Seperation counselling, or as it is now sometimes called, “discernment” counselling, helps you when one or both of you are considering separating.
“In discernment counselling we don’t try and solve your problems – we are just working out if they can be solved.”
A lot of couples going to relationship counselling come at this point. One has decided they probably want out, and the other, sensing this, tries very hard to get closer, to save the relationship. While this effort might have worked wonders weeks, months or years earlier, there is a point where it seems to have no affect other than to push the distant partner even further away.
At this point many people panic and insist on relationship counselling. But relationship counselling will be painful and just won’t work if one person has a different agenda to the other.
There are also some cases where both parties think they want to separate, but are not sure. And after being in love and trying so hard to be close for so long, it is tough for either of them to decide whether they want to leave a relationship or stay and try (yet again) to make it better.
This is the main reason you might come to discernment counselling – because you want some neutral guidance to help the decision become clearer. Your ultimate decision will probably look like one of the following:
Relationship Counselling is always a risk – because you bare your heart and soul to someone you love in counselling in order to correct misunderstandings, overcome past hurts, change and reconnect. It isn’t fair to put yourself or your partner through that kind of pain if one of you isn’t fully committed to the process.
My goal in discernment counselling is to encourage you to reflect individually on what you each want, on what has gone wrong and what your dreams are for the future. Then we look at all of these together. If you decide at that that there is a possibility for the relationship to get back on track, you decide whether you want to fully commit to relationship counselling to make things better. If you do choose that path, we often lock in a schedule for the sessions, of six months, for example, and start work. We use Gottman and Emotionally Focused Therapeutic techniques to look at repairing hurts or lack of trust issues, or re-establishing broken emotional bonds between you. You can read more about this on my relationship counselling pages.
Some couples decide to stick with the status quo and stay together as things are after discernment counselling. One or both of you may not be emotionally ready to make any decision. There may be another reason progressing with relationship counselling or separation may not be appropriate at that time, such as health or work pressures, or coinciding events in your children’s lives.
If things are difficult between you then for obvious reasons this may not be a preferred option for either of you, but it is a valid decision under certain circumstances.
We work hard in discernment counselling to get a sense of what has gone wrong. Often you may come to some surprising conclusions as we uncover patterns between you that have led to unnecessary distance and misunderstanding.
Sometimes there are nice surprises there, as you examine the hurt and blame from new angles. This can create enough relief for both of you to want to give relationship counselling a try.
However, there are many situations where staying together would be unhealthy and lead to frustration, unhappiness and perhaps even violence. If this is the case and you decide to separate, my goal is that both of you leave with a better sense of the way the dynamic between you led you to where you are.
My favourite supervisor summed it up well: “You may not have had a good marriage but you can have a good separation”. Isn’t that a liberating thought?
If your marriage or relationship must end, discernment counselling may at least provide you with some understanding of how your relationship has played out, and how each of you in some way may have contributed to it breaking down. This doesn’t mean we’re looking to attribute blame. Absolutely not – we’re working out the unique emotional pattern that evolved between the two of you, causing each of you to behave in ways that eventually led to you drifting apart. Not that the decision to break up is always a gradual one. It can happen suddenly, with one of you waking up one day, saying “I want out”.
This is of paramount importance: that we try and minimise blame, hurt and conflict so that your separation can be as amicable as possible. This will be of huge benefit to each of you, your health and if you have children, to them.
And if you re-partner? You don’t want to play the same tape again – some deeper insight around separation will undoubtedly support a stronger connection with a possible future partner.
If you come to discernment counselling, no-one will be making any negative judgements about who may have done right or wrong. I will simply listen to you and help you figure out what is right for each of you, and for the couple you may or may not become.
We will likely do more work in individual sessions than would be the case with relationship counselling.
I limit the sessions to a maximum of about six, as I find for most people, by that point, they really want and need to find their own direction. Sometimes it might only be 1 or 2 sessions where one partner makes a final decision – but on average we might do 4 or 5 sessions in discerning your preferred outcome.
