How to find the best mixed faith marriage counselor for your interfaith relationship
Finding the right therapist to help you navigate the complexities of a mixed faith marriage or interfaith relationship is crucial. It’s only natural that you would want the best mixed faith marriage therapist you can find. Your relationship is too important to waste your time and money with someone who doesn’t know how to help you or makes things worse.
If you feel like your relationship can’t wait and you need help now, contact us! We offer in-person marriage counseling in Murrieta, CA and Riverside, CA as well as online couples counseling in California.
I’m going to start by reviewing what you DON’T want, and that will set the stage for the questions to ask a couples counselor when you need help with your mixed faith marriage.
What you don’t want in a mixed faith marriage therapist
A couples therapist so aligned with one “side” of your marriage that they can’t see the other position as valid. Both parties in the relationship deserve to have their positions or beliefs recognized and accepted. An LDS couples therapist who thinks the solution to your mixed faith marriage is for the non-LDS partner to convert or come back to church is not going to be a good fit for you. And an atheist therapist who thinks the solution is for the “brainwashed” believer to just open their eyes and let go of their beliefs is not going to be a good fit either.
A therapist with no couples therapy training or experience
Relationships are complicated. They are necessary and deeply meaningful but also complicated. Helping people with what happens in their relationships--between the people--is a completely different skill set than helping a person with what happens within themselves--their confidence, their moods, their thoughts and assumptions. A therapist who is really great at helping people with what happens within might not have any training or experience in helping people with what happens between. If you’re looking for help with your relationship, you don’t want a therapist who has no training or experience helping heal relationships.
A couples therapist with no understanding of mixed faith marriages, interfaith relationships, religious trauma, or deconversion experiences.
Even among great couples therapists, many do not understand the intricacies of how religious belief, religious trauma, or deconversion experiences impact mental health and relationship happiness.
When you have more general problems, a general therapist is great. Your family doctor is great for many, many issues. But you wouldn’t want your family doctor performing a complicated heart surgery they’ve never trained in. You want the specialist! With your mixed faith marriage, most general therapists just don’t have the training, experience, and expertise to get you what you really need.
If you are here reading this, you probably already understand this concept and are on the search to find the best interfaith marriage therapist to help you and your partner have a satisfying, loving, affirming, and respectful relationship.
If you are in California and would like to work with one of our therapists, schedule a free phone consultation here.
If you know you want to work with one of us and can travel to California for your services, read more about our intensive therapy packages here.
Or, get started today with our free mini course: Foundations of a Mixed Faith Marriage here.
How to evaluate if a mixed faith marriage therapist is right for you
If you’re looking for a interfaith marriage therapist near you, here are my suggestions for what to ask when evaluating if that marriage counselor is right for you:
What is your experience with mixed faith marriages or interfaith marriages?
What do you think it takes to make a mixed faith marriage work?
What is your stance on raising kids in a mixed faith household or interfaith family?
What is your couples therapy training and experience?
As you listen to the answers, pay close attention to how you feel. Do you like what they say? Does it make you feel excited? Do you feel a sense of dread or a pit in your stomach as they describe what they think it takes to make a mixed faith marriage successful or how to raise your kids in an interfaith household? If you feel good, try them out. If you already don’t like them in the initial phone call, keep looking. I’ll explain why how you feel matters.
The key to choosing a mixed faith marriage counselor is this question:
Do you believe this person can help you?
Does it seem like they understand you? Do you feel you can trust them?
None of the rest of these questions or lists matters if that one thing is missing. The relationship between the therapist and the client(s) is critical to the success of any type of therapy. Multiple research studies into the effectiveness of various types of therapy show this result: the relationship between the therapist and the client matters! So trust your gut.
We wish you the best of luck in finding the right couples counselor for your mixed faith marriage. If you would like to work with one of our mixed faith marriage therapists, please click below to schedule your free phone consultation to get the process started or check out our FAQS to learn more.
We also offer a workshop for mixed faith couples called The United Couple. Click here to access the first lesson for free and get on the email list to be notified when the next round if starting. Spots fill fast!
We offer online couples counseling in California and in-person marriage counseling services in Riverside, CA and in-person marriage therapy in Murrieta, CA!! It’s so important for you to find the right marriage counselor for you. Learn more about what’s unique about our couples therapists here.
