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What a Breakup Therapist Can Teach You About Staying Together
“Discernment counseling” is not couples’ therapy
Last summer, Esther was facing down a perfect storm of marital stresses: In addition to a recent death in the family, a move, and the grind of daily life with small children, she was struggling with her husband’s addiction issues. All this on top of the overall sense of disconnection that had long been plaguing them, she says: “It was more than five years of feeling hopeless about our future.”
Esther (who requested that her last name be withheld for privacy) had finally reached her breaking point. Couples therapy seemed like a waste of time and money — it might drag on for months or years, and she balked at the idea of staying together for that long. Esther was desperate to escape the unhappiness of her marriage. But her husband was equally desperate to salvage family life for their two kids.
Stuck at a crossroads, the two of them turned to discernment counseling, a relatively niche and short-term type of therapy that helps couples decide whether to try to make it work.
Discernment counseling is not couples counseling. It doesn’t aim to fix any problems. Instead, in just a handful of sessions (both joint and individual), it helps couples on the verge of relationship breakdown understand why their problems have become so intractable, helping them trace the downward spiral and examine their patterns from a different perspective. In a sense, it’s an exit interview for a relationship, but one that leaves the door open to reconciliation.
Rachel Zamore, a discernment counselor in Vermont, says about half of her clients decide to stay together and transition into more traditional therapy. Some have even backed out of divorces. “Many couples have been unhappy for a long time, and then they finally realize that they can just leave,” she says. “But they haven’t really done any work to address the problems in the relationship in any meaningful way.”
In her role, Zamore says, she coaxes couples out of fight-or-flight mode and into a headspace where they can chart their next move with care. “This helps people slow down the speeding train,” she says, “and make a decision that feels really in line with their integrity and not…
