As the leaning out spouse, you have probably already thought long and hard about ending the marriage. You’ve considered (or at least tried to consider) every angle.
Having shared your desire to end the marriage with your spouse, you are now being challenged: Why not reconcile? Why not at least try couples counseling (again?) At this point, you may find that you come to every conversation with your spouse armed with a list of reasons why the marriage can’t work.
When you decide to try discernment counseling, you will need to challenge your automatic focus on reasons the marriage will fail. You do not need to be convinced that your marriage can be saved; but you do need to allow yourself a more open-minded view again.
Discernment counseling works by helping each spouse gain greater clarity about what happened in the marriage AND each person’s contribution to the problems. What we often see is that the leaning out spouse feels cornered and reluctant to openly acknowledge their own part in the problems. To be fair, this isn’t necessarily because they accept no responsibility. Rather, it’s because acknowledging a contribution to the problem feels like re-opening oneself to reconciliation.
As you prepare for discernment counseling, allow your internal dialog to include questions like:
►When I felt more motivated to fix my marriage, which behaviors did I recognize as problems for the marriage?
►What are my personal weaknesses that have shown up in multiple relationships, not just my marriage?
►Can I see that working on my own negative contributions to the relationship is important, regardless of the outcome of my marriage?
►Would it be useful to my future relationships to acknowledge and address my shortcomings?
We want you to shift your internal dialog from “here’s why the marriage will fail” to “here’s what I can do to improve my own relationship skills.” By doing this, a more positive outcome is virtually guaranteed. Either it will help you save your marriage OR it will provide you with an improved foundation for future relationships.