Are you or your spouse considering divorce but are not completely sure that’s the best path? If so, Discernment Counseling is designed for you.

What is Discernment Counseling?

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 provides a chance to slow down, take a breath, and look at options and you help you decide whether to try to restore your marriage to health, move toward divorce, or take time and decide later.

Discernment Counseling does not help you to solve your marital problems but to see if they are solvable. The aim 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.

What happens in Discernment Counseling?

I will respect your reasons for considering divorce while trying to open the possibility of restoring the marriage to health. You both will be treated with compassion and respect no matter how you are feeling about your marriage at the moment.

You will come in as a couple, but the most important work occurs in the one-to-one conversations with me. These conversations are important because you both are likely starting out in different places.

How long is the Discernment Counseling process?

The Discernment Counseling Process is a maximum of 5-7 counseling sessions. Each session is 50 minutes long.

Couples Deciding to go Through with Separation/Divorce

For those couples where there is absolutely no love left, are too unhappy to benefit from therapy and have decided to proceed to a permanent separation or divorce, I will help you with:

• Communication issues surrounding the decision.
• Assisting with co-parenting considerations to make the separation and divorce as amicable and non-damaging to the kids as possible.
• Navigating through separation/divorce and help you move from angry, hurt partners to constructive successful co-parents.

When is Discernment Counseling not suitable?

• 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.