Discernment Counseling

If you or your spouse are considering 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 slowdown, 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.

The counselor 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  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 with the counselor. Why?  Because you are starting out in different places.

The counselor respects your reasons for divorce while trying to open up the possibility of restoring the marriage 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 spouse has already made a final decision to divorce • When one spouse is coercing the other to participate • When there is danger of domestic violence

This is an excellent video by the creator of discernment counseling.