivate her husband to do the same. We would coach her with scripture regarding the qualities that should characterize her witness, “The unfading beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit” (I Peter 3, which also instructs about how to win unbelieving husbands with actions, not words).

Hurt people hurt people. We share this with wives married to men who have history of maltreatment (physical and emotional abuse from parents), and help them to understand that the anti-dote is unconditional love. It’s hard to love porcupines that are apt to prick you if you try to hug them, and it’s a hard balance to strike for a woman to not be a passive, codependent placating enabler, but rather an assertive, unconditionally loving woman of God who allows the Lord to reign in her tongue on one hand and to loose it to speak truth in love on the other. But, that’s the beauty of coaching, isn’t it? That we can ask our clients what they want to achieve and how they think they an do it.

I hope you find these thoughts helpful.

God bless, Jeff

thanks for reading and commenting,

Jeff Williams