Stronger Marriage Connection
It's often said that marriage takes work. The Stronger Marriage Connection podcast wants to help because a happy marriage is worth the effort. USU Family Life Professor Dr. Dave Schramm and Clinical Psychologist Dr. Liz Hale talk with experts about the principles and practices that will enhance your commitment, compassion, and emotional connection.
More than ever before, marriages face obstacles, from the busyness of work and daily hassles to disagreements and digital distractions. It's no wonder couples sometimes drift apart, growing resentful, lonely, and isolated.
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Stronger Marriage Connection
Discernment Counseling: For Couples on the Brink of Divorce | Steve Harris | #139
Dr. Steve Harris joins us to explain discernment counseling, a specialized approach helping couples gain clarity about whether to work on their marriage or move toward divorce.
• Developed at the University of Minnesota after research showed 30% of divorcing couples had at least one person who didn't want the divorce
• Differs from traditional couples therapy by focusing on decision-making clarity rather than relationship improvement
• Designed specifically for "mixed-agenda couples" where one partner wants to work on the marriage while the other is considering divorce
• Creates a structured space where ambivalence about the relationship is welcomed and explored
• Presents three paths: continuing the status quo, moving toward divorce, or committing to six months of intensive work on the relationship
• Typically runs 1-5 sessions with both joint and individual components
• Helps both partners recognize their own contributions to marital problems, not just their partner's failings
• Results show approximately 51% choose to work on their marriage, with 70-75% of those successfully repairing their relationship
• Even couples who ultimately divorce benefit from better understanding and communication
Visit MinnesotaCouplesOnTheBrink.org or discernmentcounseling.com to learn more and find trained counselors in your area.
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Most couples experience all kinds of ups and downs in their marriage and countless couples have talked about whether they should even stay together. On today's episode, professor and marriage therapist Dr Steve Harris joins us to talk about discernment counseling and how he can help both partners gain clarity about their options moving forward, and the results just might surprise you. Stephen Harris received his master's and doctoral degrees in marriage and family therapy from Syracuse University. He is a professor in the Department of Family Social Science at the University of Minnesota. He's been practicing as a family therapist for over 30 years. He's the past editor for the Journal of Marital and Family Therapy and has authored over 95 peer-reviewed articles and book chapters and has written four books. Dr Harris also serves as the director of the Minnesota Couples on the Brink Project at the University of Minnesota. He conducts research on the many facets of divorce, decision-making and the discernment counseling approach he and his colleague, dr William Gordy pioneered of the University of Minnesota. They are currently working on a revision of their first textbook on discernment counseling, originally published in April 2017, that will be released in 2026. We hope you enjoy the show.
Speaker 1:Hey friends, welcome to another episode of Stronger Marriage Connection Podcast. I'm Dr Dave here at Utah State University, alongside Dr Liz Hale, our therapist, we're aiming to bring you the very best we have in research and resources and tips and tools to help you create the marriage of your dreams. Today we're taking a really, I most important yet often misunderstood approaches to helping couples on the brink of divorce discernment counseling. Our guest today is a friend, a colleague, professor in marriage and family therapist at the University of Minnesota, who I've known, actually for close to two decades. So we're looking forward to a great discussion. Welcome to the show, dr Steve Harris. Hey, thanks for having me. Yeah, we're anxious to jump right in here, steve. Steve, can we start more stepping back kind of big picture to set up our discussion today? Can you tell us what discernment counseling is for our listeners who are not familiar with what that is, and why the need for discernment counseling is? For our listeners who are not familiar with what that is and why the need for discernment counseling?
Speaker 2:Yeah, you bet I mean the model, the protocol. I came out of some work that Dr Bill Doherty and myself did here at the University of Minnesota. We were actually interviewing people or surveyed people who were remanded to parent education classes, who were going through divorce, parents who had minor age children, and one of the questions that we asked them was whether or not they'd be open to any kind of reconciliation services or if they had an attitude about reconciliation at all. So these are people who were already in the divorce court system. They were moving along and the judge was saying, hey, because you have minor children, you've got to go in and kind of get your act together to be on the same page for your co-parenting. Well, when we looked at the results, there were about 30% of those couples where at least one person said I don't want this divorce and they either specified I'm interested in making some changes myself or I'd be open to my If my partner made changes. I'd be open to seeing if we could save our merit and one of the things that we did with that data. So we had 30% of the sample who said I'm not really interested in getting a divorce and we believe that that's probably a fairly accurate number for most people who are going through divorce that there's usually one person who doesn't want it. And when we look closer at the data, one of the things that we found is that we matched 10% of the couples where both people were saying something like that Both people 10% of this group of 2000 plus people said I don't want this divorce and I'd be willing to work on my marriage if my partner or myself would make changes. So we believe that there's a portion of divorces out there that could require some different kind of an approach, or portion of the marriages that are in trouble, that are on the brink of divorce, that could even benefit from some kind of an approach where they could take one final look to see if the relationship is worth salvaging.
Speaker 2:So in this Minnesota Couples on the Bring project, one of our goals is to help prevent unnecessary divorce or premature divorce decision-making, to prevent premature divorce decisions, and that's really kind of why we developed this protocol. You know, couples therapy is a great modality for those people who want to make changes in their relationship. But couples therapy really relies on the fact that you have two people both with the same kind of interest in moving in the same direction, like both of them looking at each other, saying we want to work on this. We feel what we've got is worth saving, worth enhancing, worth helping us connect better. So couples therapy is designed to help people increase their connection, increase emotional, physical intimacy, help with bonding, those kinds of things.
Speaker 2:But that is really hard to do when one person is not sure that they want to be in the relationship, and that's what we developed this protocol for, specifically what we call mixed agenda couples, a couple where one person is leaning in, they want the relationship to get to a healthier place, they want it to be successful, they want to connect and the other person might be frankly leaning out, they might have a foot out the door, they might have signed a divorce paper, an initiated divorce, a divorce proceeding of some kind, or legal action, all the way to those people who are just somewhat ambivalent, just not sure that they should stay in the relationship. So while the goal of couples counseling is to help facilitate bonding and connection, the goal of discernment counseling is to help couples get greater clarity and confidence in their decision-making about the future of their marriage, based on a deeper understanding of how they got to this point where divorce is something that's a real possibility and help them see how they both have contributed to the marital problems.
Speaker 3:That's really the big nugget, would you say.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean, that's the biggest thing. When I'm on the phone with somebody who's wondering whether discernment counseling is the right approach, I often highlight the differences between typical counseling, couples counseling, bonding and connection versus this discernment protocol, which is about getting clarity, about deciding on whether or not you want to work on the relationship, whether or not you have the capacity and interest to work on the relationship.
Speaker 3:Very good. So, dr Harris, let's talk about the audience for discernment counseling, please, who it's for and, maybe equally as important, if not more important, who it's not for. I can attest that as a certified discernment counselor, I've made some mistakes in really not doing a very good evaluation up upfront with my clients on the phone. Yeah, and sometimes I agree, just pardon me, go ahead, you got it.
Speaker 2:No, no. Thanks Liz. I appreciate the question because we target this. This modality is targeted towards what we call a mixed agenda couples. It's really not for somebody who thinks, who knows for sure that they want a divorce and they have absolute clarity about that.
Speaker 2:So sometimes I'll ask scaling questions on the phone like hey, on a scale of one to 10, how much do you want the divorce versus how much do you want to stay and work on it? And I've had people on the phone who've said I'm 90% sure I want the divorce and then, if they'll allow me, then I want to hear a little bit about that. 10% of them, that's not quite sure. That doesn't have the confidence in that decision. And they'll say things like hey, I'm worried about the impact it's going to have on my kids, or I'm worried about our finances, or I still love this person, but I'm not sure that I can go on and they'll have reasons. And my invitation at that point is, if you're interested at all in coming in and talking about that 10%, if that 10% vacillates, if it sometimes goes to 15 or 20, then maybe you could benefit from a protocol that's specifically designed to help you get that clarity and that confidence.
Speaker 2:So one of the things that we say is discernment counseling is not for the two people who look at each other and say, hey, it's time to end this relationship. Those people go off and get your lawyers or your divorce mediators, whatever pathway you want, but that is a couple that's not seeking that clarity or seeking that confidence. But we think there's a good portion of people who, for example, show up to couples therapy 25%, 30% in our estimates based on this research I just shared earlier that are seriously wondering is this the right decision to go? And it doesn't require both of them to be wondering about it, it only requires one of them to be wondering if this is the right decision to go. And oftentimes what I see in discernment counseling is one person who's leaning in and they have their clarity.
Speaker 2:That's what I want. I want us. I see a vision of us, I have hope for us If we make some changes. I make changes, if you make changes, you know. And the other person is the one who's kind of like ambivalent or not so sure, and we just want to make sure that we are able to create a space for their ambivalence to be okay and for so many people in that spot, the people that are close to them their partner, for example, their family members, their loved ones. They're not okay with the ambivalence and we wanted discernment counseling to be a place where it's okay to be ambivalent and you've got space to be in this undecided space for a while. Nice.
Speaker 1:Thank you, steve. Thanks, can we go a little bit deeper, even in with, I mean, some of the differences. You know someone hearing this listener. For the very first time they're hearing this, they're like, oh well, do I need this. Or first time they're hearing this, they're like, oh well, do I need this or do I need counseling Again, kind of clarify some of the goals. And sometimes I mean, if you're counseling a couple, do you say, okay, let's pause here, let's go back to this to say what do you want? It's almost like the I don't know decision tree is that? It's almost like these pre-questions. And then they say, okay, go this way or that way, yeah.
Speaker 2:So a lot of the couples that we work with in discernment counseling have gone to a lot of couples therapy sometimes multiple therapists, multiple attempts. The problem is what they run into. Is they run into well-meaning therapists who say I'm happy to help you, I just need to know what you want. Do you want help working on your relationship? Because I'm really good, I'm a Gottman-trained therapist or I'm an EFT, just from the home of Sue Johnson, and I know my stuff and I'm really good and they are. There's good therapists out there. But if one of the partners is not on board, they need a different approach. And one of the ways that I explain this to people is like if you thought you had cancer, you'd go to an oncologist and they would, you know, they'd poke and prod, they'd do blood work and they'd take an MRI or they'd do a CAT scan or they'd do a biopsy of some kind. All of that just to find out what kind of cancer are we talking about here and you? And is this skin cancer? Is it leukemia? Is it something else? All of that so that they can set up the right treatment. And I tell people that because sometimes people will come into discernment counseling. After they've had some couples therapy, they'll come in and after a first session they'll say things like nothing's changing in our relationship. And I'll be like, hey, nothing is supposed to change right now, because the goal of this is not change as much as it's clarity and confidence. So I tell people like hey, you haven't yet decided to take the chemotherapy. We're still in that assessment. We're still trying to figure out what kind of relational cancer this is and what the best treatment protocol would be for you going forward cancer this is and what the best treatment protocol would be for you going forward. And you will get to make a decision whether you want that path that moves forward to do the treatment, to do the reconciliation, or whether you want some other path. And I'm referring to these paths.
Speaker 2:One of the things that we do at Discernment Counseling is we present what we believe are the three paths in front of everybody who's on the brink of divorce and we call them paths one, two and three. We label them as well. Path one we call the status quo path, and I do this when I'm on the telephone with somebody who's just wondering whether they want to start up discernment counseling. So I'll say the status quo path is basically your relationship as it is right now, without any intervention. That is a path. You can keep doing this, you can keep living that way, you can keep on keeping on.
Speaker 2:And now, most of the times, I feel like people want to slap me when I say that, because it's like we are calling you, because we can't keep doing the status quo. We're living like roommates. We have no intimate connection, physically, emotionally, we're not talking to each other. We can't keep doing this thing that we're doing. However, it is a path. And then we go and I talk to them about the second path, path two, which we call the divorce or separation path, and we talk to them specifically about that is a path that only one of you needs to decide, that you don't need to have a consensus to arrive at that path too.
Speaker 2:So we want to make sure that in discernment counseling there is room and there's space to talk about everyone's thoughts about divorce, the upside of it, the downside of it. Even if the partner, even if you're the leaning in partner and you don't want the divorce, we still want to get their perspective on what it means to them, how it would impact them, how at least they think it would impact them. And then we roll out this third path, this idea of a reconciliation path or a rehabilitation path, specifically taking divorce off the table for a period of six months and having each person work on some very personal things to themselves and work on the couple relationship to see if they could restart, to restore health to the relationship. So and we think in that six-month period of time they'd be able to start seeing some changes if they're identifying the right things to work on and are able to kind of put some effort into the relationship. That way, I tell people at the end of six months put divorce back on the table, have a very poignant and centered and intentional phone call about your efforts.
Speaker 2:What have you done since six months ago when we first sat down in Dr Harris's office? What have you been doing? What have we been doing and what gains have we made? So we talk about those three paths status quo made. So we talk about those three paths status quo divorce or a reconciliation path and provide a lot of structure. And that's one of the things I hear from people after a first session of discernment counseling. They often say, wow, this is very structured. This is unlike any therapy we've sat in before. So it's a very different kind of protocol with a lot of you know the therapist kind of being very direct about the business of making the decision with that increased clarity and confidence.
Speaker 3:Very good. Well, can you give us please, steve, a 10,000 foot view, if you will, of what discernment counseling looks like for our listeners and viewers today? From a client's perspective, what can they expect?
Speaker 2:is in the room at the same time for a portion of discernment counseling. When I start with a first session there's about a half hour to 40 minutes of taking history and asking specific questions of the couple. We ask them questions about the divorce narrative what is the story that each of you have about why divorce is a possibility? We ask about their repair narrative what things have you tried to do to affect change in these problems that you've identified? We ask them a question about how they interact when they have big things that are going on in their relationship, when you've got something really important to talk about and we start to identify their pattern of how they interact with each other. A lot of couples don't know they develop a pattern of interaction and we label the pattern, sometimes pursue distant attack, withdraw, withdraw, withdraw. We describe the dance of those kinds of patterns and you'll see people nodding their head like that's us right there, I'm the pursuer or I'm the distancer and I'm conflict avoidant. And so people start to identify that they show up a certain way in their relationship and even people who have gone to couples therapy sometimes are getting that as a new revelation to them. They had no idea they were the one who was distancing. They just saw their partner as being kind of aggressive in how they wanted to talk, but they didn't see that they were contributing by a complimentary response. So we start with a couple of times with the divorce question, the repair narrative, how they interact with each other.
Speaker 2:We ask them about their children. We ask the question what role, if any, do your children play in your decision-making about the future of your marriage? That's always a fascinating one because people respond in two ways. Sometimes they respond with the one word answer, and to me the one word answer is it's huge, my kids are the only reason I'm here today. That's basically what people say.
Speaker 2:Other people respond with what I call the paragraph response, and it's a little more nuanced and it goes a little bit like this they start out by saying look, I love my kids, but I'm not letting my kids make this decision for me. Or they'll say I love my kids and part of showing love to your kids is being in a healthy relationship. And this relationship is not at a healthy place right now and if it can't get there, maybe the best thing I can do for my kids is to get out. So there are a lot of people who say I'm not divorcing because of my kids or I'm not at the place of divorce because of my kids. And there are other people who can nuance that and say divorce is on the table because of my kids. I'm specifically not interested in telling them that this is an okay relationship dynamic.
Speaker 3:Yeah, after we ask and everybody is. So it's personal, it's personal right, correct, everybody's got their own reason.
Speaker 2:That's why we do so. Much of our protocol is just asking one person at a time what their thoughts, what their experience is, and we even say to them hey, avoid temptation to answer for both of, because we know we have mixed agenda couples. They're going to have different responses to all of these questions. So one person, when I asked them the question about why are you here, for discernment, counseling or what's going on to get you to the point where divorce is a possibility? And one person says it's the affair that my partner had. Well then you talk to the partner and the partner says the affair was a symptom of these other things that were going on way before. And we're here today because of these other things. And, yes, there was an affair that happened, but that's not my biggest concern as these other things that went on prior to that. So the next question we ask in the interview is we want to hear a little bit about what brought them together. What do they enjoy about each other? So we ask them to think about the best of times. When was the best of times in your relationship? And a lot of people, especially people with kids, will say things like oh, before kids came. Or they'll say, hey, when we were dating, everything was amazing, yeah. And then life hits and you've got work and stress and kids and things like that that demand a lot of your time and attention. Surprisingly, there's other people who say things like actually our best of times was four years ago. Remember one guy saying that on his 40th birthday four years ago they went out and they did all the things that are in that Tim McGraw song about riding a bull and getting tattoos. I mean, live like you're dying I can't remember what the name is, live like you were dying, yeah, yeah. So they went and did all those things. They had to drive from Minneapolis to Chicago to find a bull to ride in a rodeo saloon or whatever. So they said that was the best time. I had one couple who said actually our best of times was only three weeks ago, and this was a person who said on the phone intake I'm not sure I want to be in my marriage anymore. I might even have a new boyfriend, but three weeks earlier they were together at a bed and breakfast and they really connected anyway. So we want to know, when there have been good times, what's worth seeing in this relationship.
Speaker 2:The final question we ask with the couple, both in the room, is what is it about your experience of this marriage that your partner just doesn't quite get? What's it like to be you, and why doesn't your partner know that? Or why has that been difficult for your partner to understand? This piece of what's that piece of you, that piece of your experience that's been hard for them to understand. And those are pivotal questions that set us up for the rest of the interview. At that point in the interview then we separate, so we'll talk to each person.
Speaker 2:But a session of discernment counseling looks kind of the same. Every session looks kind of the same. We start out with the couple in the room and then we excuse one person, do a lot of one-on-one and then repeat that and do some one-on-one with the other person. The other thing that we do is we make sure that when we've met with one of the members of the couple, we ask them to give a summary statement to their partner about what they're taking with them.
Speaker 2:So partners might say things like they might say hey, steve and I talked about these three paths and here's where I'm at with the paths. Or they might say hey, steve and I talked about these three paths and here's where I'm at with the paths. Or they might say I used to think that all our problems were because of you, but I'm learning that my defensiveness is also showing up in this relationship and it's making it hard for us to connect. So we try to help them, language some kind of a message to their partner, so that the partner can kind of get a feel for, okay, they're taking this work seriously, they're looking at themselves and trying to figure out how they might be able to be a little different in the relationship.
Speaker 1:We'll be right back after this brief message and we're back, let's dive right in. So I mean, this is fascinating, steve. It sounds like it's more than just like a discernment session. I mean discernment counseling. Is this ongoing? You know, in my head it was like, okay, you have one or two sessions to discern. You know what do I do? I want to stay, do I want to go, and then you go into therapy. But it's the you're talking like multiple, I mean six months of still. I mean, does it kind of merge from discernment counseling to then therapy? You know what I mean.
Speaker 2:So great, great question, dave. So so if people take the like, we think about these three paths right. And we think about these three paths right that third path that we call the reconciliation path, if a couple, through the process of discernment, counseling, we help each person develop what I call a personal agenda for change. So kind of three core things that each person would kind of work on, and they might be things like, let's say, defensiveness. I brought that up a little while ago. A person might say hey, I'm realizing that I'm showing up to a lot of our interactions in a defensive manner and it keeps me from really understanding where you're coming from. I would like to work on my defensiveness in our interactions over the next six months. That might be an example of a personal agenda for change item that somebody can implement.
Speaker 2:It's change about themselves that is obviously going to have an impact on the relationship. Other people might say things like hey, I've been struggling with my mental health lately. My anxiety, my depression is really kind of kicking me in the backside. I need to get back on medication. I need to have a focus on my own mental health. For other people, it's addiction. Hey, I need to go have a drug and alcohol evaluation and get myself right and get myself sober and maybe I can work on the relationship then.
Speaker 2:But those are examples of three kind of very personal things that somebody might take on that are also going to have a relationship benefit as well. Right, if you're getting clean and sober, you're going to show up to the relationship differently. If you're prioritizing your mental health, you're going to show up to the relationship differently. If you're prioritizing your mental health, you're going to show up to the relationship differently. So we help people identify the work that they would need to do and we share that with their partner. So each person goes okay, I know what I can expect from Dave. Dave said he's going to work on these three things, and Liz said she's going to work on these three things, and so Dave and Liz get she's going to work on these three things, and so Dave and Liz get to decide okay, I'm going to take this on, you're going to take that on. That gives me a good sense as to whether or not I'm willing to invest another six months in this marriage to see if we can get to a healthier place.
Speaker 1:Okay yeah, very helpful thing, steve. I mean big picture. How would you summarize?
Speaker 2:I guess, steve, a primary job of a discernment counselor is fill in the blank, yeah yeah, the primary job is to paint the picture of that third path, and I'm now telling people that I'm like. I think my job is to paint this picture because, when you think about who comes to discernment counseling, it's people who are stuck in their status quo, who are not happy with their status quo, and all the efforts they've made in that status quo have yielded them to this place, have gotten them to this place where they still think divorce is the right option or might be the right option, and because of that, they've been thinking a lot about divorce. Some of them are Googling things, some of them are contacting lawyers. Some of them are wondering, if we split everything down the middle, what would that leave us with? What are the kids going to do? And so they've been fantasizing and going through scenarios about divorce already. So I believe when a person shows up for discernment counseling one, they're very intimately aware of their status quo and what that looks like, and they've been spending a lot of time talking about divorce, wondering about divorce, thinking about divorce. That comes from other research that we've done on divorce decision-making that you and I've been part of.
Speaker 2:People think about this for a long time. People rarely think about divorce and go off and sign the papers. It's usually a long and protracted event, with multiple swings of a pendulum coming back and should I stay, should I go? Here's reasons to stay, here's reasons to leave, and those shift and change all the time. So my primary goal as a discernment counselor is to paint a picture of what could be if they choose to try one last time, with decent help and decent effort on both their parts, to see if they can right the ship, to see if they can reconcile their relationship or at least get back on a path. And I tell people look after six months. You're not going to be couple of the year after six months, but you should be able to be putting to bed some of the old arguments. You should be seeing some new things happening. Putting to bed some of the old arguments. You should be seeing some new things happening.
Speaker 2:And actually what I see, what I hear from couples, somewhere in that three and four months time, that third and fourth month, they start sending things like Steve, we're actually fighting more, but we never talked before and we're not having the same arguments over and over again. We're having impassioned arguments, but we're able to hang in there with each other. We know we've got this therapy thing on the side that we can go to to help out. So my job paint the picture, be able to sit with ambivalence, be okay with sitting with ambivalence and I think a lot of therapists are.
Speaker 2:If they're not prepped and primed for that idea, you're going to have to sit with some ambivalence, provide direction but also sit with ambivalence. I think a lot of therapists get kind of nervous like nah, they're not making any progress and I'm whipping out the four horsemen and I'm doing these negative interaction loops and I'm going to core fears and primary emotions. But the key they have to have a picture how things could be different for them to experiment with this third path, this path three, a reconciliation path.
Speaker 1:Yeah, very helpful Thanks.
Speaker 3:What are the results of discernment counseling today, steve? Yeah, well how many stay, how many go?
Speaker 2:Early on. We started tracking our clients who went through this process and what we saw was about 51% of the couples that came in were going down that third path. Now that doesn't mean that all of them were successful, right. So they'd go into discernment counseling. They'd have anywhere from one to five sessions. They decide on path three and then they would go off and they would do their six months of therapy or whatever, or some extended beyond that. Not all of those couples made it, but like 70%, 75% of those couples came through keeping their marriages intact, getting to a healthier place.
Speaker 2:For those couples where divorce is the option, I think it's like 19% I want to say 19% or 29% I'm messing up with the numbers here there's a portion of them that go on and get divorced and those people, the research shows that those people who go down that path actually feel better about their co-parenting. They leave that discernment counseling space having understood each other in a little different way than they were able to while they were married. So we hope that there's gains for that couple as well, even though they've changed their familial relationship to not be intact. But we hope that there's a better outcome for their kids and them having gone through this process I actually think that was 29% are like that, 20, 31%, something like that and then we have like there's like 19% of the couples that we work with end up going down the status quo path. Status quo, yeah, that everybody at the outset says is unacceptable. So you might be wondering like well, how does somebody go from this unacceptable path to a place where they're like okay, this makes the most sense Sometimes in discernment counseling. What will happen is we'll see a couple, we'll go sessions one through four or five, one through four or so seem to be getting traction and then kind of trails off. They don't get traction, they're not getting the clarity and we have to remind them around session five or so sometimes we go to a six that path one is still a path.
Speaker 2:If you can't decide to work on it and you're not ready to end the relationship, it's okay to claim that you're on path one, that you're hey, for right now, for this season in our relationship, we're on path one. What I saw, the most notable example of this, was a guy who in the fifth or sixth session of the sermon counseling, came and said I know that right now I'm not ready to commit to the work. I know I can't do the work and I'm skeptical that she'd be able to as well. Being very honest, right, he said, I also know that if we divorced, I'm not at a good place. I would not be able to treat her with the kindness and respect that she deserves, having been such a major part of my life. So I can't divorce right now and be a good guy through a divorce process.
Speaker 2:And he said and besides, we've got twin daughters that are graduating. We're trying to put my dad into a nursing care facility, assisted living facility. The house is up for sale. There's too much going on in our life to take divorce or working on the relationship on. So they both kind of said that this makes sense and they left that session saying we're going to commit to be in the status quo. So that means I'm not putting pressure on you to make changes, you're not putting pressure on me to make changes. We both know where we're at. We both have that clarity that, coming down the road, we're going to kick the can a little further down the road, but we're doing it with intentionality and we're doing it with both of us on board.
Speaker 3:Wow, very good. I like hearing all this Such a good review from me, coming from such a profound expert, dr Harris, I really appreciate this. Do you have a story of a couple that stands out that you'd love to share with us today here on Stronger Marriage Connection, somebody who really put this to the test of servant counseling and came out in a way that you felt was really successful?
Speaker 2:So, liz, rather than just like zeroing in on one particular, I kind of give you an amalgam right Kind of an aggregate For couples when they go down that third path, the majority of the people that go down that third path of trying to work on their relationship oftentimes the discernment counseling process is highlighted to them that it's not just their partner who's dropping the ball in the relationship. And so much of us, when we're thinking about divorce or wanting divorce, we go into our heads and we are wonderfully adept at tracking how poor our partner is at showing up as a good relationship partner. We oftentimes don't have the same sense, we don't have the same accuracy when we're thinking about our own contributions to the marriage or the decline of the marriage. So I think one of the things that people get out of the sermon counseling is they have somebody that says to them and how are you showing up? And a lot of people say, hey, I know, I'm no saint. I'm no saint in all of this. Okay, tell me about exactly how you're not a saint.
Speaker 1:What have you been doing? What have you not been doing?
Speaker 2:You know, and when people get a sense like, okay, it's not as simple as the equation that I had in my head, there's this other side of the equation that needs to balance out here. I think that's one of the biggest benefits of discernment counseling is you've got a therapist who's trained to think systemically. It's not just your partner's drinking, it's not just your partner's wanting to have conversations with you, it's also your distancing. And so, just like, the person who pursues needs to figure out hey, I can't pursue as much. I need to invite more to conversations. I need to make sure that I'm not overwhelming my partner.
Speaker 2:The distancer also needs to understand hey, I can't keep pulling away. If I want to pull away, there are ways for me to manage that. I can tell my partner hey, I don't want to have the conversation right now, but I am open to it later on. I'm doing this thing right now. I need to get into the headspace to have that. So just helping people see their own side of the equation is probably one of the biggest things that I think we provide in discernment counseling. And so when you think about success, I think people going and realizing I never knew I was showing up like this You've made it harder for me just to blame my spouse for all of our problems.
Speaker 3:I just think that's so crucial, even if a couple does divorce right, sally, we're all from marriage. Here, I think the three of us could say we are and yeah, it doesn't mean we should never have divorce, even though I prefer that we didn't, but that's not my choice to make. But even then, I guess we're much more better prepared for the next relationship when we see ourselves, because wherever we go there, we are.
Speaker 2:Yeah Well, and you all know that the popular statistics around divorce and there's a number of different ways to figure the divorce rate, the rate per thousand or whatever the one that's out there the most is 50% of all marriages end in divorce. That's the one the public grab onto right and we know that in a similar vein, second and subsequent relationships marriages, specifically, 67% end in divorce, and some of that's because people don't learn anything about themselves. They think I got rid of that ball and chain and now everything's great. Oh, looks like I married the wrong kind of person again. But sometimes there is an element of how have I been showing up? That needs to change that I think some people ignore or maybe don't see as easily.
Speaker 3:Yeah, very good, thank you.
Speaker 1:Steve, if someone is listening today and they're thinking, man, this really resonates with me, or man, I think my sister or my brother-in-law or whatever could really use this. I mean, do they just hop on Google? Or they're like, okay, hey, are you a discernment counselor? What's the first step of someone right now listening, thinking, yes, I want this Now where the heck to actually go?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think a couple of different places. I do think that Google is now becoming a greater tool for that. I mean, there was a time when the only people who were doing discernment counseling were Bill Doherty, myself and Bridget Manley-Mayer, who were the three people who kind of put the finishing touches on this model that Bill had been working on for years. But it's more prolific. We've been doing a lot of trainings here in the Twin Cities area. So there's a lot of people who advertise their practices as offering discernment counseling. But I think through the Doherty Relationship Institute there's a host of people over a thousand people who've been trained in a variety of different states. So I think searching for discernment counseling, finding a discernment counselor through the DRI, the Doherty Relationship Institute, d-o-h-e-r-t-y, might be something that people could do. And, yeah, there's people who've gone through intensive training. I mean we're training people in this model in Singapore. We're training people across the globe on how to do discernment counseling and it's finding a good home in a variety of mental health practitioners' offices, couples, therapists' offices as well.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's helpful. We're in all 50 states and 80 countries. Many of our listeners, obviously with the Utah Marriage Commission. This is sponsors this podcast, or you've been out here though, steve right, you trained I don't know how many therapists in Utah, but Utah is pretty well trained.
Speaker 2:Yeah, there are a number of people who have been at least introduced to it. You can only get so much in a day-long training, so sometimes having somebody who's gone through that a deeper experience might have a better chance. And with the ubiquitous nature of online therapy, the number of people who could provide the training has gone up and there's more accessibility now. Ever since COVID, we all kind of have shifted to be able to do online therapy. Some do it better than others, but there are people who are certainly available. Yeah.
Speaker 1:This is okay.
Speaker 3:Very good. Well, dr Harris, please tell us where can listeners go to find out more about you and discernment, counseling, the research you've done and any other helpful resources that you might have for us. Yeah, I think that will link that to our show notes.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think probably the easiest thing is the MN MinnesotaCouplesOnTheBringorg. That's MN and spell it all out MinnesotaCouplesOnTheBringorg. That'll get you to our Couples on the Bring project, where we talk about discernment counseling. The Doherty Relationship Institute is another place that talks specifically about discernment counseling. I think there's a website that's discernmentcounselingcom which will get you to the Doherty Relationship Institute as well. It's fascinating to me to have been part of this at the very beginning and now to do a YouTube search. People will just even if you're on YouTube, you can find videos about discernment counseling and what it is and what it's not, what the approach is all about.
Speaker 3:It's true.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's great, like Liz said, for our listeners, we'll put all those links and information in our show notes so you can go there to find out quickly how you can find out more information. Hey, steve, before we let you go, I have a couple of questions for you. What is the takeaway of the day? Do you have a take-home message that you want our listeners to remember from all that we discussed today? What would that be?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think, with some of the research we've done on divorce decision-making and my experience with discernment counseling, I would say that just because someone is thinking about divorce does not mean that divorce is inevitable. I think that's one of the big takeaways that I have about this work, because I've seen couples come back from being on the brink and they manage to be open to hearing about ways that they could change. They're open to seeing whether their partner can change, and I've just had too many experiences of people who were on the brink who were able to step back and find the relationship again.
Speaker 1:Love that, love that Brings hope. Yeah, liz, what about you? What's your takeaway of the day with Steve?
Speaker 3:Oh gosh, so many good things, so many copious notes here. I think it's so good for all of us to remember with discernment counseling both as therapists and couples is that it's not necessarily for change. It's not for change, it's for clarity and confidence, and I really love that. I love that it's a place for ambivalence to you know to be welcomed. We don't have to have the answers and sometimes I think that I guess it takes what it takes. Do you sometimes see Steve go? Couples even go a little bit more than five sessions?
Speaker 2:Yeah Well, when we present it to people, we say there's no law that says we can't go to a sixth session if we want to, you know. But we know that once we hit that sixth, maybe that seventh that we have to start talking about. Hey, that third path is still a path and maybe, even though you didn't want it initially, maybe there's a way to think about that first path I'm sorry that path one, the status quo, to still be an option.
Speaker 3:Okay To just hit pause that status quo, Very good.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 3:Yeah, Dave. What about you? What's the richest nugget you hope we're all going to remember from our time with Dr Steve Harris today?
Speaker 1:Yes, this has been very enlightening. I've been familiar with this but, man, the more that I hear it, I'm jumping on the bandwagon. I'm a big fan of this. It reminds me of some of the research that you and I and Alan Hawkins and others have done with thinking about divorce, soft thinkers and hard thinkers about divorce. You know soft thinkers and and hard thinkers about divorce. I just I hope I can normalize that some of this normalizes.
Speaker 1:Uh, you know, it's common, common for people to think about divorce, to think of my marriage is in trouble or what should I do one day, and then, yeah, that it's great. And then, okay, now I'm back here, kind of in this hole. We had a blow up again, or what about this? So for people kind of go on that that m Mary's roller coaster to you know where can I go to help? So I need some help, but it's I don't want to go to therapy yet or whatever. It's man, this just feels like such a um, a great option, um, at least for many couples, right, if they are not a 10 out of 10, I'm getting divorced, but I need some help deciding what path to take.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and obviously it's not for everybody. Like I said earlier, if you're decided and you have your clarity, this is not for you. And I've turned people away because they were so decided and what they really wanted in therapy was a place to drop their partner off and say you clean up the mess after I tell my partner I want a divorce. That's not what this is about at all. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, wow, again. Steve, thank you so much for making time to come on to share so much. We sure appreciate you and your time. Thanks for having me. All right, friends, that does it for us. We'll see you again next time on another episode of the Stronger Marriage Connection podcast.
Speaker 3:And remember it's the small things that create a stronger marriage connection.
Speaker 1:Take good care of you. Utah Marriage Commission, where you can watch this and every episode of the show. Be sure to smash the like button, leave a comment and share this episode with a friend. You can also follow and interact with us on Instagram, at Stronger Marriage Life, and Facebook at Stronger Marriage, so be sure to share with us which topics you loved or which guests we should have on the show next. If you want even more resources to improve your marriage or relationship connection, visit StrongerMarriageorg, where you'll find free workshops, e-courses, in-depth webinars, relationship surveys and more. Each episode of Stronger Marriage Connection is hosted and sponsored by the Utah Marriage Commission at Utah State University. And finally, a big thanks to our producer, Rex Polanis, and the team at Utah State University and you, our audience. You make this show possible. The opinions, findings, conclusions and recommendations expressed in this podcast do not necessarily reflect the views of the Utah Marriage Commission.