Boy he sounds like my father back in the day.
What will happen is you will each talk about what your marriage is like from your perspective. You may be encouraged to discuss these descriptions. Then the therapist may ask questions like.. "And how did you feel when she asked you to change the litter?" And then ask you, "How did you feel when he balked at having to change the cat litter?"
It is like the Therapist will guide the 2 of you to discuss these incidents with expectations and maybe some help on better ways to communicate with each other.
And yes the therapist may observe patterns in your relationship, your communications etc.
This person will not really take sides, but will listen very carefully and then maybe make suggestions about communications styles and also who we hear what people are saying to us.
Here is an example. When my sister and I were in therapy, with my dad.. The therapist did notice that my sister snaps at me when she speaks. I shut down at this.
The therapist told me. "L., when she speaks to you like that, tell her to stop, and that she is not allowed to speak to you like that."
And so for some reason, this empowered me to tell her, "Hey, you are not allowed to speak to me like that."
My sister tells me things that drive her crazy about me. She NEVER has a positive thing to say.. The Therapist asked her about this. My sister said, "I am not apologizing, those are my feelings." The Therapist told me. T"hat is her problem not yours. You can tell her that too. "
So she was empowering me, but also letting my sister know, I have a right to stand up for myself.
She did ask my sister why she has these feelings,? Why does she spend so much tie bullying me and others.. She asked this in a more professional way..
You have nothing to worry about or to be nervous about. Just go in there and be truthful. It helped me to write down notes on things I was upset about.