To Stay Married or Divorce

Discernment Counseling

Finding yourself:

Paralyzed?

Leaning towards a divorce decision but are not sure.

Confused about the possibilities?

Is your spouse talking about divorce and you don't want it?

Is your spouse thinking of leaving you and you're desperate about that, but they say they won't go to marriage counseling?

Your spouse is having an affair and they say they don't love you anymore and why even bother with counseling?

I can help. Hi, I'm Counselor Yvette E. McDonald and speaking from my own personal experience being in a state of limbo regarding my marriage was physically, emotionally and spiritually draining. I didn't know where to turn and how to make sense of a situation that was so foreign to me on every level. More times than not I found myself just sitting in silence trying to manage my emotions all the while trying to discern what to do with my marriage. My husband at the time was all over the place as well. In one breath he wanted to repair the marriage and build a new and then in the next breath he wanted to go with his lover. Then there were times that he just wanted to be single. We both felt torn as we yo-yo back and forth between what to do, what we wanted/needed, the ethical dilemmas, our children's needs, our hearts desires and if we even wanted to repair and heal the brokenness of our marriage. It was a rough season to say the least and we for sure lacked the discernment to make the decision let alone the right professionals to help us make sense of the most stressful time in our life. Needless to say we would have jumped at the opportunity to do discernment counseling which I feel would have saved us time (in the form of years) and emotional pain.

You don't have to make a premature divorce decision. You have an option. An option that was never available to me during my marriage crisis that I get the honor to offer you over a decade later.

Let's Take A Brief Timeout

Slowing down the moving train towards divorce and giving you both some time to reflect.

No more than 5 sessions to examine your options & figure out what path to take, let's divorce or working on the marriage in couples therapy
It's a way to see if the problems could be solved and if both want to work on them.
Gaining more clarity & confidence in your decision based on getting a perspective from a therapist who meets with both of you and hears from both of you.

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.

I will help you decide whether to try to restore your marriage to health, move toward divorce, or take a time out and decide later.

The goal 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.

The GOAL is not to solve your marital problems but to see if they are solvable. You will each be treated with compassion and respect no matter how you are feeling about your marriage at the moment. No bad guys and good guys.

You will come in as a couple but the most important work occurs in the one-to-one conversations with the counselor. Why? Because you are starting out in different places.

I will respect your reasons for divorce while trying to open up the possibility of restoring the marriage to health.

I will emphasize the importance of each of you seeing your own contributions to the problems and the possible solutions. This will be useful in future relationships even if this one ends.

Number of Sessions: A maximum of five counseling sessions. The first session is two hours and the subsequent are 90 minutes.

Discernment Counseling is not Suited for these situations:

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

Choose the statement below that best describes your situation.

I’m done with this marriage; it’s too late now even if my spouse were to make major changes

I have mixed feelings about the divorce; sometimes I think it’s a good idea and sometimes I am not sure.

I would consider reconciling if my spouse got serious about making major changes.

I don’t want this divorce, and I would work hard to get us back together.

I am leaning out of my marriage

I am leaning in to my marriage

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Live Your Best Life:

Experience an increase in skills, improved relationships, decrease in adverse symptoms, reduction in strong emotions, supported emotional exploration, clarity and perspective and improved quality of life.