When to Leave a Relationship: The Third Path Nobody Mentions
with Dr. Lisa Marie Bobby and Georgi Chizk, M.S., LMFT
The Question You Have Been Asking Cannot Answer Itself
If you have been trying to decide whether to stay or go, and the trying itself has become exhausting, you are not bad at this. You are using an instrument that cannot measure the thing you are trying to measure.
You have made the list. Maybe on your phone at two in the morning, maybe on the back of an envelope in the car outside your own house. Reasons to stay in one column, reasons to go in the other. And every time, the columns come out about even, so you put the list away and nothing is different.
My guest today is Georgi Chizk, M.S., LMFT, a marriage and family therapist on our Growing Self team who has built her practice around exactly this problem. She practices discernment counseling and discernment coaching, which is a brief, structured process built for couples where one person is leaning out, one is leaning in, and nobody can say out loud where this is actually heading.
We got into the one-to-ten question she asks every couple, the two exercises you can do at your kitchen table tonight, why trying harder is often making it worse, the three legitimate paths out of this (including the one nobody names), and what to do if your partner will not even have the conversation.
“Not knowing is what eats people alive.” — Georgi Chizk, M.S., LMFT · Love, Happiness and Success Podcast
Moments from this episode
Before you dig in
Is there actually a way to know whether to stay or go, or is everyone just guessing?
There is a way, and it is not the way most people are trying. You cannot decide this by weighing how bad things are, because badness has no threshold and the list never comes out uneven. What you can measure is commitment, yours and your partner’s, and that turns out to be the variable that predicts everything else. I walk through the exact question Georgi uses below.
I have already done couples counseling and it did not help. Why would this be different?
Because it might have been the right help at the wrong time. If one of you had a foot on the dock, a very good couples counselor was teaching you both to row while the boat could not move. That is not a failure of therapy and it is not a failure of yours. Discernment counseling exists to answer the question that comes before that one.
How long does this take?
Georgi caps it around seven sessions, and that is on purpose. Nobody should sit in ambiguity longer than they have to. This is not open-ended work.
What if my partner will not participate at all?
Then you do it on your own, and it is genuinely useful. Georgi does individual discernment work regularly. The focus shifts to how to ask the question differently so your partner might engage, and if no new information ever arrives, how to build a confident decision from the values and the years of data you already have.
Am I going to be talked into leaving?
No. This is the part I want to be clearest about. Georgi holds three outcomes with equal care, including the one nobody else will name, which is deciding to stay as things are on purpose. If you have been braced for someone to tell you to go, that is not what happens here.
What to take with you
The stay-or-go question is unanswerable as asked.
Badness is not measurable and it never resolves. Commitment is measurable, and it is the variable that actually predicts whether working on a relationship will go anywhere.
Trying harder can be the thing making it worse.
When one partner leans in and pursues, the leaning-out partner often pulls away further, and each response feeds the other. If you are the one reading the books and booking the appointments, your effort is not the problem, but it is not the solution either.
There are three paths out of this, not two.
Reconciliation through roughly six months of couples work, separation or divorce, and status quo. Choosing to stay as things are, on purpose and with clear eyes, is a legitimate informed outcome rather than a failure of nerve.
Committing to six months is not committing to a lifetime.
All-or-nothing thinking is what keeps people paralyzed. The actual commitment on the reconciliation path is to a bounded attempt at repair, with the option to give it another six months after that.
The relief comes from the end of the ambiguity, not from the outcome.
Georgi hears back from people whose decision was devastating that they are calmer and sleeping better than they have in years. Purgatory hurt more than the answer did.
When to Leave a Relationship: The Third Path Nobody Mentions
You have made the list. Maybe on your phone at two in the morning, maybe on the back of an envelope in the car outside your own house before you go in. Reasons to stay in one column, reasons to go in the other. And every time, the columns come out about even, so you put the list away and nothing is different. If you have been trying to figure out when to leave a relationship, and the trying itself has become its own kind of exhaustion, I want to say something to you before anything else. You are not bad at this. You are using an instrument that cannot measure the thing you are trying to measure.
Here is the short version, and then I will explain all of it. The stay-or-go question is not answerable as a question about how bad things are, because badness has no threshold. There is no score you cross. What is measurable is commitment, specifically whether you and your partner are in the same place on it, and that turns out to be the variable that predicts whether working on the relationship will get you anywhere at all. There is a brief clinical process built to answer exactly that question, called discernment counseling for couples. It usually takes fewer than seven sessions, and it ends with three possible paths rather than the two you have been agonizing between.
Before we go further: ambivalence is not a character flaw, and it is not evidence that you have already failed at this. Almost every relationship worth thinking this hard about is a mixed bag. It is genuinely rare to find a relationship with no ambivalence in it anywhere. And you do not have to arrive at a decision in order to deserve help getting to one. That is backwards, and it is the reason so many people sit in this for years.
I also want to be honest with you about what this article is. I am going to give you the actual question my colleague asks every couple, the two exercises she and I hand out, and the three paths this process ends in. You can use all of it tonight, at your kitchen table, without talking to anybody. But I have been running a group practice for over a decade now, and here is what I see: the people who get to this point have usually already read the articles. They know more about relationships than most of their friends do. Information is not the missing piece. What is missing is a second set of eyes on your specific situation from someone who is not standing inside it, and who is not going to flinch at any of it. That is what the coaches and therapists on my team do every single week with people in exactly the position you are in right now, and Georgi, my guest on this episode, is one of the people I trust most with it. So this article is real and it will help you, and it is also, honestly, in service of getting you into one real conversation with one real person. That is where this actually resolves.
Georgi Chizk is a licensed marriage and family therapist on my team who has built her practice around exactly this problem. She practices discernment counseling and discernment coaching, and she is who I think of when a couple is stuck in a way that couples counseling cannot fix yet. She does free first conversations, and you can book one with her directly whenever you want to stop reading and start talking to someone. We are both marriage and family therapists, which turns out to matter for reasons I did not expect when we started recording.
How Do I Know If I Should Stay or Leave My Relationship?
You do not decide by weighing how bad it is. You decide by finding out whether both of you actually want the same thing, and how much. That is the whole shift, and it sounds small until you try it, at which point you notice that one of those questions has an answer and the other one does not.
Think about what you have been doing. You have been building a case. Some days the case is airtight and you are certain you are leaving. Other days you look at the same evidence and think, is it really that bad, and have we honestly done everything. That is not indecision and it is not weakness. It is what happens when you point a measuring instrument at something it cannot measure.
Divorce ambivalence does not resolve through more evidence, because evidence is not what is missing.
“Not knowing is what eats people alive.” — Georgi Chizk, M.S., LMFT
This is also why I have to say something about the content you have probably already read. If you have searched any version of should we break up or stay together, you have found list after list of signs your relationship is over. I understand the appeal completely. A list feels like it might hand you permission. But a list cannot tell you whether your particular partner is willing and able to change the particular things that would make staying feel possible to you, and that is the only question that matters. The honest diagnostic is not a symptom list. It is where each of you falls on a scale, which is the next section.
Most of the people who come to us with this have figured out that the pros and cons list is not working long before they figured out what to do instead. That gap, between knowing the old approach has failed and knowing the new one, is exactly where a coach becomes useful, because it is very hard to think clearly about your own life from inside it. You do not need to be at rock bottom to start that conversation, and you do not need to have decided anything first.
Why Trying Harder Has Been Making It Worse
If you are the one reading the books, booking the appointments, and suggesting the date nights while your partner goes through the motions, your effort is very likely pushing them further away. That is not a moral failing and it does not mean you should care less. It is a predictable loop, and it has a name.
Georgi describes it as one partner leaning in and one leaning out. The leaning-in partner pursues, tries harder, does whatever it takes. And ironically, that pursuit makes the leaning-out partner more anxious and want to pull away even more. So the leaning-in partner feels more anxious and does more. Which makes the leaning-out partner withdraw further. Around and around, and it is exhausting for both of them in ways neither one can explain to the other. If you have read anything about the pursuer-distancer pattern, this is that, with much higher stakes attached.
There is a version of this I have watched play out for years and it is genuinely tragic. One person fights for the relationship, sometimes for a very long time. Reading the books, suggesting the counselor, trying the date night, all of it. And their partner minimizes, or says yeah, yeah, sure, and does not really engage. And what that fighting partner eventually internalizes is that this will not be different no matter what I do, they do not care. The attachment bond weakens. And then finally that partner is the one who is checked out, maybe talking to a lawyer. And at that exact moment, the person who had been saying whatever suddenly panics and leans all the way in. They feel blindsided. They ask what do you mean, what are you talking about. They often had no idea how bad it had gotten or how unhappy their partner was, and now they are the one making the appointment.
If your partner is currently the one showing withdrawn behavior, I want you to hear the part of that story that is actually hopeful: withdrawal is usually not indifference. It is very often anxiety wearing a different coat. That does not make it hurt less, and it does not mean things will work out. But it does mean the thing you are reading as “they do not care” may not be what is happening.
This dynamic is the single most common thing our coaches see in couples who describe themselves as stuck, and it is also one of the most workable, because once both people can see the loop from outside it, they stop taking each other’s moves personally. That reframe is difficult to do for yourself while you are the one in the loop. It is much easier with somebody in the room whose job is to see the pattern rather than to win the argument.
The One to Ten Question That Tells You Where You Actually Stand
Georgi asks every discernment couple the same question before anything else, and you can ask yourself tonight. On a scale of one to ten, where are you? One means, in her words, “ready to sign divorce papers tomorrow.” Ten means “here till the day I die,” whatever it takes. Where are you on that scale?
That question does something no list can do. It converts an unanswerable question about how bad things are into an answerable question about where you actually stand, and it produces a number you can compare against your partner’s number. Here is what Georgi listens for.
- Five or below, for both partners. Discernment work can help, and this is the situation it was designed for. There is real uncertainty here, and real uncertainty is workable.
- Six or above, for both partners. You are considerably more aligned than you feel. Georgi described the experience of watching someone present as a textbook discernment client, burnt out and hopeless and clearly leaning out, and then answer the scaling question with “I’m like a seven or eight.” That person does not need discernment. They need couples counseling and coaching, and they need to know that feeling hopeless during the process is normal rather than diagnostic.
- A long-standing one, with attorneys already contacted and friends already told. That person has effectively decided. Discernment is probably the wrong tool, and Georgi says so, because even brief discernment work is emotionally taxing and she does not want people doing hard work that will not help them.
Notice what that third scenario means, because it matters if you are the one who has been leaning in. A partner who is a one and has been for a long time is not somebody a better process fixes. And a partner who is a four is not somebody you have to give up on. Those are extremely different situations that feel identical from the inside, and the number is what separates them.
One caution about asking your partner directly. If communication in your relationship has shut down, and it often has by this point, this question can land as an ultimatum rather than an inquiry, which will get you a defensive number instead of a real one. That is genuinely one of the more useful things a coach does with this: not the question itself, which is simple, but helping you ask it in a way that gets you an honest answer. This is most of what Georgi does in a first conversation, and those are free. Not to enroll you in anything. To help you figure out what you are actually dealing with.
What Is Discernment Counseling, and How Is It Different From Couples Therapy?
Discernment counseling is a brief, structured process, usually fewer than seven sessions, whose only goal is clarity and confidence about the next step for the relationship. It is not couples therapy. Couples therapy assumes you have both already decided to work on this and helps you do it. Discernment counseling answers the question that comes first: do we both want this, and where are we actually going.
Georgi uses an analogy for this that I have not been able to stop thinking about since. Couples counseling is like rowing a boat from one side of a lake to the other. If both partners row, even imperfectly, they will get there eventually. But if one partner has one oar in the water and one foot still on the dock, the boat either turns in circles or sits in one place for who knows how long. And it gets worse, because the partner who is ready to row notices the oar out of the water. So instead of putting their energy into rowing, they spend the whole trip checking: are you here with me, are we rowing together, where are we going. Now neither of them is giving the crossing anything close to a hundred percent.
“It’s not about teaching couples to row harder.” — Georgi Chizk, M.S., LMFT
That is the pivot. Discernment is about finding out where the destination is, and whether you are getting out of the boat right here. If you have wondered about the broader distinction between relationship coaching vs. couples therapy, or the difference between coaching versus counseling more generally, this is that distinction with the volume turned all the way up. There is nothing being diagnosed here and nothing being corrected. Nobody is saying there is something wrong with either of you. The questions are: who are you, what has made this so hard, and what would need to be different for you to want to keep doing this. Georgi calls the whole thing informed decision making, and she means it literally. Part of her job is painting a realistic picture of each path so you are not choosing between fantasies. If you picked reconciliation, here is what six months would actually look like, here are the hard parts, and here are the strengths I already see in you two that would help. If you picked separation, here is what that looks like, especially with children.
We have covered discernment therapy on the show before, and this episode goes considerably deeper on the mechanics. What is worth adding here is that my point about conventional therapy is not a criticism of therapy. Nobody is bashing therapy. It is that a lot of people arrive at this point having already done months of talking about feelings with no visible line connecting any of it to something changing, and they leave feeling like they failed at counseling. They did not. Insight is part of the work. But insight has to turn into an action plan that changes something, and if it does not, the disappointment is real and it is reasonable.
This distinction is not academic for us, it is how we decide who you talk to. When somebody reaches out and describes a stuck relationship, the first thing our team is listening for is whether this is a discernment situation or a couples work situation, because sending you into the wrong one costs you months. Getting that call right is most of what a good first conversation is for.
What If One Partner Wants to Work on the Relationship and the Other Doesn’t?
Then you are what the research literature calls a mixed-agenda couple, and you are one of the most common presentations in couples work and one of the least addressed. The reason this feels so lonely is that almost nothing written for couples is written for you. Most of it assumes two willing people.
This is where I have to tell you about a gap in my own profession, because it is the part of this conversation I keep thinking about. Georgi and I are both marriage and family therapists. That is a specific and fairly uncommon credential: a degree program in marriage and family therapy and systemic psychology, then a supervision process built around it. And in all of my training and education, there was nothing about assessing commitment before trying to improve a relationship. It was a blank space. Not a topic I disagreed with or forgot. It simply was not there.
The person who filled that space in is Bill Doherty at the University of Minnesota, and I will admit on the record that the man is my hero. Doherty noticed that some couples get somewhere in counseling and feel content afterward, while others spin in circles and grow steadily more frustrated with the process itself, and he went looking for what actually separated them. What he found was conflicting commitment levels, the leaning in and leaning out dynamic. He and his colleagues published the discernment counseling protocol in the Journal of Marital and Family Therapy in 2016, describing it as an approach for couples where one partner is leaning toward divorce and the other wants to preserve the relationship and work on it. Their analysis of 100 consecutive cases found that about half of the couples chose to start couples therapy in order to reconcile, and most of the rest chose the divorce path (Doherty, Harris, & Wilde, 2016, https://doi.org/10.1111/jmft.12132). You can read the abstract through the National Library of Medicine at https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/26189438/.
Sit with that number for a second, because it is more hopeful than it looks. Roughly half of the couples who arrived at a process specifically designed for people on the brink of divorce decided to try. Not because someone talked them into it, but because clarity turned out to be pointing somewhere they had not been able to see.
And here is what happens when nobody assesses for this. Both partners commit to couples counseling, and both of them probably do want it to work, because they believe there are only two options and they are not ready for divorce yet. So they put in the energy, get vulnerable, take real emotional risk, put their hearts on the line. And they keep hitting a resistance neither of them can name. Six sessions in, eight, ten. What builds is frustration, burnout, and resentment, and the couple concludes the relationship is unfixable when what was actually happening is that one of them had a foot on the dock the entire time. This came up in a clinical consultation group Georgi and I both attend not long ago: an experienced couples counselor with a stuck case, and what the group concluded was that the couple needed a discernment referral. Experienced clinicians miss this. It is not a knock on them. You cannot assess for something nobody told you to look for.
If you have been trying to work on things and it is not getting better, consider the possibility that you are not actually in alignment about the commitment, or even about the desire. It is scary to consider and it is not uncommon at all. For what it is worth, plenty of couples in this exact position do go on to decide their relationship is worth the six months, and if you want the argument for that side of it, we have written about why your marriage may be worth saving.
Two Exercises You Can Do Tonight
You can start this work at your kitchen table tonight with a notebook, and you do not need me or Georgi to walk you through either of these. There are two, and they answer different halves of the question.
One: the non-negotiables journal. Georgi starts her couples at ground zero: what needs to change. So take a journal and write down your absolute non-negotiables. Not preferences. The things that have to be different for you to feel confident attempting to stay.
Here is the reframe that makes this exercise possible, and it is the thing I want you to take from this whole article if you take one thing. Writing that list is not a commitment to the rest of your life with this person. It is a commitment to trying, for about six months, to see whether you can make enough progress to feel like giving it another six. That is all. When we are in this place our brains go straight to extremes, and all-or-nothing thinking is precisely what makes decisions impossible. Six months is not forever. It is six months.
Then, if it feels safe enough and you have the tools for it, tell your partner what is on the list and see what they say. Are they willing, and are they able. Those are two different things. And Georgi is insistent that this cuts both ways, which is the uncomfortable half: what do I need to change to make this better, and am I willing and able to do that. It is so easy to look at somebody else and know exactly what is wrong with them. It is considerably harder to turn that around.
Two: the healthy relationship pie chart. This one is mine, and I use it with people who are dating and with people who are trying to figure out what to do about the relationship they are already in. Relationships are multidimensional, so start by listing the parts of a healthy relationship as you define it. What you are like as social partners. Physical intimacy. Communication. Your parenting team. Whether you are on the same page about money. What you do for fun. Spirituality. It is different for everybody, and yours is the only version that counts.
Then draw it as a pie chart and size each slice. In this whole relationship, how much of it is actually physical connection. How much is spiritual alignment. How much is the parenting partnership. What you get is not just a picture of what is missing, which you already knew, but a picture of the strengths that are genuinely there, which people in this situation have often stopped being able to see at all.
The most interesting version is doing it separately and comparing. Georgi pointed out something about this that stopped me: two people can both say on paper that they want a better sex life, and mean completely different things by it. If you never define it, that undefined gap can be exactly where the disconnect has been living for years, with both of you certain you already agreed. Same for wanting to communicate better, wanting more time together, wanting to feel appreciated. Agreeing on the words is not agreeing. If that lands, our piece on communication in relationships goes further into how that gap forms.
Now, the honest caveat. These exercises produce information, and information is not the same as a conversation. What most people find is that the list is not the hard part. Saying it out loud to the person it is about, without it turning into the fight you have already had forty times, is the hard part. That specific handoff, from the notebook to the actual conversation, is a large part of what coaching with our team is for.
The two exercises above take a notebook and an hour. If you are not going to sit down with a notebook tonight, our free relationship quiz is the frictionless version of the same move. It asks nothing of your partner and gives you a private read on where your relationship is strongest, where the friction actually is, and what to work on first.
Take the Free Quiz →Can I Do This Work on My Own If My Partner Won’t Participate?
Yes, and Georgi finds individual discernment work extremely helpful. It looks different, but the goal is the same: getting you to enough clarity to make an informed decision without your partner’s participation.
I asked her about this specifically because I know somebody reading this is in it. You have said hey, let us go talk to somebody about this. And your partner shut it down. Stonewalled, avoided, changed the subject, said no. And it feels like you are being made to decide the future of your family entirely by yourself, which is a particular kind of lonely that people around you do not tend to understand.
Individual work goes two directions. The first is tactical: working on your communication tools so you can ask the question differently, because sometimes a partner who refuses one version of a conversation will engage with another version of it. That is not manipulation, it is translation. If your partner is somebody who goes quiet, our episode on how to communicate with someone who shuts down is the closest thing we have published to a starting point.
The second direction is the one people do not expect to find useful and then do. If you never get any more information than you have right now, how are you going to make this decision with what is already on the table? You go back to your values. You go back to the data, and you have years of it. You already know a great deal about who this person is and what they are able to give. The work is helping you feel confident in a decision built from that, rather than waiting indefinitely for a clarity your partner may never hand you.
Georgi does this individual work regularly, and it is one of the most common reasons people reach out to her, so if this is your situation you would not be an unusual case for her. I want to name the other part plainly, because I think people talk themselves out of it: you are allowed to get support for your relationship by yourself. It is not disloyal, it is not going behind anyone’s back, and you do not need your partner’s permission or participation to stop living in the fog.
Talk to Georgi about the individual version if that is the door that is actually open to you.
Is It Okay to Decide to Stay in an Unhappy Relationship?
Yes. And I want to be unambiguous about it, because almost nothing written about this will tell you so. Choosing to stay as things are, on purpose, is one of the three legitimate paths out of discernment work, and Georgi says plainly that for many people it is the safest and best path for the relationship.
I have had clients do this entire body of work, arrive at total clarity, and conclude: this is never going to be different, this person is not emotionally available, this is what I can expect from them, I have lost hope, and I am going to stay anyway. Because their partner is a reasonably good parent to their kid. Because of finances. Because they could not support themselves and their child if they left. Because of cohabitation. Those are real reasons and they are nobody else’s to overrule. There is no action required. Knowing is still valuable.
And it is enormously valuable, because look at what changes. You stop spending mental and emotional energy on a question that has already been answered. You can say: this is what I am doing for the next five years, and I know I am not going to get happiness or pleasure from this particular relationship. So how do we stay civil. How do we cohabitate well. How do I build friendships. How do I invest in myself and the things I love so I can have a genuinely good life inside this context, without feeling bad about the relationship being what it is. That is a completely different existence from the one you are in now, and the difference is not the relationship. It is the ambiguity.
Georgi draws a line here that I think is the most useful distinction in the whole episode. Status quo at the beginning of this process and status quo at the end of it are not the same thing, even though they look identical from the outside. At the beginning it sounds like avoidance: this is so overwhelming, I do not know what I am going to do, I am just going to get through today and hope tomorrow is better. At the end it sounds like this: I can see why reconciliation is not right for me now, I can see why divorce is not right for me now, and so this is the best option. Calm. Reasoned. Chosen. There is research on this too. Kanewischer and Harris studied women who seriously considered divorce and decided to remain married, and found the therapy experiences that helped them were the ones that supported the decision-making itself rather than steering the outcome (2015, https://doi.org/10.1111/jmft.12064).
There is even a kind of hope in it, which surprised me. Not the hope that things will be repaired, but the hope that you might find real contentment in this season and reevaluate later. Georgi has had couples come back and tell her the status quo choice was the best decision for their family at the time, that it let the pressure out and let them be present as parents in the same house through their kids’ last years of high school, and then they revisited it. That is not settling. That is somebody running their own life on purpose.
If this is the path that sounds right to you, the work does not end, it just changes shape. Georgi’s question is whether you have the individual resources to be stable inside that choice: can you take ownership of your own happiness if nothing around you changes, can you grow your support system, can you lean into what is actually good here. Sometimes that means individual coaching, and quite often it means letting go of resentment you have been carrying for years. That is work our therapists and coaches do with people constantly, and it does not require you to be leaving anything.
Inside a Discernment Session: What Actually Happens
Session one is both of you together, getting your story. Every session after that splits into one-on-one time with each partner, and then closes with Georgi giving both of you a summary of what she heard. It is capped around seven sessions on purpose, because nobody should sit in ambiguity longer than they have to.
The first session is about the water under the bridge. And Georgi wants the good with the bad, deliberately, because as she puts it, you would not feel this ambiguous if there had not been good in this relationship. That is worth reading twice if you have been feeling stupid for not being able to just decide. Then the recent history, what has not gone well, what brought you to a decision point. She is getting a feel for who is leaning in, who is leaning out, and why.
Then the structure changes, and this is the part that makes discernment work at all. Every session after the first divides into individual time. Georgi meets with one of you and asks what needs to be different, what is the hard stuff I really need to know, what has this ambiguous place been like for you. You get to say the unfiltered version. And then, and this is the important half, you come back together and she delivers a curated summary to both of you, so there are no secrets. She hears the version with the cussing in it and gives back the version that says the same thing without triggering the defensiveness and shutdown that has probably ended every version of this conversation you have tried at home. If you have wondered what to expect from marriage counseling and thought it sounded like the same fight with a witness, this is a genuinely different structure.
Georgi’s image for the arc across sessions is a sculpture. You start with big rough shapes. Each session you chisel a little more away, and gradually you can start to see what it is supposed to look like. Then the nose, then the eyes. Eventually there is a full image. Nobody hands you a verdict in session two. Clarity accumulates.
One more thing about the deliverable, because it is the piece that surprised me most. What you leave with is not only a decision. Georgi is emphatic that everybody leaves with a path, or in her words, oars to row or a safe dock to board on. If you choose separation, that means an actual co-parenting plan and a contact for a mediator or an attorney. If you choose reconciliation, it means a referral into couples work. If you choose status quo, it means the individual resources to be stable inside it.
This is the part that is easiest to underestimate from the outside and it is why we do this work the way we do. The decision is the beginning of the next thing, not the end of this one. When somebody finishes discernment work with our team, the handoff into whatever comes next is already built, whether that is relationship coaching with a different clinician, individual work, or a referral out of our practice entirely. Nobody gets handed a conclusion and shown the door.
Why Reading This Article Probably Isn’t Enough
I want to be straight with you about something, because I would be doing you a disservice if I let you close this tab thinking that reading it was the work.
Everything above is real. The scaling question works. The non-negotiables list works. The pie chart works. People use them and things change. But here is what almost always happens instead. You read an article like this one and something clicks. You feel a little hopeful, more than you have in a while. You make a mental note to ask the scaling question, or to bring up the list, the next time there is a decent moment. And then the moment comes, and your nervous system does exactly what it has done for the last eleven years in this relationship, and forty minutes later you are standing in the same kitchen having the same fight, wondering why nothing is different.
The reason is not that you are unmotivated, and it is definitely not that you are broken. It is that you are trying to run a brand new pattern, by yourself, in the exact moment the old pattern is most active, with the one person on earth most practiced at triggering it. That is the hardest possible circumstance for new behavior. It is close to impossible alone, and the fact that you have not managed it yet is not information about you.
What works is having somebody in your corner who knows your specific situation, who you can talk to after the conversation went sideways, who can help you figure out what happened and recalibrate before the next attempt. Who can tell you whether what you are describing is a discernment situation or a couples work situation, which is a call that is very hard to make about your own marriage and very easy to get wrong. Who can help you ask your partner the one to ten question in a way that gets you a real number instead of a defensive one. That is what working with Georgi actually is. Not lectures and not generic advice. An ongoing relationship with a person who is paying attention to your life.
And you do not need to have failed at this first. That is the part I most want to land. You do not need to have hit some threshold of bad, you do not need your partner’s buy-in, and you do not need to have decided anything. If something in this article landed somewhere specific, that is the signal. You can schedule a free consultation with Georgi and just have the conversation: here is what is going on, what would this even look like, is this the right thing for me. No pressure and no commitment. Just a real conversation with somebody who has heard a lot of stories and is not going to flinch at yours.
The Relief on the Other Side of Knowing
The relief people report after this process does not come from the outcome. It comes from the end of the ambiguity. Georgi hears back from leaning-in partners for whom the decision was devastating, and not long after, what they tell her is that they are calmer, that they are sleeping better than they have in years, and that they can finally see a path forward.
One of them told her they had been sleeping better than at any point in the past six years of their marriage. Think about what that says about the six years. Purgatory hurt more than the answer did. As Georgi puts it, when people are honest about it, the not knowing was worse than the decision.
I also want to say something to the leaning-in partner, because if you are that person, this section may have just terrified you. Your worst nightmare is your partner sitting in a room and deciding they cannot do this. And I will not pretend that is not painful. But one of my specialties is heartbreak recovery, and from that vantage point I can tell you it is genuinely a gift, in a way that is hard to see from where you are standing, to be with someone who can say: I do not hate you, I care about you, and I cannot give you what you want and need and deserve. Compare it to the alternative. Compare it to never knowing what was going on, never getting to hear or understand the other person’s side. Compare it to a relationship that explodes traumatically. For the long healing that follows, this is so much more humane. And if you are two people who are about to be in a relationship with each other for the next fifteen years as co-parents, that difference is not sentimental, it is logistical.
Co-parenting together after a peaceful parting is a different job than co-parenting after a war.
This is also where I would gently point out that heartbreak recovery is its own specialty for a reason, and if you end up here, how to detach from someone you love is where I would start you. Not because I think you are heading there. Because you have been carrying the fear of it alone for a long time, and it helps to know the ground on the other side is mapped.
So here is where to actually start, whichever direction you are leaning. Have one conversation with one person, and I would start with Georgi. Her consultations are free, and the goal of the first one is not to sign you up for anything, it is to help you figure out what you are dealing with and whether this is the right fit. Coaching with her is available nationally. Her therapy licensure covers Arkansas and the UK, and if you are somewhere else and want a therapist rather than a coach, we will point you to the right person on the team. There are also a few ways in depending on what you can spend right now, from coaching with a senior clinician to our lower-cost practicum program, which is one of the reasons I am comfortable telling everybody reading this to come talk to us. You do not need to know what you want yet. That is the whole point.
You have been carrying this by yourself for a long time. You are allowed to put some of it down.
Book a free consultation with Georgi, or talk to someone else on our team if she is not the right fit. Either way, let us talk about it.
xoxo,
Dr. Lisa Marie Bobby
P.S. If you are the person who has been fighting for this alone, please go back and reread the section about how this flips. I have watched it happen more times than I can count, and the thing I want you to notice is that it flips in both directions.
P.P.S. Know somebody who is stuck in exactly this? Send it to them. You never know.
About this episode’s guest
Georgi Chizk, M.S., LMFT
Georgi Chizk is a licensed marriage and family therapist based in Arkansas and a member of the Growing Self network. She practices discernment counseling and discernment coaching, which means she spends her weeks with the couples most other clinicians find hardest: the ones where one person is leaning out, one is leaning in, and nobody in the room can say out loud where this is actually going. She is EFT-trained, and she also works with individuals and families.
What I would tell you about Georgi if we were talking over coffee is that she is a genuinely kind, thoughtful, empathetic person with not just insight but real intuition, and she is also extremely smart and considerably tougher than she looks. That last part matters more than it sounds like it should. This work requires somebody who will sit in a room with two people who are both in pain and refuse to tell either of them what they want to hear, and there are not many clinicians who can hold that steadily. She can.
What working with her actually looks like. Discernment work with Georgi is brief by design, capped around seven sessions. Session one is together. Every session after that gives each of you private time to say the unfiltered version, and closes with her handing both of you a summary so nothing stays hidden. She also does the individual version when one partner will not participate, and whichever of the three paths you land on, she does not consider the work finished until you have the next step in hand.
How to reach her. You can book a free consultation with Georgi at growingself.com/georgi. Coaching with her is available nationally, so wherever you are reading this, that door is open. Her therapy licensure covers Arkansas and the United Kingdom. If you are somewhere else and specifically want a therapist rather than a coach, reach out anyway and our team will point you to the right person.
Dr. Lisa Marie Bobby
Licensed psychologist, marriage and family therapist, and Board Certified Coach. Founder of Growing Self Counseling & Coaching. Host of the Love, Happiness & Success podcast (15M+ downloads). 25+ years of clinical practice. Author of Exaholics: Breaking Your Addiction to an Ex Love.
Questions about when to leave a relationship
How do you know when it’s time to leave a relationship?
You know by assessing commitment rather than by assessing how bad things are. The most useful question is a scaling question: on a scale of one to ten, where one is ready to sign divorce papers tomorrow and ten is here till the day I die, where are you, and where is your partner? A checklist of signs cannot answer this, because the variable that actually determines whether a relationship can improve is whether both people want it to and are willing to work for it.
What is discernment counseling?
Discernment counseling is a brief, structured counseling process, usually fewer than seven sessions, whose only goal is clarity and confidence about the next step for a relationship. It was developed by Bill Doherty and colleagues at the University of Minnesota for what the research calls mixed-agenda couples, where one partner is leaning toward divorce and the other wants to work on the relationship. It does not attempt to repair the relationship. It answers whether repair is something both people actually want to attempt.
What is the difference between discernment counseling and couples therapy?
Couples therapy assumes both partners have decided to work on the relationship and helps them do it. Discernment counseling answers the prior question of whether they both want to. The practical difference is structure: couples therapy is mostly joint sessions and is open-ended, while discernment counseling is capped at around seven sessions and centers on individual conversations with each partner, with a summary delivered back to both. Doing couples therapy while one partner is uncommitted is what produces the stuck feeling many couples describe after months of counseling.
How many sessions does discernment counseling take?
Usually fewer than seven. Georgi Chizk caps it around seven sessions for couples, and the brevity is deliberate: nobody should sit in ambiguity longer than necessary. Individual discernment work can run differently.
What happens in a discernment counseling session?
The first session is joint and focuses on the couple’s story, the good years and the difficult ones. Every session after that divides into one-on-one time with each partner, where each person can speak without filtering, and then closes with the counselor giving both partners a curated summary of what was said, so there are no secrets. Clarity accumulates across sessions rather than arriving in one.
What are the three outcomes of discernment counseling?
Reconciliation through roughly six months of couples work, separation or divorce, or status quo, meaning staying as things are on purpose. All three are treated as legitimate. Whichever path a couple chooses, the goal is that they leave with a concrete plan rather than only a decision: a referral into couples work, a co-parenting plan and a mediator contact, or the individual resources to be stable inside the status quo.
Is it okay to stay in an unhappy marriage?
Yes, when it is an informed decision rather than avoidance. People choose to stay for co-parenting, financial, or cohabitation reasons, or because there is still real love and care present, and that is a legitimate outcome. The meaningful distinction is between status quo at the start of the process, which is usually avoidance, and status quo at the end, which is a calm reasoned choice. The difference in lived experience is substantial, because the exhausting part is often the ambiguity rather than the relationship.
Can you do discernment counseling if your partner refuses to participate?
Yes. Individual discernment work is common and useful. It goes in two directions: building communication tools so the question can be asked in a way your partner might actually engage with, and if no new information ever arrives, building a confident decision from your own values and the years of information you already have about who your partner is and what they can give.
Does committing to couples therapy mean committing to staying forever?
No, and this reframe is often what makes a decision possible. On the reconciliation path the commitment is to roughly six months of couples work to see whether enough progress is made to feel like giving it another six. It is a bounded attempt at repair, not a commitment to the rest of your life. All-or-nothing thinking is what keeps most people paralyzed at this stage.
Is it normal to still feel uncertain after deciding to work on the relationship?
Yes, and it does not mean the wrong path was chosen. Uncertainty after committing usually reflects a nervous system carrying years of accumulated experience, and it is especially common for the leaning-out partner. Trust is not restored by deciding to trust someone. It is rebuilt through corrective emotional experiences, the way you test ice on a frozen pond and inch further out when it holds.
Episode transcript
Dr. Lisa: Many couples run into rough patches over the course of their relationship. Times when things feel so hard. You know, another conflict is right under the surface, resentments have grown, and it can be really hard to see how are we going to find our way back together again?
Georgi: What can happen is if one person is really leaning in, they’re pursuing and trying so hard to do whatever it takes to make it work. But ironically, that pursuit and that energy that they’re putting in can actually make the leaning out partner more anxious and want to pull away even more.
Dr. Lisa: This is a real fork-in-the-road moment for a lot of couples, a lot of marriages. And it can be very difficult to answer that question. Do we have the possibility of a happy future together? Or is it actually time to call it quits?
Georgi: I ask them on a scale of one to 10, one being I am so done, ready to sign divorce papers tomorrow. 10 being I’m here till the day I die no matter what it takes. Where are you on that scale?
Dr. Lisa: So in today’s episode of Love, Happiness, and Success, we are doing a deep dive into this to help you understand how to answer that question, is there hope for this relationship, with clarity and confidence so that you feel good about the final outcome no matter what that answer is.
Georgi: Let’s gain clarity around actually what is it that you want, what is it that you wish were different, in order to choose that path of couples coaching or couples counseling. And then trying to paint a really clear picture as much as we can based on the information I’m getting from them what that path actually might look like.
Dr. Lisa: If this is your first time tuning into today’s show, I am so happy you’re here. I’m Dr. Lisa Marie Bobby, your host. My background, I’m a psychologist, I am also a marriage and family therapist, and I’m a board-certified coach. And we’re here every week talking about all different facets of growth, love, happiness, and success to support your wellbeing, your relationships, your career, and your life. So today’s show I’m so thrilled because I have such a very special guest with me today. I’m here with my dear friend and colleague, Georgi Chizk. She is a marriage and family therapist who I’ve known for many years. She is part of our Growing Self network, and she is a true authority on the topic of how to get clarity about the future of your relationship using evidence-based practices that come from discernment counseling, discernment coaching.
Georgi: Couples counseling is like rowing a boat from one side of a lake to the other. And if both partners are rowing, even if it’s not perfect, they will eventually make it to the other side. But if even one partner isn’t rowing as consistently or if one partner has one oar in and one foot on the dock resisting the boat from moving, they’re either just gonna be rowing in circles, or they’re just gonna be rowing in a still spot for who knows how long.
Dr. Lisa: And Georgi, you are the person to talk to about this. Thanks for joining me.
Georgi: Yeah, thank you for having me. I’m so excited to share.
Dr. Lisa: Yeah. Well, you know, let’s just dig right into this because I think we can both agree this is such a difficult and painful place for anybody to be in their relationship. And so I’m wondering if you could, like, let’s just start here. You do so much of this work. When someone first comes in and says, “Georgi, can you help me?” What is going on in their minds, in their hearts, in their relationships that is creating so much turmoil and so much confusion?
Georgi: Yeah. So obviously it can be a number of things, but I think most often what I find is either that person or partner is feeling hopeless, unsure, uncertain, run down. Like they’ve tried so many things for so long, and they’re just not sure what else can be done, and they’re just kind of wanting a last-ditch effort of help from a professional before they kind of call it quits. That’s definitely one type of client I come, that comes through my door sometimes. The other side, though, are people who are very highly motivated and want things to be different and believe that it can be different, but they just don’t know what to do. And just feel lost and unsure about, “I believe that there’s hope still for my relationship, but I don’t know the path to get that hope.”
Dr. Lisa: Well, and it’s so hard sometimes because you know, there’s two people in a relationship, and it’s also not uncommon for one person to be like, “We need to fix this,” and really wanting that to be true, but the other person is kind of checked out. And so, like, part of this is, is my partner even willing to work on this with me?
Georgi: Yeah, so this is super normal, first of all. Oftentimes there is a leaning in, leaning out partner, and there’s no reason to panic yet, because I think that this dynamic is really understandable. But it makes it really hard because what can happen is if one person is really leaning in, they’re pursuing and trying so hard to do whatever it takes to make it work. But ironically, that pursuit and that energy that they’re putting in can actually make the leaning out partner more anxious and want to pull away even more. And so as they pull away, the leaning in partner feels more anxious and wants to do more, so they try. But as they try, the leaning out partner feels more anxious and wants to lean out more.
Georgi: And it just creates this kind of cyclical really frustrating, really just exhausting kind of pattern in the relationship.
Dr. Lisa: Absolutely. Well, and you know, what I think is just so fascinating to me about this way of understanding relationships is that it’s really around the commitment level or the desire for things to be different. And what has been so fascinating to me over the years is to understand how this can flip. What I have seen, I don’t know if this is true for you, but I think that this is a relatively tragic situation, but it’s not uncommon. When one person in a relationship is fighting for the relationship, oftentimes for years, like reading the books, let’s go talk to somebody, trying the things, what if we have a date night, all the stuff, and trying. And their partner is not responsive to this. Like, either minimizing the issues or like, “Okay, yeah, yeah, whatever,” kind of going through the motions but not really engaging. And what will happen over time is that that partner who’s been trying so hard starts to give up. You know? The thing that they internalize is, “This is not gonna be different no matter what I do. They don’t care.” And it’s like that attachment bond starts to weaken. So finally, that partner themselves is now checked out. Maybe they’re talking to a divorce lawyer and they’re saying, you know, “I don’t wanna do this anymore.” And then when they get to that place, the person who had previously been like, “Whatever,” then now they’re like, “Oh my gosh.” They feel like they’re being blindsided. They’re like, “What do you mean? What are you talking about?” Like, oftentimes they haven’t fully understood the level of the issues in the relationship or the degree of their partner’s unhappiness, but now they’re there. And now they’re the ones making an appointment with Georgi and being like, they’re leaning in. They’re all the way. But in your experience, let’s just go there for a second. Is it too late by the time it gets to that when one partner has been like, “Yeah, we should’ve been doing this, like, three years ago”?
Georgi: That’s a good question. So that’s actually one of the first questions I ask myself when I have a couple through the door who are in that similar situation. And a really, really helpful question I start with with every single discernment couple is actually a scaling question.
Georgi: I ask them on a scale of one to 10, one being, “I am so done, ready to sign divorce papers tomorrow,” 10 being, “I’m here till the day I die no matter what it takes,” where are you on that scale? And what I’m listening for is if a couple says anywhere from a five below, that to me says that discernment coaching can be helpful and effective. If a partner says that they’ve been a one for so long, they’ve already taken steps or to reach out to attorneys and all, they’re telling their friends that they’re done, that to me is more of a red flag that says they probably already made their decision, and discernment coaching probably would be, you know, not as helpful at that point.
Georgi: ‘Cause we don’t want clients to do the work. Even discernment, although it’s brief, it’s still emotionally taxing and really difficult. And so I’m assessing for to see if, A, one partner’s already made their choice, and B, if they are actually more aligned than they think. Because sometimes one partner is really exhausted, but then I ask that question and they sound like perfect discernment coaching clients. I’m like, okay, there’s uncertainty here. They’re burnt out. They’re leaning in, leaning out. I see the whole thing, and then I ask that question and they’re like, “Well, I’m like a seven or eight.” And to me, I’m like, okay, that feels more appropriate for couples coaching because both partners are a six or above on that scale, which means they’re aligned and wanting things to be better, but they’re feeling hopeless in that process, and that’s normal to feel for a lot of couples.
Dr. Lisa: Okay. Let’s go into this for just a second because, you know, when I learned about this, it was something that kinda shocked me, although not really. It surprised me, but it didn’t really shock me because I was like, oh yeah, that makes so much sense.
Dr. Lisa: So you and I, we’re both marriage and family therapists, right? And so that’s a very unique type of training, a degree program specifically in marriage and family therapy and systemic psychology, truly systemic dynamics. Then we go through this whole supervision process, and it’s a really unique thing. I think I read somewhere like 5% of all licensed mental health professionals are marriage and family therapists. It’s not that common. And even with that, in my training and education, there was nothing about this type of discernment work and the need to assess commitment before trying to improve a relationship. It was just not, it was like a blank space. And then I think what we see in practice is that there are so many people who can show up for marriage counseling, couples therapy, relationship coaching, whatever you wanna call it, and there is a difference in where those two people are. But the biggest mistake is to assume that both people are there because they want the relationship to get better and they are equally invested and working on it, because that is not what happens in couples counseling a lot of times, especially if you don’t even know to assess for the stuff we’re talking about right now, the differences in commitment levels. Can you talk a little bit about your experience with that and what you’ve seen happen when we’re not having that conversation? Do you want this to get better? How hard are you willing to work on making it better before we assume that’s true? What do you see there?
Georgi: Yeah. So it’s interesting, actually the man who created discernment work, his name is Bill Doherty.
Dr. Lisa: My hero. That man is my hero for so many reasons. Okay. Sorry. Go ahead.
Georgi: He’s so great. And yeah, he’s at University of Minnesota, and he basically, same thing you’re saying, he realized through a lot of his research and clinical work that there’s a difference between couples who successfully get through couples counseling, and the other side and are successful and feel content, and those who just constantly feel stuck and are kind of on repeat and there’s a lot of frustration with the counseling process. And he really took a deeper dive into what made those couples different, and he found this kind of leaning in, leaning out conflicting commitment levels.
Georgi: And so I think that it’s so important because even as he was kind of looking into that, realizing that if there’s a difference in commitment levels, it’s just gonna feel like you’re spinning in circles. And so if you miss that, what can happen is you commit to couples counseling and both partners probably really want it to work, right? They think it’s their only option. Either we divorce or we do couples counseling and there’s no middle ground. So I’m not ready for divorce yet, so I guess I’m gonna do couples counseling. And they put all their energy into it and they get really vulnerable, take a lot of emotional risk, are pretty much putting their heart out there on the line just to find that there’s this constant feeling of resistance. And over time that can just lead to a lot of frustration, burning out, resentment.
Dr. Lisa: Totally. Oh my gosh. And stuckness. And so is that what you’re saying, like one person is sort of more vulnerable and engaged and doing the things and then it’s the other person that’s resistant or does that kind of happen on both sides?
Georgi: I definitely think it’s both.
Georgi: So one analogy I find very helpful for this is the rowboat analogy. So basically couples counseling is like rowing a boat from one side of a lake to the other, and if both partners are rowing, even if it’s not perfect, they will eventually make it to the other side. But if even one partner isn’t rowing as consistently, or if one partner has one oar in and one foot on the dock resisting the boat from moving, they’re either just gonna be rowing in circles or they’re just gonna be rowing in a still spot for who knows how long. And then the other side of that is the partner who’s ready to row probably notices the other partner who took the oar out of the water, or notices that their foot is on the boat. And so instead of putting all their energy to rowing, they’re constantly checking in with their partner thinking, “Are you here with me? Are we rowing together? Where are we going?” And so they’re feeling anxious about the relationship while the leaning out partner’s obviously feeling anxious about the relationship, and neither are giving 100% to the pursuit to the other side of the lake.
Georgi: And so, yeah, discernment is really, it’s not about teaching couples to row harder. It’s all about helping couples figure out where is your destination. Are we getting out of the boat here, or are we gonna go to the other side? And really just getting clarity about where they’re going.
Dr. Lisa: Ugh. See, that’s why I’m so happy to be having this conversation with you, Georgi, because I think so many times people are trying to make a decision, should I keep trying? Could this get better? Is it time to go? And they don’t really know yet what the truth is underneath the surface. And so what you’re talking about is this process that you walk people through in order to assess the level of commitment. But the other really beautiful thing that you just said that I love about this, and I think why it is so congruent really with a true coaching process, I mean, in a lot of ways it’s unfair to call this psychotherapy. It’s not treatment, right? And even counseling, you know, what do we do with that? But because it’s not treatment, it’s not saying there’s something wrong with either one of you that we’re seeking to correct or heal. It’s a coaching process that says, “Okay, who are you? What has been making this feel so hard? And what would need to be different in order for you to want to keep doing this?” And then having conversations around, do you two want the same things? And even if you did, what would you need to do in order to make that happen? And let’s talk about how much work that might actually be. And that’s where that commitment level can come up, because I think it’s easy for somebody to say intellectually, “Yes, I’d like to have a better relationship,” but when you really unpack it and like, so what does that mean exactly? And giving people choice around, would you like to do that consensually? ‘Cause this is gonna be some work for you. And they’re like, “I don’t know.” That’s been my experience anyway. Is that true for you?
Georgi: Yeah, absolutely. My whole work with couples and discernment coaching is all about informed decision-making. So, yeah, let’s gain clarity around actually what is it that you want, what is it that you wish were different, in order to choose that path of couples coaching or couples counseling, and then trying to paint a really clear picture as much as we can based on the information I’m getting from them, what that path actually might look like. Because the other thing I run into a lot is people, we all do this obviously when we haven’t experienced something. We just formulate an idea of something based on media or our friend’s experience, but it’s hard to really say exactly what that will be like until we experience it ourself.
Georgi: And so I really believe in helping couples understand, if you did choose couples therapy based on the things you’re saying that you want differently, here’s what that would probably look like, and here are some of the challenges of that. And based on what you’re saying, here are some of the strengths that I think would help you do that work. And then vice versa, if they choose the path of separation or divorce, helping them understand what that would look like as much as I can, not being a divorce attorney, but especially if kids are involved, what co-parenting would look like and all of that. So just getting as much information out there so that both partners can ultimately make that informed decision as a team instead of it feeling one-sided.
Dr. Lisa: Yeah. Absolutely. And so, yeah, just to like lay it all out on the table so you know what you’re signing up for even, because especially I think when relationships get to a bad place, that’s the experience. Like communication shuts down. It’s so impossible to talk about things, and a lot of times you don’t really know what the answer is because you can’t even go there with your partner. And so this process is creating the type of container where this stuff will come out, and you’ll have your answer. Oh, this is — I’m so glad we’re starting to talk around the edges of what this is and what this looks like. But Georgi, here’s the deal. There is, within the sound of our voices, we have a friend, maybe even a couple friends, who are listening to this because they are exactly like you said, they’re exhausted, they are so discouraged, probably heartbroken. They cannot stay here. Whatever’s happening right now feels totally unsustainable. There’s a part of them that kind of wants to go, might feel guilty about it, like, “Is this okay?” And then there’s this ambivalence and this, “But have we done everything? Could it get better? What if…” And weighing that, and also thinking, but to your point, there are also hardships associated with divorce. Like you’ve solved some problems. You have created new problems. And so on the other side of this break, I would love it if we could talk specifically to them about some things that they might be able to take from this. And from all your experience, Georgi, what do I do to begin to get some of that clarity in my own life so that they can move forward, they can get unstuck, no matter which way they go?
Georgi: Yeah, that’s a great question. So a place that I love to start with my couples is asking them just ground zero, what needs to change? So I would suggest kind of having a journal and writing down like, what are my absolute non-negotiables? This has to be different for me to feel confident in attempting to stay. So what that means is I’m just committing to the process of couples work to try and see if I repair, not a commitment to the rest of my lifetime with this person. Because I think sometimes when we’re in that place, our brain goes to extremes, and when that happens, we can be so paralyzed in decision-making because it feels very all or nothing.
Georgi: But what’s important to realize is, at least in discernment, it’s all about am I committing to separation or divorce or I usually say about six months, give or take, of couples work, just to see if we can make enough progress to repair and feel like we can give another six.
Georgi: So yeah, I would start from that place of just writing down like, what are my non-negotiables here? What can I absolutely not give up if I were to choose that path of reconciliation and repair with my partner? And then if it feels safe enough and you have enough tools to be able to communicate that to your partner and just see what they say, see if they’re willing and/or able to make those changes.
Georgi: ‘Cause sometimes I think another piece of this is that willingness and ability, and that goes both ways. So what do I want from my partner and are they willing and able, but also to kind of look inward and ask myself, what do I need to change to make this better in the relationship, and am I willing and able to make that change?
Dr. Lisa: Valid. That’s hard. I mean, it’s so easy to look at other people and be like, “Okay, you know what’s wrong with you,” right? But when it comes to like that, “Me? Moi?” “How dare you?” Like that kind of thing. You know, as you were talking, could I also just share, there’s one activity that I love doing with all different kinds of clients. I use it with clients who are dating, you know, and interested in getting into a relationship, also clients who are like, “What do I do about the relationship that I’m in?” Which is an activity where I get people to just list out what are the parts of a healthy relationship to you? Because relationships are multidimensional, and there are all kinds of different facets. There could be your, what are you like as social partners? What is physical intimacy like? What is communication like? What is your parenting team like? Are you on the same page around money? What do you like to do for fun? Spirituality? And it can be different for every person, so not saying that’s what it has to be, but what are all of the different pieces that make up a whole? And then I’ll actually get people to make a pie chart. So in this whole relationship, how much of it is actually physical connection? How much of it is a spiritual alignment or whatever? So that there’s this awareness of not just these are the parts that are missing, but also sometimes I think a recognition and appreciation for the strengths that a relationship does. Because all relationships are a mixed bag. It is very rare to find a relationship where there’s no ambivalence when that’s true. I just wanted to share that as a technique that anybody listening, you can do that on your own. You don’t need somebody like me or Georgi walking you through it. Just to get a snapshot, clarity around what you want. And how interesting if you could do that with a partner too, right? And their sense of like, “Well, actually, here’s what I think a healthy relationship is.” Wouldn’t that be interesting to know, right?
Georgi: Yeah, I think that is so helpful ’cause I think what that does is it taps back into the value system, which is so crucial in knowing where that end goal is for both partners, and without that, we don’t really have a good compass. And like you said, having both partners do that is so helpful, too, ’cause you both may agree on paper that you, for example, want to have a better sex life, right? But then if you were to explore more of what that actually means for each individual, that could be very different, and that might be where the disconnect has been all these years, is one person thinks and hears, “Yeah, I want a good sex life,” but really their partner is meaning something entirely different about that, and that can constantly kind of be a misunderstanding in the relationship if that’s not really well defined.
Dr. Lisa: Yeah. And even like going into the details of what exactly would be involved? Oh, I couldn’t play video games for five hours every night, and also have that other thing be true. So like, how are we gonna make this happen? And kind of bumping up against the things that people wanna prioritize.
Georgi: And that’s where a lot of that clarity, I think, comes from in making an informed decision, is really just clearly identifying in a very safe and contained way, here’s what I mean when I say this should be different or this is what I want. Both partners to say that out loud, and then to be able to kind of come together at an arrived decision of like, “Okay, I can so do that. I didn’t realize that’s what you wanted, but now that I know, I would love to use whatever resource possible to make that happen for you.” Or like, “Oh, wow, I didn’t realize that’s what you meant by that. I don’t know if I have that in me anymore, right? I’ve tried that before and I can’t do that again.” And just an honest conversation about your willingness and ability to meet those expectations for your partner.
Dr. Lisa: You know, I know for a fact that we have at least one friend listening to this right now who their relationship is in a place where it feels like their partner is so withdrawn that they might not be participating in these conversations. Maybe they’ve been like, “Hey, let’s go talk to this marriage counselor, Georgi, about the situation,” and their partner’s just shut down. “No.” Avoiding it. Totally stonewalled, and it feels like this person almost has to make this decision on their own. Is there any place for doing the type of work we’re talking about right now as an individual if your partner is like not even interested in having these conversations?
Georgi: Yes, absolutely. I find that individual work extremely helpful. I do think it looks different, obviously, and basically the focus becomes how can we get enough clarity for you to make an informed decision without your partner participating, and sometimes that means let’s approach the conversation a different way. Let’s work on your communication tools to help you ask that question differently so your partner might engage. And sometimes it’s, you know, if you didn’t get any more information, how are you going to make this decision based on what you do have on the table? And going back to the values, going back to data that they already have from years of being with that person, and just really helping them feel confident in whatever decision that they do decide on.
Dr. Lisa: Yeah. Including doing nothing, by the way. I just wanna say for the record that it is also a totally valid option to stay in a marriage or in a relationship for all kinds of reasons. You know, I have had clients do a lot of work, like what we’re talking about, and get absolute clarity. “This is never gonna be different. It is never going to be a good relationship for me. This person is not emotionally available. This is what I can expect from them. I have lost hope, and I’m actually gonna stay here anyway because of all these other reasons. They are a reasonably good parent to my kid, or there could be, I mean, even financial reasons, cohabitation reasons. Like, I would not be able to support myself and my child if I did leave. It’s all okay.” Like, so I just wanna say that there’s no action required necessarily, but I think that knowing is still valuable.
Georgi: For sure. Yeah, ’cause the not knowing is what eats people alive, right? Ambiguity is, the what ifs can just really take over. But after all of this, I think it’s worth saying that with discernment work, it’s two things, meant to be brief. So it’s meant to be really no more than, like, I try to keep it seven sessions at the most. Obviously, there’s nuance depending on what’s going on, and that’s mostly for couples. Individuals might be different. But it’s meant to be a brief form of therapy ’cause we don’t wanna be in this ambiguous place longer than we have to, and we shouldn’t. But then also the whole point of getting clarity to make a decision is, you know, deciding on one of three paths in discernment work.
Georgi: Obviously, we’ve talked a lot about two paths, separation or divorce, and then couples therapy or couples coaching. There is that third path that you’re describing right now, Lisa, which is status quo, and that is perfectly fine. For many reasons, that’s the safest and best path for the relationship. And so that’s definitely not off the table in discernment work. It’s just most people have been on that path for so long, and that’s why they reach out, and so they’re like, “Okay, this isn’t working, so let’s decide on one of the other two.”
Georgi: But when I’m meeting with couples, I definitely keep that on the table at first until I get a sense how they’re feeling about it.
Dr. Lisa: Well, and I think, too, that even if you do wind up choosing status quo, knowing there’s so much less mental and emotional energy. You can be like, “This is what I am doing for the next five years, and I know that I am not going to get happiness or pleasure from this particular relationship. So how do we be civil? How do we cohabitate under the same roof? How do I make other friends? How do I invest in myself and my hobbies so that I can have a nice life anyway in this context,” right? Without feeling bad about the relationship being what it is.
Georgi: Yes. Exactly. Yeah, and that’s one of my biggest goals at the end of discernment is making sure people feel equipped for that path. So do they have oars to row or a safe dock to board on, basically. And that includes with status quo, do you have the individual resources you need to feel stable being in that?
Dr. Lisa: But, like, what are we talking about? Are those the things that I mentioned, or are you thinking of something else right now?
Georgi: Yeah, I mean, it could be, yeah, can I take ownership and responsibility for my own happiness if nothing else around me is going to change? Can I increase my support system? Can I advocate for myself in other ways? Can I lean into the strengths and positives about this relationship and focus on those? Can I engage in individual coaching to have that kind of support? It could be anything. But no matter what, people will leave with discernment, not just having made a decision, but having a path. And I think that’s really important to mention, whether it’s deciding on how we’re gonna co-parent if we choose separation, getting a contact to reach out for an attorney or a mediator, or is it getting connected with a referral for coaching, couples coaching work. That’s something I really believe in, is making sure people feel like they really have what they need after a decision is made.
Dr. Lisa: Yeah. Well, there it is. I mean, that’s one of the big differences between what we think of as traditional therapy, which is insight, talking about how we feel about things, whereas coaching is, yes, we still get insight, we still talk about things. And then it turns into an action plan that will change something, which is the goal here. Okay. So, I would love for you to share, if you’re open to it, a couple of stories with us, some examples. De-identified of course, we’re not gonna reveal anybody’s, you know, name, address, and Social Security number here on the Love, Happiness and Success Podcast. But like, what you have seen this look like, what the process is, and what unfolds, and the final outcome, because I want anybody listening to this who’s just stuck in this place to feel less afraid of this process, because that’s one of the barriers, isn’t it? Yeah, it’s frustrating to be stuck, but sometimes having clarity can feel threatening, and it doesn’t have to.
Dr. Lisa: So let’s take our final lap, the final third of this podcast, with a deep dive into what transformation looks like, but no matter what direction it goes in. So somebody comes in, they are stuck. It has not felt good for a long time. Maybe somebody is more committed than somebody else, but there’s this paralysis. Tell us where you start, what happens next, and then what this can look like for a couple, no matter what direction they go in.
Georgi: Yeah. So I’ll start with kind of like the structure I take, and then I’ll paint a picture of how those outcomes might look based on some of the clients I’ve had. Really no matter what, I’m kind of starting from, you know, what’s brought you here? Why are we in this ambiguous place? Kind of getting a story from them.
Dr. Lisa: What is the water under the bridge that has led you to this moment?
Georgi: Exactly. And that’s both good and bad, right? Like, I wanna hear about the positive moments because usually there’s a lot of history. They wouldn’t feel so ambiguous if there wasn’t good in the relationship. And that’s really important to hear as well. And then diving into what’s not gone well over the past years, especially recently, that’s led you to this decision-making point. I’m getting a feel of who’s leaning in, who’s leaning out, and why. And then I’m trying to understand what needs to be different for us to choose the reconciliation.
Dr. Lisa: And you have some of these conversations actually privately. This is not two people sitting on the couch together. You are breaking people up to be like, “Okay, what’s really going on? What’s this been like for you? What do you need for this to be different?”
Georgi: Yeah, that’s a really good point. Yeah. So I’ll start off session one together, getting just their story, so the good times, bad times, that stuff. Then after that, every session, I typically start with dividing it up into one-on-one time. In that one-on-one time, I’ll meet with one partner first, and I’ll ask them, “What do you need to be different? What is the hard stuff that I really need to know about, that you need change here? What has this been like for you being in this ambiguous place,” you know? And then after that, we usually end every session after that breakout just kind of summarizing so that both partners are on the same page about what clarity came from that conversation.
Dr. Lisa: And no secrets. You’re telling, “Here’s what was said when I was in my individual meeting.” That’s good.
Georgi: Exactly. And that’s so helpful because I think people usually at that point just want to just get it all out there, right? And they don’t wanna have to filter it, and they wanna be able to say what they wanna say. But with the knowledge that their partner needs some kind of summary of that, I can help them curate that in a way that isn’t gonna lead to a conflict and defensiveness and shutting down, right? So in that one-on-one time, I’ll hear the unfiltered version of what they’re thinking, and then when we come back together, I’ll be able to provide a concise summary so that everybody —
Dr. Lisa: The sanitized version. It says the same thing, but the beeped version, right? Take out the cuss words.
Georgi: Yeah. And the hope is every session, through more and more conversation, there’s more and more clarity, and it’s almost like imagining us creating a sculpture, right, where you start with just big shapes, and then you chisel a little bit more away, and you can kind of start to see what it’s supposed to look like. And then the next session, we do a little bit more, and then there’s the detail of, like, the nose and the eyes. Eventually we see a full image. And that’s kind of the hope session by session.
Dr. Lisa: Okay, so then let’s just, if you don’t mind, I’d love to hear this. Jack and Jill come in, and Jill is leaning out. She’s like, “I don’t know anymore.” And Jack is like, “Oh, no, but I love you,” right? And so that’s where they start. And this story, door number one, Jack and Jill at the end of this decide, “You know what? We’re gonna give this another try. We’re gonna sign on for six months of couples work where we’re both trying real hard to make this better,” but you need to navigate them to that point because no work at all can be done unless they’re on the same page about wanting that. So from your perspective, what are you hearing Jack and Jill talking about in those individual moments that are like, “Okay, you know what? There’s some there there, and I can work with this,” and that lead them to a “Okay, let’s give this another try.”
Georgi: Yeah. So the thing I hear most is just a lot of clarity around what’s needed. So what that sounds like sometimes is one partner being like, “Oh, you know, I didn’t realize that’s what you meant by that. Now I get it.” And the other partner’s like, “Finally. I did this whole time.” And so there’s clarity around what needs to be different and the kind of, like you mentioned it from the very beginning, the weight of why that’s so important to that person, too. The leaning out partner feels more validated, more like, “Hey, my needs are heard finally.” And then on top of that, I hear a lot of just committed language, right? Like, “I think I can do that. I would love to. Yeah, six months of couples therapy sounds doable for me.” Even though we can acknowledge it’s gonna be hard work and it’s gonna require a lot of energy and emotional commitment, for them, there’s still this willingness in their voice and in their language.
Dr. Lisa: So it sounds like in that process, and I don’t wanna oversimplify this, so please correct me if I am, but you have restored hope. There’s this hope like, “Oh, this feels different. Maybe things could be different.” But you have also created enough clarity so that making it different, it feels attainable. It’s not vague. It is here are the things that you will have to change in order, and then people see that and they’re like, “Oh, I can do that,” right? So it’s like taking this big, scary, like, oh my gosh, how is this ever gonna be different, and turned it into something that feels more actionable, for lack of a better word. Is that it?
Georgi: Yeah. And also not to oversimplify it, but it just feels clear. It just feels like, okay, we know where the other side of the lake is. Even though there’s foggy outside, we know that it’s there. We know that to get there we need to row due north. We know that we need this row and that row, and we can agree for the next six months to do that work together.
Dr. Lisa: And that’s so good because, well, and I sort of wanna say this again out loud, because I think we also have a responsibility, Georgi. We’re both therapists. Like, nobody’s bashing therapy. But I think that many times people have had experiences in conventional therapy where it’s a lot of talking about feelings or rehashing things, and there is not a clear connection with how is this gonna make it different for anybody, and so it feels disappointing. And a lot of people who get to this point, Georgi, that we’re talking about, they’ve done that couples therapy, right, where it’s just a lot of this churning. And so what we’re talking about is very different. Of course, we’re gonna talk about how people feel and what they think and what the history was, but that’s like part of it. We talk about that so that we know what to do differently. So I just wanted to say that out loud because I think that people can also feel beaten down and discouraged by previous efforts to get help for this if it was the wrong kind of help. Did I say that right from your perspective?
Georgi: Yeah. Absolutely. If it was the wrong kind of help. And like we said at the beginning with that analogy, if one partner had their foot on the dock, that help could’ve been a great instructor on how to row, but if they’re missing that that foot was on the dock keeping the boat from leaving, it doesn’t matter what you do. It doesn’t matter what you learn. It doesn’t matter what insight you have. If that commitment is within question, you’re always gonna feel stuck.
Dr. Lisa: Absolutely. Well, and like, I don’t know about you, but this came up in a clinical consultation group that we were a part of together the other day. Like, I think there are so many times that even experienced couples counselors start working with a couple and everybody’s like, “Yes, yes. We want a better relationship.” But then get like six, eight, 10 sessions in and it feels so stuck that, you know, what came up in our consultation group the other day was they need to be referred to discernment coaching ’cause these people are on a different page, and that’s not always known. So I just wanna say that to anybody listening to this too, like if you’ve been trying to work on things and it’s not getting better, and it’s scary to think about, but consider the possibility that you are actually not in alignment around the commitment to the effort, or even the desire. That’s not uncommon.
Georgi: Yeah, absolutely. And I do wanna mention too with that part, it’s even if there’s clarity and a clear path and both partners are like, “Yes, I wanna do it,” that does not mean that especially the leaning out partner, but even the leaning in partner, might still have a lot of feelings of uncertainty. So if that happens, that’s super normal. It does not mean you’ve chosen the wrong path. That just means that you have a lot of experiences locked away in your brain that’s telling you, “This is scary. I’m gonna have to take a big risk, and I’m not sure I want to do that again, but the logic part of my brain believes that I might could and maybe it’ll be different.” Having those two in conflict, even when committing to six months of couples therapy, is so normal, and that’s also something I work with couples who decide on that path to kind of discern really into that scared part of my brain as a voice that’s telling me I chose the wrong path, or is that just my nervous system doing its thing?
Dr. Lisa: Totally. Well, how normal, though, I mean, if you have a lot of bad experiences with somebody, the way that trust is actually healed is not by making a decision to trust somebody. It is by having what we call corrective emotional experiences. It’s by trying these things like, “Okay, I didn’t fall through the ice on the frozen pond. It held my weight, so I’m gonna inch out a little bit further. Am I gonna fall through?” And so as this moves forward, we are transformed by experience, not by this magical, “I’m gonna trust you now.” Like, that is really not how this works. So thank you for bringing that up.
Dr. Lisa: Okay. So quickly before we end, I wanna hear two more stories of happy transformation when people go through other doors in this, Georgi, because I need people to hear that even if it feels scary to go through one of the other doors, this is still a happy ending. So tell us a story of Nate and Natalie. They are in the same place, and they do this work with you and decide, like, “Yeah, neither of us are really committed to changing anything,” or not both of us are committed to changing things, and, but we’re not gonna get divorced. We’re not gonna separate for a variety of reasons. Tell us how that unfolds. What are the things that you hear that lead people to arrive at that, and how can that also be a good thing?
Georgi: Yeah. So for Nate and Natalie’s situation, what I hear most is just this feeling like I just don’t have what I need to commit to six months of couples work, whether that’s time, finance, emotional energy, really anything. But also I have a lot of love and care left to stay, or just logistically it makes a lot of sense for me to stay right now. And there’s a lot of reasoning happening to make that kind of decision for status quo, right? So it’s not this like, it feels different than it does at the beginning. In the beginning, what it sounds more like is an avoidance. Like, “Oh my gosh, this is so overwhelming. I don’t know what I’m gonna do, so I’m just gonna like get through the next day and hope that tomorrow’s better.” Versus at the end of our process, it’s a, “Okay, I can see why path for reconciliation isn’t good for me right now. I can see why path of divorce isn’t good for me right now, and so this path of status quo just feels like the best option.” And it’s a calm, informed kind of decision.
Dr. Lisa: And I could see it also being like, you know, this relationship is not the only thing in my life, right? It’s like this thing that seems so big and so huge and it’s all I think about, it is one thing and there’s a lot of other things. I’m just gonna like calm down.
Georgi: Yeah. And in that regard, there’s still this air of hope with even that decision because while it’s not the same kind of hope as maybe my relationship will work if I commit to six months of couples therapy, there’s still this hope of like, maybe I can still find satisfaction and contentment in this season and reevaluate later. And maybe that could be not only a tolerable thing, but an enjoyable thing.
Dr. Lisa: Yeah. Oh my gosh. And like even, maybe even if we do eventually decide to separate, maybe we could just work on being better friends in the short term.
Georgi: I’ve had Nate and Natalie come back later saying like, “That was the best choice for our family at the time. Like it helped us just let out the pressure gauge a little bit and allow us to really be present as parents together in the same home and give our kids a really beautiful last couple years in high school and then reevaluate.” That has been a very meaningful decision for those couples, I think.
Dr. Lisa: That’s awesome. Okay. Very lastly, then I’ll let you go, Georgi. This has been so amazing. But let’s talk about, here, let’s gender neutralize this. Morgan and Devin. We don’t know what gender Morgan and Devin are. It’s, everything’s all right. But tell us another story of transformation for this couple who arrive at a content, clear, like, “Yes, we feel good about this,” decision that lets part peacefully because this isn’t gonna work. And now we know.
Georgi: Yeah. So for Morgan and Devin, I think what I hear often is just kind of a very thoughtful decision about, this feels like we’ve done what we can. A lot of kind of satisfaction, contentment with what has been attempted previous. And also just a real honest kind of self-evaluation about like, I know myself, and I can’t speak for my partner, but I know for me that, for a variety of reasons, this just, it doesn’t feel okay to do couples coaching anymore. It doesn’t feel okay for status quo. I need something different to find happiness and stability in my life. And being able to start to picture what life could be like outside of the relationship, and also feel excited about that in a lot of ways. So I’ve had a Morgan and Devin start to describe to me like, “Well, if I wasn’t in this relationship, I would be able just to do this, and then, oh, and then I could do this.” And there’s this kind of like, wow, I hadn’t thought about this before, or I’ve thought about this a lot, but now that it’s kind of a reality for me, it’s exciting and it’s scary, sure. But there’s this kind of looking forward to what that chapter could be like.
Georgi: And then I think also this air of support from the other person that, because I do care about this person, I want them to be happy, and I want what’s best for them as well. And so hearing them in a safe, contained space such as discernment coaching to describe what that would be like, I think is really helpful for the other person to hear and choose to just allow that person to be happy too.
Dr. Lisa: Yeah. And that this can happen without anger, without conflict, without people being mad at each other. And I also, Georgi, I feel like I need to say this out loud, there’s probably a leaning in partner that we just terrified. Like, that’s their worst nightmare, right? That their partner would be like, “Hmm.” But I just also wanna share, so from my perspective, like one of my specialties is heartbreak recovery, relationship loss, and how do you move with it. It is also such a gift in a lot of ways to be with a person who says, “I don’t hate you, in some ways I love you very much in the sense that I care about you. And I want to work on this relationship, but I don’t, and I can’t give you what you want and what you need and what you deserve.” And even though there’s that in the moment, and it is scary and hard to hear, the alternative of not really knowing what’s going on and not really being able to hear and understand the other person’s point of view. Or if it’s like a, you know, it feels like the relationship blows up in a really traumatic way rather than having these kinds of conversations. Like, long-term for the healing process, this is so much more humane. And also, you know, with the support of somebody like you, you can also then help that person. So how can we actually make this better for you? Particularly if these are two parents who now need to transition into, “Hey, you know what? We’re actually still gonna be in a relationship with each other for the next 15 years as co-parents, so let’s work through some things so that we can do that together.” That is such a gift.
Georgi: It really is. Yeah. I feel like I’ve had many of those clients too where leaning in partner, though the decision is devastating, there’s almost this just feeling of relief that it’s made, and that they can then start their next chapter and begin their own healing. Because I think really when they ask honestly, the purgatory, the not knowing, the ambiguity is so much more painful than the final decision to reconcile or not.
Georgi: I’ve heard time and time again from those people, honestly not very long after that final decision is made, they report to me, “Man, I’m so much more calm and relieved. Man, I’ve been sleeping better than I ever have in the past six years of my marriage, you know? This sucks and this is so hard, but I can finally start to see a path forward and start to make decisions in my life that I didn’t even realize I wanted until now.” And there’s a lot more freedom for even that part as well that’s on the other side. So it’s not over when that decision is made.
Dr. Lisa: It’s not over. Yeah. Georgi, thank you so much for sharing that. Well, and thank you so much for doing this with me today, Georgi. Again, this is such a common thing that people experience, and it was very meaningful for me today to have this conversation with you to bring this real world, okay, here’s what to do. Here’s how we get unstuck and move forward from your vast experience. I mean, you’ve been doing this for so many years.
Georgi: Thank you. Yeah, of course.
Dr. Lisa: Before we end, I’m just gonna do… I know that you probably don’t even want me to, but I’m gonna do it anyway because you know me. I’m gonna give a little plug. If anybody hearing this conversation was like, “You know what? Georgi is a gem. She is such a genuinely kind, thoughtful, empathetic person with so much, not just insight, but intuition and clinical knowledge, but also extremely smart and tougher than she looks.” Everybody, trust me on this. You can talk to Georgi. You can book a free consultation with her and just have that conversation. What could this look like? What is the process? Meet her in person and move forward from there. Is there anything you’d like somebody else to know about that?
Georgi: No, I think that sounds wonderful. I’m absolutely here to support anybody in this decision, and whether it’s the couple or individual like we talked about, I’m definitely here and ready and would love just to hear your story and support you in making this informed decision.
Dr. Lisa: You are such a helper all the way through, Georgi. I love it. Thanks again for this, and I will talk to you soon.
Georgi: Take care.
Dr. Lisa: Thanks so much for spending this time with me today, and if you have found this episode helpful, do your good deed for the day. Pass it on, pay it forward, share this episode with someone you care about who might need to hear what you just heard today. Close your eyes, think about who that is, and then boop, hit send. Now, as for you, if you are feeling inspired by what we talked about today, if you’re ready to go deeper, whether it’s in your relationship, your own personal development, or maybe even your bigger sense of purpose, I would love to help you. Come visit me at growingself.com. I have so many free resources for you, but you can also just schedule a free consultation with one of the amazing licensed therapists on my team, who, like me, specialize in evidence-based coaching psychology. You can also explore the programs that we have designed for you to create real and lasting change in your life in a structured, step-by-step way. And do not forget to go into my blog and podcast, my content collections, where you can find exactly what you need to support your journey of growth. And, hey, let’s also stay connected. If we’re not already connected, come track me down. I am on Instagram periodically, and would love to hear from you. Or if you have a question or comment about the show, just email me. Get in touch, hello@growingself.com. All right. Until next time, you take care, and keep growing.
Resources Dr. Lisa talked about in this episode
Sources cited in this episode
- Doherty, W. J., Harris, S. M., & Wilde, J. L. (2016). Discernment counseling for “mixed-agenda” couples. Journal of Marital and Family Therapy, 42(2), 246–255. https://doi.org/10.1111/jmft.12132
- Kanewischer, E. J. W., & Harris, S. M. (2015). Deciding not to un-do the “I do”: Therapy experiences of women who consider divorce but decide to remain married. Journal of Marital and Family Therapy, 41(3), 367–380. https://doi.org/10.1111/jmft.12064
- Doherty, W. J., Willoughby, B. J., & Peterson, B. (2011). Interest in marital reconciliation among divorcing parents. Family Court Review, 49(2), 313–321.
- Doss, B. D., Simpson, L. E., & Christensen, A. (2004). Why do couples seek marital therapy? Professional Psychology: Research and Practice, 35(6), 608–614. https://doi.org/10.1037/0735-7028.35.6.608
- Doherty, W. J., Harris, S. M., & Didericksen, K. W. (2016). A typology of attitudes toward proceeding with divorce among parents in the divorce process. Journal of Divorce & Remarriage, 56, 1–11.
