Therapy for Couples Considering Divorce

Discernment Therapy for Couples Considering Divorce

Is your marriage on the brink?

I help struggling couples who are considering divorce decide if it’s time to end the marriage or commit to working on it using discernment counseling. It is an opportunity to slow down, take a breath, and consider the options.

Discernment counseling focuses on three paths:

Path 1: The marriage as it has been.
Path 2: Separation or divorce.
Path 3: An all-out effort for six months to see if you can build a strong marriage that will be good for both of you.

Gain clarity and confidence in a decision about the future of your marriage.

If you are ready, I can help you:

Decide whether to try to restore your marriage to health, move toward divorce, or take a time out and decide later.
Gain a deeper understanding of your relationship and its possibilities for the future.
See your own contributions to the problem and the possible solutions, which would be useful in future relationships even if this one ends.

Discernment counseling is different from marriage counseling: The goal is not to solve your problems but to understand if your problems are solvable.

I help 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.

When there are children involved…

Discernment counseling is a good option for families with children. The decision to separate or not takes on a new dimension when their needs are under consideration as well.

Pausing allows for each individual’s needs to be evaluated more deeply.
Children of all ages will experience a separation in unique ways and those experiences can be viewed and handled with more thought and care if the entire process is moving slowly.

Find a healthy path forward, together.

When discernment counseling is not a good option:

When one spouse has already made a final decision to divorce
When one spouse is forcing the other to participate
When there is a danger of domestic violence

What to expect

We will meet for up to five sessions. At the end of each session, we will decide whether or not to meet again.

The first session is two hours. All other sessions are one and a half hours.
Each session begins with both of you together, then each person is seen separately, and the session finishes with both together again.
The most intensive work goes on in the one-to-one conversations, which is different from regular marriage counseling. This is because each of you is in a different place in terms of what outcome you are hoping for. I want to help you individually sort out how to move forward.

Not everything that is faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it is faced.

James Baldwin

If you would like to work with me, please get in touch.

Contact Liliane