DISCERNMENT COUNSELING

FOR COUPLES ON THE BRINK

If you or your spouse are considering divorce but are not completely sure that’s the best path, you are in a tough spot. Discernment Counseling is designed for you. It’s a chance to slow down, take a breath, and look at your options for your marriage.

Discernment Counseling is a new way of helping couples where one person is “leaning out” of the relationship—and not sure that regular marriage counseling would help–and the other is “leaning in”—that is, interested in rebuilding the marriage. Discernment counseling will help you decide whether to try to restore your marriage to health, move toward divorce, or take a time out and decide later. The goal is for you to gain clarity and confidence about a direction, based on a deeper understanding of your relationship and its possibilities for the future.

The leaning in partner.

If you are the “leaning in” partner, you are more motivated to work on the relationship than your partner is. Nothing you try seems to work. In fact, your efforts may actually be making things worse.

In discernment counseling, we will discuss other things you can do that may work better. To start we recommend an excellent book for “Leaning-In” partners written by Michelle Weiner-Davis called “The Divorce Remedy”.

If you are making mistakes that are driving your partner away, we encourage you to commit to trying to change those things. Taking leadership (for a while) to make the marriage better for both of you is an important attitude to have in order to perhaps turn things around. Regardless of the ultimate path chosen by you and your partner, in discernment counseling we help you learn more about yourself, how you communicate, how your partner is reacting to you, and the role of a committed relationship in your life.

The leaning out partner.

Did you know that 40% of couples with minor children who divorce later regret it? If you are a partner that is not sure, but wants out of the marriage more than your partner does, you are a “leaning-out” partner in the system of discernment counseling. Our goal with you would be to help you decide whether to work on the marriage at all, as opposed to helping you and your partner fix it now.

Again, the goal of discernment counseling is to help couples have greater clarity and confidence in their decision making. The immediate decision is framed not as whether to stay together or divorce but whether to continue moving towards divorce or committing to a six month effort to restore the marriage, with divorce off the table for that time period. .

Discernment Counseling was developed as a special process because traditional change-oriented marriage or couples therapy is often unhelpful when one or both partners is ambivalent about working on the marriage.

The goal is not to solve your marital problems but to see if they are solvable. You will each be treated with compassion and respect no matter how you are feeling about your marriage at the moment. No bad guys and good guys. You will come in as a couple but the most important work occurs in the one-to-one conversations within the sessio. Why? Because you are starting out in different places so the individual time is an important part of the discernment process.  

Both partners’ positions will be respected and during our sessions we will explore the possibility of restoring the marriage to health. Our time will also focus on the importance of each of you seeing your own contributions to the problems and the possible solutions. This will be useful in future relationships even if this one ends.

The sessions are divided between conversation with the couple together and individual conversations with each spouse. There are a maximum of five counseling sessions in the discernment process. The first session is usually two hours and the subsequent ones are 1.5 or 2 hours. Discernment counseling is considered successful when people have clarity and confidence in their decision.  Discernment Counseling is not suited for situations when one spouse has already made a final decision to divorce, when one spouse is coercing the other to participate or if there is danger of domestic violence.

When a decision emerges, the counselor helps the parties either to find professionals who can help them have a constructive divorce or to formulate a reconciliation work plan to create a healthy, successful marriage.

Keep in mind, the goal of discernment counseling is to help couples have greater clarity and confidence in their decision making, The immediate decision is framed not as whether to stay together or divorce but whether to continue moving towards divorce or committing to a six month effort to restore the marriage, with divorce off the table for that time period.

  • No. Discernment counseling is short term help for deciding whether to divorce or work more on the marriage. Marriage counseling, which is generally open-ended in length, aims to help people solve their problems and restore their marriage to health.

  • Although it would be wonderful if all troubled marriages could become healthy and satisfying for both parties, we understand that this is not always possible. Therefore, our basic criterion for success is that the spouses come to a deeper understanding of themselves and what’s happened to their marriage, and have reached a decision that allows them to move ahead with their lives in a healthy way for themselves and their families. In some cases, this deeper understanding opens doors to possible reconciliation, and in other cases one or both parties decide that divorce is their best option. We try to show couples what a reconciliation path might look like for them, but we honor the choices that people make for themselves.

  • Any couple who consider themselves in a committed relationship will be offered services if they ask for help. This could include cohabiting couples and same sex couples, particularly if they are raising children and concerned about the impact of a break up on their children.

  • Step 1- Schedule a consultation to determine suitability of this program to your situation vs traditional marriage therapy or referral to another resource

    Step 2- First two hour session to decide which of three paths are best for you. At the end of the session you decide if you want to have a second session. You can have up to five discernment sessions.

    Step 3- Pursue whichever path you choose with the help of discernment.

  • The first two-hour session is $500 If you decide to continue with sessions, each subsequent 90 minute session is $350.