"If you or your spouse are considering separating or divorce but are not completely sure that’s the best path, you are in a tough spot. And 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 couples counseling would help--and the other is“leaning in”—that is, interested in rebuilding the marriage.
The counselor will help you decide whether to try to restore your relationship to health, move toward separation or 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 goal is not to solve your realationship 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 relationship 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 with the counselor. Why? Because you are starting out in different places.
The counselor respects your reasons for separation or divorce while trying to open up the possibility of restoring the relationship to health.
The counselor emphasizes 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.
Number of Sessions: A maximum of five counseling sessions. The first session is usually two hours and the subsequent are 1.5 or 2 hours.
Discernment Counseling is not Suited for these situations:
• When one partner has already made a final decision to separate or divorce • When one partner is coercing the other to participate
• When there is danger of domestic violence