Discernment Counseling

When One Person Is Leaning Out

and the Other Is Leaning In

Often, by the time a couple reaches this point, you aren't standing in the same place.

One partner may be wondering whether there's anything left to save. The other may desperately want to repair the relationship and wish the other partner would “just try” couples therapy. The more one person pushes for closeness, answers, or reassurance, the more the other may pull away. Everyone gets louder, quieter, angrier, more desperate—or more certain that nothing can change.

Discernment Counseling is designed for exactly this kind of mixed-agenda couple, where one partner is leaning toward leaving and the other is leaning toward preserving the relationship.

Discernment Counseling

Is Not Couples Therapy

Traditional couples therapy generally begins with an important assumption: We're here to work on the relationship.

Discernment Counseling starts one step earlier: Are we both willing to choose working on the relationship?

That's a different question.

If one person is already halfway out the door, immediately beginning traditional couples therapy can create pressure to repair something you're not even sure you want to continue. The goal of Discernment Counseling isn't to solve all of the relationship's problems. It's to gain enough clarity and understanding to make a thoughtful decision about

which direction deserves your next effort.

There Are Three Possible Paths

Path One — Stay As Things Are

You don't make an immediate change to the relationship.

That doesn't necessarily mean everything is fine. It means choosing, at least for now, not to pursue separation or a major attempt at reconciliation.

Path Two — Move Toward Separation or Divorce

You decide that ending the relationship is the direction you want to pursue.

The goal isn't to convince you otherwise. It's to reach that decision with greater clarity about what happened, your own contribution to the relationship's difficulties, and what you want to carry forward differently.

Path Three — Commit to Couples Therapy

Both partners agree to make a serious, time-limited effort to work on the relationship before deciding whether to end it.

If you choose this path, the work shifts from deciding whether to try to actually trying.

The Goal Isn't to Save the Marriage

And it isn't to end it. My role is not to decide which partner has the better argument or persuade either of you toward a particular outcome.

Instead, we'll work toward greater clarity about:

• what's happened in the relationship

• what brought you to this point

• patterns that have kept repeating

• each person's contribution to those patterns

• what would actually need to change for the relationship to become viable

• whether both people are willing to make those changes

• what you've learned about yourself regardless of which path you choose

That last piece matters because even if the relationship ends, understanding your own part of the pattern gives you something useful to carry into whatever comes next.

What Sessions Actually Look Like

Discernment Counseling is structured differently from traditional couples therapy. We'll spend some time in the beginning together as a couple, but a substantial part of the work happens individually with each partner during the session. That gives the partner leaning toward leaving room to explore their uncertainty without having to defend it, while the partner leaning toward staying can look honestly at their own role in the relationship rather than focusing entirely on how to convince the other person not to leave. We then bring important insights back into the shared conversation in ways that support clarity rather than another round of the same argument.

The goal isn't secrecy or building separate alliances. It's creating enough room for each person to become more honest with themselves so the conversation between you can become more honest too.

You Might Consider Discernment If...

• one of you is seriously considering separation or divorce

• one partner wants couples therapy and the other isn't sure

• you've been having the same arguments without getting anywhere

• you're exhausted from cycling between “we can fix this” and “I need to leave”

• you've already tried couples therapy but one person wasn't fully invested

• a major rupture has changed how one or both of you see the relationship

• you're afraid of making a permanent decision in the middle of intense emotion

• you want to know that you've looked honestly at the relationship before deciding what comes next

You do not need to know which path you want before beginning. That's the point.

What If We Decide

to Work on the Relationship?

If you both choose the path of seriously attempting reconciliation, that's when deeper couples therapy becomes appropriate.

My relationship work is attachment-based and informed by Emotionally Focused Therapy. Rather than only negotiating the latest argument, we'll look at the recurring cycle underneath it—what each partner does when they feel hurt, afraid, disconnected, criticized, or unwanted, and how those protective responses can unintentionally create more of the very thing each person fears.

Discernment answers:

Are we both willing to try?

Couples therapy then asks:

How do we build something different?

What If We Decide to Separate?

Choosing separation doesn't mean the work you did was unsuccessful. Sometimes clarity means recognizing that a relationship should end. For clients navigating that next chapter, I also offer divorce and relationship transition therapy focused on grief, identity, rebuilding, and figuring out what life looks like after a significant relationship changes or ends.

For those looking for additional support, I also recommend Rebuilders, a divorce recovery program offering groups designed to help people process the grief of a relationship ending and begin rebuilding what comes next.

FAQs

How long does Discernment Counseling take?

Discernment Counseling is intentionally short-term (roughly 5 sessions). It isn't designed to become ongoing couples therapy. The focus is on gaining enough clarity and confidence to choose the next direction rather than resolving every problem in the relationship.

Do we both have to participate?

Yes. Discernment Counseling is a couples process that requires a private pre-screening with each partner to determine eligibility. If your partner doesn't want to participate, individual therapy can still help you explore your own uncertainty and decisions.

What if one of us already wants a divorce?

There needs to be at least some openness to slowing the decision-making process down. If a partner has made a final decision to end the relationship and isn't reconsidering it, Discernment Counseling may no longer be the appropriate service.

Will you tell us whether we should stay together?

No. I'll help you look more honestly at the relationship, your patterns, your own contributions, and the realistic possibilities ahead. The decision remains yours.

You Don't Have to Decide

Your Whole Future Today

When a relationship is in crisis, urgency can make it feel like you need an answer immediately: Stay, Leave, Fix it, End it.

Discernment Counseling gives you somewhere to slow the process down long enough to understand what you're actually deciding. You don't have to promise to stay together to begin.

You just have to be willing to look honestly at what brought you here.

Not sure whether Discernment Counseling fits your situation? Email me.

© 2026. All rights reserved.

Michelle Hansen, MSW, LSW
Colorado Licensed Social Worker
Clinical supervision: Becky Zal-Sanchez, LCSW (CSW.09923198)
Specialized training in Discernment Counseling and divorce recovery