Reflections · Couples
Should we separate or try counselling first?
Neither, yet. If one of you is halfway out the door and the other is holding on, you are not disagreeing about how to fix the marriage — you are disagreeing about whether to try. Couples counselling cannot answer that question, and separating does not answer it either; it just moves it. The first piece of work is the decision itself, done deliberately, with help, in a handful of sessions rather than a year of them. Couples who skip that step usually end up doing it anyway, six months later, after one of them has sat through half a year of weekly therapy they never actually agreed to.
You are not one couple with one question
One of you has been reading therapist bios at eleven at night. The other agreed to the appointment the way you agree to a dental procedure.
Bill Doherty, who runs the Minnesota Couples on the Brink Project at the University of Minnesota, has a name for this: the mixed-agenda couple. One partner is leaning in and wants to repair it. One is leaning out, mostly done, sometimes for years. They arrive in the same car and they book the same appointment, and almost nothing else about their situation is shared.
Most couples counselling is built for a couple who both want the relationship and cannot get to each other. That is a real problem and there is genuinely good work for it. It is not your problem.
Why “let’s just try counselling” backfires on a mixed-agenda couple
Weekly couples therapy asks you to invest in something you have not decided to keep. The leaning-out partner does the homework the way you file a tax return. The leaning-in partner reads the attendance as commitment and lets themselves hope. Then the exit arrives anyway in month five, and it lands as a second betrayal on top of the first — not just “you are leaving,” but “you let me believe.”
Couples spend a year in good therapy for a decision that was actually made before the first session, and nobody in the room says so out loud.
So say it out loud. In the first meeting, the leaning-out partner should be asked directly how much of them is still in the room, and should be allowed to answer honestly without the session collapsing. A therapist who cannot hold that answer is the wrong therapist for this stage.
What the research says about couples standing where you are
Doherty and his colleagues Brian Willoughby and Bruce Peterson surveyed 2,484 parents already in the divorce process in Hennepin County, Minnesota, after their mandatory divorce-education classes — people who had filed, hired lawyers, told their families. About one in four still believed the marriage could be saved with effort. About three in ten said they would be open to reconciliation help (Doherty, Willoughby & Peterson, Family Court Review, 2011). The Couples on the Brink Project’s own summary of that data puts it this way: in roughly 45% of couples already in the divorce process, one or both spouses hold some belief that the marriage could be saved and would consider help.
These are people at the courthouse. Not people wondering.
The finding I think about most is a quieter one. Interest in reconciliation ran far higher among the partner who did not initiate the divorce — and higher among men than among women. The person least likely to say any of this out loud is frequently the one still hoping. That pattern is the whole reason I do men’s work the way I do.
“Haven’t we left it too long?”
Almost certainly not, and the number everyone quotes at you is wrong.
You have probably heard that couples wait six years of unhappiness before getting help. Doherty went looking for the source of that figure and could not find support for it. In a 2021 study in the Journal of Marital and Family Therapy, he surveyed 270 couples entering couples therapy and found an average of 2.68 years from the onset of problems, with the great majority arriving within two years. His conclusion was that therapists have little reason to be pessimistic about how long people wait.
For scale: Statistics Canada found that the average duration of marriages ending in divorce rose from 12.5 years in 1980 to 15.3 years in 2020. Two and a half years of difficulty inside a fifteen-year marriage is not a lost cause. It is a Tuesday.
| What people believe | What is actually the case |
|---|---|
| “We should try counselling before we give up.” | Couples counselling assumes you have both decided to try. If you have not, that is the decision to work on first. |
| “Wanting out means it is over.” | Ambivalence is a position, not a verdict. A quarter of people who have already filed still think it could be saved. |
| “If I agree to counselling, I am agreeing to stay.” | In discernment work, separation stays on the table the entire time. That is the point of it. |
| “Separating will give us clarity.” | Separation changes your logistics. Most couples find it answers far less than they expected. |
| “We have waited too long.” | The average couple entering therapy has had problems for under three years, not six. |
| “The one who wants out has stopped caring.” | The partner who did not initiate is statistically the more hopeful one — and the leaving partner is usually exhausted, not indifferent. |
What deciding well actually looks like
Doherty’s model for this is discernment counselling, and the shape of it matters. It is short — typically one to five sessions, and it ends when you have an answer rather than running on. Its goal is not to save the marriage. Its goal is clarity and confidence about a direction, which is a different and more honest target.
Most of the work happens with each of you separately, because the two of you are answering different questions. The leaning-out partner is working out whether there is anything here worth one more real attempt. The leaning-in partner is usually working out something harder: what their own part in this has actually been, and whether they can stand to look at it.
Three doors at the end. Stay as you are for now. Move toward separation. Or commit to a defined run of couples therapy — six months is the usual frame — with the divorce decision off the table for the duration, so that both of you are finally working on the same thing at the same time.
That third door is the one most people meant when they said “let’s try counselling.” They just tried to walk through it without deciding to.
What I would say if you were sitting in my office
I practise Relational Life Therapy, and Terry Real’s language for this is the most useful I have found. Under the calm reasonable conversation you are having about logistics, two children are running the meeting. Real calls this the adaptive child — the part of you that worked out, somewhere around age nine, exactly how to survive this family, and has been running that same programme ever since.
The partner who is leaving is rarely cold. They are usually worn out from asking, and they stopped asking a while ago, and the quiet you have been enjoying was the sound of that. The partner holding on is rarely devoted in the way it looks either. They are frightened, and fear makes people grip.
Neither of those is a bad person. Both of them are nine.
Full-respect living — Real’s standard, and the one I hold in the room — means you can be in enormous pain and still not get to be cruel about it. It also means you do not have to be nice about a marriage you have stopped wanting. You have to be truthful about it. Those are not the same standard, and confusing them is how couples lose years.
So: not “should we separate or try counselling.” Try this one instead. What would I need to see change, specifically, to want this? Both of you answer it. If neither of you can name anything, you have your answer and you can stop paying for sessions to find it. If one of you can name something concrete, you have the beginning of a piece of work — and that is worth a fifteen-minute conversation before you decide anything permanent.
People arrive at this question convinced the hard part is deciding. The hard part is actually saying the true thing to the person across from you, and then staying in the chair afterwards.
Common questions
Should we try couples counselling before we separate?
Not as your first step, if the two of you disagree about whether you want the relationship. Couples counselling is designed for two people who both want to repair things and cannot reach each other. When one partner is already halfway out, weekly couples work asks them to invest in something they have not decided to keep, and it usually stalls. Sort out the decision first, in a small number of focused sessions, then choose couples therapy deliberately if that is the direction.
What is discernment counselling?
A short, structured process for couples where one partner is leaning out of the relationship and the other is leaning in. It was developed by Bill Doherty at the University of Minnesota. Its goal is not to save the marriage and not to end it, but to help you both reach clarity and confidence about a direction, with each of you understanding your own part in how you got here.
How many sessions does discernment counselling take?
It is deliberately short, typically one to five sessions. It ends when you have an answer rather than continuing indefinitely. Much of the work happens with each partner separately, because the two of you are working on different questions.
Does discernment counselling try to talk us out of separating?
No. Separation stays on the table for the whole process, which is exactly what makes it possible for the leaning-out partner to speak honestly. There are three possible outcomes: stay as you are for now, move toward separation, or commit to a defined period of couples therapy with the separation decision set aside for that time.
My partner has already decided to leave. Is there any point?
Often there is more than it looks. In research on 2,484 parents already going through divorce, about one in four still believed the marriage could be saved and about three in ten were open to reconciliation help. Interest was notably higher among the partner who did not file. Even where the relationship does end, doing the decision well changes how you separate, which matters enormously if you share children.
Have we waited too long to fix this?
Probably not. The widely repeated claim that couples wait six years before seeking help is poorly supported. A 2021 study of 270 couples entering couples therapy found an average of 2.68 years from when problems started, with most arriving within two years. Length of difficulty matters far less than whether both people are willing to be honest once they sit down.
Can we do this if only one of us is willing to come?
Discernment work needs both partners, because the whole design rests on the two of you answering different questions in the same process. If your partner will not come, individual therapy is a reasonable place to start. It gives you somewhere to think clearly about what you want and what you are willing to change, which is useful whichever way the relationship goes.
Do you offer this in Victoria, BC?
Yes, in person in Victoria and by secure video across British Columbia, including Saanich, Oak Bay, Esquimalt, Langford, Colwood and Sidney. There is a free fifteen-minute consultation if you want to ask questions before booking anything.
A note: This article is general information, not therapy or a substitute for it. If you're in crisis or need urgent help, please call or text 9-8-8 (Suicide Crisis Helpline) or call 9-1-1.