On the Brink? How Discernment Counseling Can Help

Relationship Review

When you meet with the therapist, they will help you identify factors that have contributed to how your relationship has reached this point. A therapist can walk both of you through the history of your relationship. This review can include many facets: personality conflicts, stressors such as those mentioned above, when problems began to arise in the marriage, and so on.

A Neutral Ear

Often, therapists will want to meet with each partner individually. This session allows each partner the opportunity to share their understanding of what’s happening in the relationship. They can speak openly without worrying about starting an argument or hurting the other partner’s feelings.

Partners can sometimes be more honest about their thoughts and emotions toward their spouse when they’re meeting alone with the therapist.

It can also be easier to consider and acknowledge one’s role in the downward spiral of a relationship privately with the therapist. So often, each partner blames the other. But a therapist can help delineate ways in which each person has contributed to the issues.

Decision Time

It’s crucial to remember that a discernment counseling therapist isn’t there to tell you what to do about your relationship. The counselor will not decide for you. Instead, they’re helping guide both of you to your own decision.

The therapist’s goal in discernment counseling isn’t to help you reconcile or work out your relationship problems. Instead, they’re working with you as you make difficult decisions about the future of your marriage. There are three options for you to consider.

Seek Couples Counseling

Discernment counseling may have helped both of you realize that you value your marriage enough to try to work through your issues. If this is the case, traditional couples counseling is the next step. This is the place where you’ll dig deeper into your relationship issues. A couples counselor can work with you to find solutions and take proactive steps for healing.

Move Forward with Divorce

Of course, discernment counseling may also help you conclude that a divorce is necessary. It may have helped you see the extent of your relationship problems. Perhaps it led you to refine your own values and set boundaries for behaviors you’re not willing to tolerate anymore.

Postpone Divorce

You may both also decide that you’re not ready to file for divorce yet. Maybe you’re not prepared for traditional couples counseling yet. But discernment counseling has helped you identify where you’re at and what step you want to take next.

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If both of you are willing to seek neutral guidance on the future of your relationship, discernment counseling is a beneficial option. Therapists often recommend, though, that one partner not try to drag the other. It probably won’t be helpful if one has already made up their mind about divorce or doesn’t want to go to discernment counseling.