Episode Description - Discernment Therapy for Couples on the Brink of Divorce
What do you do when you’re leaning towards getting a divorce and your spouse wants to work on your marriage? That’s the question we dive into today in this discussion with Dr. Ginny Wright, a seasoned clinical psychologist who is certified in discernment therapy (a/k/a discernment counseling.)
Dr. Wright works with couples who are on the brink of divorce to cut through the fog of indecision and come to a decision about their marriage with clarity and confidence. She uses a process developed by Bill Doherty called discernment counseling or discernment therapy. It is a specialized, short-term form of therapy that’s specially made for couples on the brink of divorce.
Traditional marriage counseling presumes a couple wants to save their marriage. Divorce lawyers assume that a couple (or at least one spouse!) wants a divorce. Discernment therapy bridges the gap between those two choices and helps a couple reach clarity about what they each really want so that they can take the path that's most appropriate for them.
If you’re leaning toward divorce while your spouse wants to save your marriage (or vice versa) this podcast episode will provide you with a valuable tool for working through your ambivalence and coming to a decision about your marriage that you feel good about.
To discover more, tune in to this podcast episode and check out this article on discernment counseling.
Show Notes
About Dr. Ginny
Dr. Ginny Wright is a clinical psychologist and certified discernment counselor. She has been in private practice for over 30 years, seeing children, adults, couples and families. Much of her current work is focused on providing discernment counseling services to couples on the brink of divorce, as well as trainings, workshops and professional consultation services to other discernment professionals.
Connect with Dr. Ginny
You can connect with Dr. Ginny on LinkedIn at Ginny Wright Lapporte and on Facebook at LWA Discernment Counseling. To learn more about Discernment Counseling and how to work with Dr. Ginny visit LWA Discernment Counseling.
Key Takeaways From This Episode with Dr. Ginny
- Discernment counseling is a short-term, focused service for couples on the brink of divorce where one spouse is leaning in to save the marriage and the other is leaning out.
- The goal is to help the couple decide if they want to stay in the marriage and work on it through couples therapy, proceed with divorce, or maintain the status quo.
- Discernment involves a lot of one-on-one time with each spouse to encourage honesty and self-awareness about their contributions to the relationship problems.
- Helping spouses take ownership of their own behaviors and patterns, rather than blaming the other, can lead to breakthroughs and renewed commitment to the marriage.
- Discernment aims to set couples up for a more amicable divorce process if that is the ultimate decision, by fostering understanding and acceptance.
- However, in some cases, the self-awareness gained in discernment counseling can lead the leaning-out spouse to reconsider and commit to couples therapy to try to save the marriage.
- Continuing to couples therapy after discernment requires a full commitment for 6 months with divorce completely off the table during that time.
- Discernment counselors aim to help couples distinguish between their wants and true needs, as this distinction is critical in both marriage and divorce.
- Discernment counselors are generally licensed mental health professionals who can work with couples across state lines through telehealth.
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Transcript
How to Decide Whether to Divorce Using Discernment Therapy
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
discernment counseling, ownership, amicable divorce, couples therapy
SPEAKERS
Karen Covy, Dr. Ginny Wright
Karen Covy Host
00:10
Hello and welcome to Off the Fence, a podcast where we deconstruct difficult decision-making so we can discover what keeps us stuck and, more importantly, how we can get unstuck and start making even tough decisions with confidence. I'm your host, Karen Covy, a former divorce lawyer, mediator and arbitrator, turned coach, author and entrepreneur. And now, without further ado, let's get on with the show.
With me today is Ginny Wright. Dr Ginny Wright is a clinical psychologist and certified discernment counselor. She's been in private practice for over 30 years, seeing children, adults, couples and families. Much of her current work is focused on providing discernment counseling services to couples on the brink of divorce, as well as trainings, workshops and professional consultation services to other discernment professionals. Ginny, welcome to the show.
Dr. Ginny Wright Guest
01:08
Thank you very much for having me Glad to be here.
Karen Covy Host
01:11
I am thrilled to have you because, like we talked a little bit offline, I really think discernment counseling is a wonderful tool, especially for the right couple. So let's start though, because I know that I geek out on this stuff and the rest of the world doesn't know what I'm talking about. So why don't we start from the beginning? If you could explain to our listeners what is discernment counseling and what is it good for?
Dr. Ginny Wright Guest
01:36
Excellent. So discernment counseling has been out there for about a decade but it's really gaining popularity now. It is very specifically for couples who, as you said, are on the brink of divorce and, even more specifically, couples where one person is what we call leaning in, or wanting to save the marriage, and the other person is leaning out or very strongly considering divorce. And these are couples that traditionally haven't gotten a lot of help in our field because they're not great candidates for therapy, because the leaning out spouse doesn't really want to go down that path. They really. It would be a tragedy if they jumped to divorce because they're still really ambivalent. So this is a very short term, very focused service specifically for those couples, not to fix their marriage, because 50% of them doesn't really want to fix the marriage, at least at this point, but to help them decide if they want to try to fix the marriage.
Karen Covy Host
02:37
That's interesting. You mentioned just now that it's short term. How short? How does discernment, counseling work?
Dr. Ginny Wright Guest
02:45
So we start with a phone call. I have a phone call with each of the spouses separately about 20 minutes just to introduce the idea, get some basic background, see if they're a good fit for it, and then we schedule one appointment. It's a one, two-hour appointment. At the end of that we decide if there's another and discernment can last anywhere from one to five sessions. Again, they're two hours, so it's more time than it sounds like. But the whole idea is to never commit especially the leaning out person, never ask them to commit to more than one session at a time and at any point. If the discerning is over, meaning they have decided what to do, then the process is over.
03:29
By five sessions we should get to a point where the couple can decide basically their next path and to jump forward a little bit, the goal is to choose one of three paths. One of three paths. With path one basically status quo or postponing the decision. Nobody comes to discernment thinking that's what they're going to choose. Path two is going ahead and proceeding to divorce or separation. And path three is making an all out commitment to couples therapy. So once they've decided, or they've hit five sessions, that's the goal is to help them make that choice between the three paths.
Karen Covy Host
04:07
I like that it's not an extended commitment. I think people think of counseling or therapy and they think that it's just this vast, open-ended thing that once you start you're going for years and years and years right.
Dr. Ginny Wright Guest
04:20
Exactly, and many people coming to discernment have already have already played that game. It's not their first rodeo, as they say.
Karen Covy Host
04:28
Yeah, but what so? What happens though? Let's say you're at session five and the couple is still on the fence. What do you just say, Well, sorry, this didn't work, or what do you? I mean? What happens then?
Dr. Ginny Wright Guest
04:42
If, if there's movement, then we have another session. It's not, like you know, no exceptions to that rule, but typically by session, even three or four. As a discernment counselor you have a pretty good feel for where it's going and so you're kind of helping it wrap up by five, even if they don't know. At session three you know that it's going to be wrapped up. But there are always times where there's a major shift, say, say, somebody is really leaning toward path to divorce and in session four they have an aha moment. We're like oh you know, I don't know that, I want to jump to that. Obviously we're going to give more time so that the decision of path is as clear and as confident as possible.
Karen Covy Host
05:29
You know you keep. I love the word decision. Decision lights me up, right. I think it is determined by the decisions that we make. However, when it comes to marriage or divorce, I mean, obviously it takes two people to say yes, I'm getting married, because if one person doesn't do it, then it doesn't happen. But in discernment counseling, is your goal to get both people to agree that they want a divorce, or are there circumstances where one person just says no, I'm done and that's it. It's ballgame.
Dr. Ginny Wright Guest
06:00
It would be great if we could get every single couple to agree what should happen next. It doesn't always happen that way. I don't know what the numbers are, but it often doesn't. So, especially if one person is deciding to go ahead and go towards separation or divorce, that can still be a very sad and upsetting outcome for the spouse who doesn't want it. That said, they should still have much more clarity as to why and more certainty that that's where it's going. So you wrote a great post very, very recently about bringing up the idea of divorce and to kind but firm, and so the hope is that by the end of the discernment it's a firm decision right.
06:49
So even the person who's disappointed maybe has less fight in them, and I mean that is a good thing, you know they're, they're not fighting against it as much.
Karen Covy Host
06:59
Yeah, and I, you know, I often say to people that you know, especially as women. I mean I can just speak because that's all I know. Right, but we were. A lot of people in our society are conflict avoidant. As women, we're told to make nice, not make waves, do all the things. So we think that by not speaking our truth and saying I'm done that, it's somehow kinder to like sort of make a soft landing, so to speak. Right. What do you think about that?
Dr. Ginny Wright Guest
07:29
Oh, I think it's such an important point. It is unkind to be unclear, right? If you know what you're going to do and you're trying to be nice and the other person isn't hearing it, you're not doing them any favors, right? And so one of the things I love about doing discernment counseling. I've always considered myself a pretty active therapist, meaning I'm not just how are you feeling, it's a problem solving, goal focused process, in my opinion, and discernment really allows us to do that, including saying look, this is a pivotal moment. This is like all cards on deck here. Right, we're going to make sure we're talking about the real issues and we're going to talk about it honestly and directly, with kindness and respect. But it's not time to try to soften things. It's time to say things directly and respectfully.
Karen Covy Host
08:28
So I'm going to ask you a question that I know the answer because I asked you already before we started talking. But let's say you've got a situation where one person has made the decision I mean, they know this, the marriage is over, they can't do this anymore but they don't know how to tell their spouse. They want to sort of soften the landing or what have you. So they get the idea oh, let's just go to discernment counseling. I can break the news there. What do you think about that? Is that a good idea or a bad idea?
Dr. Ginny Wright Guest
09:00
It's really discernment is not the place for that. And there's. You know, it's a great thing that somebody wants to get help with that. It will not be in discernment counseling. In fact, in that 20-minute phone call that I mentioned, it's my job, with the leaning out spouse, to evaluate whether that decision has already been made. And if I ask somebody, are you 100% sure? Not many people are going to say yes, because even people who have full intent on going forward are not 100% sure. That's just the nature of the beast.
09:32
But it's my job to really determine if the person has already made a decision. And if they have, then they're not good candidates for it. Now it has happened for sure that I'm in the middle of the first session and it's clear to me that I missed it right. They really have made the decision, or perhaps giving myself the break, maybe something's happened between the call and that first session and I didn't miss it. But now it's the case. If they have already made the decision, then it's my job to really talk about that. And if that's the case, then of course I'm going to help them figure out ways to talk to their spouse about it. But that's not really what discernment should be for.
Karen Covy Host
10:14
Right. So you said you just said something interesting that you're going to help them talk to their spouse about it. I have you know. I think a lot of listeners probably have the idea that discernment counseling is like marriage counseling there's you, there's two people in the room or on a Zoom, whatever, and that's it. It sounds like some of your time is spent with a one-on-one with each spouse. Explain to me how that works.
Dr. Ginny Wright Guest
10:38
Yeah, thanks for bringing that up, because that's a really important part In our two-hour session. I would say at least 90% of it is in one-on-one conversations. So the vast majority the first session may be a little bit more joint because we have some questions that we just asked at the beginning, but the most intense work and the important work that we do is really one-on-one, because they want most people come in not wanting to hurt the other person's feelings or being careful about how they speak, and so you're only getting little bits and pieces from my end. I'm going to be way more careful, challenging somebody if their spouse is watching. Right.
11:17
I don't want a spouse to go home and say we didn't remember what Dr Wright said, so we could all be more honest and direct in the one-on-one. So if I'm speaking one on one with somebody and I'm getting that feel and it's happened, you know I will say I feel like you've already decided and I think the fairest thing to do is to be more honest about that. And then and I'll even ask would you like help doing that? Would you like help figuring out the best ways to proceed with you know what essentially then would be path to going forward with divorce or separation?
Karen Covy Host
11:54
And if someone comes to that because that is one of the potential outcomes of discernment that somebody decides that's it, I'm done, I want a divorce Do you then help them have that conversation together, so it's the two of them and you, or do you just give them tips how to do it at home?
Dr. Ginny Wright Guest
12:13
It could go either way. My preference would be to do it in a closing session together. I had a situation not very long ago where it was really at the end of the two hours seeing the leaning out second, which doesn't always happen, but she basically said I'm done, I'm done, and it was maybe 15 minutes left of the entire two hours. So my suggestion at that point is, if it's okay, I'd like to set up one more appointment.
12:44
I'm going to check in at the beginning and then I'm going to talk with you first and I'm going to ask you do you still feel the same way? Do you still feel ready to do path two? And then we'll talk about how we might you know you might want to bring that up or how you might want to say that to the spouse. I will have them do that first. So then I have individual time to work with the person who's disappointed or hurt, because I'm going to talk a lot about how to go through this process in a way that is the healthiest.
13:14
So that's where I start talking about people like you, the divorce coaches and the collaborative attorneys and the mediators and all the people in the divorce field who have committed themselves to helping people go through this really ugly process and in a less ugly way. So that becomes part of the discernment conversation Every now and then a couple will disappear and not get that final session. You know, they know the writing's on the wall and you know the person who's upset. I'm not going to come back just to hear it again, but hopefully that's part of our work is to really help people transition to that next stage.
Karen Covy Host
13:52
You know, I know this, and we've talked about it before how discernment can actually set people up for a more amicable divorce. Right, how does that work? How does that have what? Do you have? A magic wand that I don't have?
Dr. Ginny Wright Guest
14:07
There's no magic wand and it doesn't mean it's perfect, but it's again. There's a level of acceptance that this is where it's going. And so many people go through divorce with ambivalence. They're ambivalent about whether, if it was them choosing it, whether they made the right choice. If it wasn't them choosing it, you know what, what could we still do?
14:31
I think it's something like I think one of the studies found like 12% of couples both people were unsure whether divorce was necessary. And 12%, that's a small number and a huge number. I mean, it's just, it's tragic, you know. So the hope is that the acceptance couples understand more what happened in their marriage, a deeper understanding of what happened, with a very big focus on each person's contribution. So hopefully, if I'm doing my job well, I'm helping each person take a lot more ownership of what their role was. Not that if somebody had an affair, not that it's their fault that their spouse had an affair, but that the patterns within a marriage we all have stuff in our marriages that we could do better and I think for a lot of people, really coming more clear about their own contribution also for some people reduces their anger a little bit.
Karen Covy Host
15:42
Yeah, I would love to talk more about that because personally, I'm a big proponent of personal responsibility, because that's where your power lies. Right, you can't everybody always wants to change the other person. That doesn't work. The only person you can change is right, here, right, and so you know. But how do you bring people to take ownership of the part that they play? Because I've got to tell you, like you, I've been doing this work for decades and I've it's rare to see a situation you know, 70 percent at fault and the other 30. If you want to think, I don't even like thinking in terms of fault, right, right, but you know, in terms of the behaviors that led to the demise of the marriage. But how do you like, how do you bring people to the realization that they had, they played a part in the dynamic and that they played a part in you know, the breakdown of the marriage as well?
16:46
Dr. Ginny Wright Guest
16:50
So one important part and we do this with both. It probably comes up even more with the leaning out spouse right, the one who's not sure if they want to work on the marriage. Usually, when you start to see the pattern and you're giving some feedback, you know, I noticed that you, you know, don't always say clearly what it is that you want, and that's part of why you don't get it probably and we can usually get to a conversation where would you bring this same trait to your next relationship? Or have you brought the same trait to previous relationships, or to work, or to friendships, or to parenting, or you know, and most people will say, yeah, I actually do this all the time.
17:34
If you can get to that place, then we've already, we've established it right, we've said okay, so we know that this it doesn't mean that the whole marriage is your fault. It means you've got this one piece, and what would happen if you worked on that one piece? Right? If you worked on being more assertive? What would happen? Maybe it would be part of a process that helps save your marriage. If it doesn't, maybe it teaches you skills that you bring to a future relationship right, and you learn to bring a better you, so to speak, to the next relationship, and people can, I think for the most part, really think that way If they take it out of this relationship and go. Oh yeah, I do this a lot of times and most people do you know?
Karen Covy Host
18:18
that is so interesting because I've seen this play out repeatedly in the people that I work with, where one person you know they're afraid to for example, in your example of assertiveness they're afraid to be assertive because they don't want to rock the boat in the relationship. However, not being assertive is what's rocking the boat to the point of tipping it over
Dr. Ginny Wright Guest
18:53
And I also like to think about things in terms of again, we're looking for contributions, right, each person's contributions, and it kind of begs the discussion of self-awareness, right? So I like to think, and I'm mostly thinking it more than discussing it with a client but there's basically three levels of self-awareness, right? The first is behavioral Does the person know the behaviors that they bring? You know, they interrupt or they shut down and stop talking, or whatever it may be. And then the second is what we call EQ, right, their emotional intelligence. Do they understand their own psychology enough to understand why they behave that way? Right, so, oh, in my childhood, you know, I had to be the good girl, so it was best for me to not say anything, and that's why today I don't say things when I should. So that's two levels of self-awareness.
19:47
The third level, what we're really hoping to get to, is the RQ level, the relationship intelligence, or relational intelligence. And that is, how do we bring our EQ into a relationship? So, for example, I shut down when I get, you know, panicked, or I feel criticized. So I shut down. And when I do that it sends a message to my spouse that I'm not interested or that I'm dismissing him or her, and when that person feels dismissed, they push me away more. So we try to get to where it is part then of the interaction pattern, and if somebody can get all the way from what they do to why they do it, to what happens when they do it, that's a level of self-awareness that really helps people. Again, regardless of the outcome, they have a better sense of what they have brought to this relationship and probably others too.
Karen Covy Host
20:45
So have you ever been in sessions, discernment counseling, with a couple where someone makes that progression? They get to the point where they see it pretty clearly that, oh, I do this, I know why I do it and that's what's causing this pattern to emerge in my marriage. And all of a sudden now they want to work on the marriage ?
Dr. Ginny Wright Guest
21:09
Absolutely yes. And again, in part because it's not just about I have to fix my behavior. Right, Nobody's telling me I have to fix my behavior. I want to own my part, I want to learn about me, and I can see how this has a role in the back and forth between myself and my spouse and it's I mean. Obviously, there are people who still say, yeah, I get it, but so what, I'm done? Well, those are the people who probably had already made a decision to leave or they were very, very close.
Karen Covy Host
21:46
Right.
Dr. Ginny Wright Guest
21:46
If somebody, by the end of the first session, maybe the second, but usually the first, if the leaning out has made no observation of their own contributions at any level, then they're probably not going to, you know, they're probably done with the marriage.
22:00
But yes, that kind of awareness is hugely impactful for most people. Plus, let's say, it's the leaning in the person who wants to save the marriage to begin with and they're able to say now I really see that I nag because I'm so worried something's not going to get done. And then I am not even paying attention to the impact that it has on you and inadvertently I'm sending you a message that you're a disappointment four times a day. And how horrible that must feel to you to feel like a disappointment four times a day with your spouse. Sometimes that's so relieving for the spouse to hear not just that the person said okay, you don't have to do the dishes every day. It's not about that behavior, it's about I get your experience, yeah, and I see how I have. I have, you know, contributed to that experience.
Karen Covy Host
22:55
Let me ask you what do you think about the concept of the point of no return Right? Have you seen that to be a real thing in your practice, where sometimes people just get to a point and no matter what revelations they or their spouse come to in therapy or otherwise, they're just like, yeah, that's beautiful. I wish you would have done it six months ago. I'm done. Is that a real thing?
Dr. Ginny Wright Guest
23:19
Absolutely, and that's oftentimes, as you've just kind of suggested, in couples who have been in this place for a really long time. I see a shocking number of people who have been married 30 years and more. Right, that's a long as somebody who's married. It's a long term, but those habits can be really entrenched and it is. It's very sad when somebody says man, I get it, I even believe you and I think I'm already checked out. Yeah, and that's you know. Bless them for saying it right. When they hear it and it still doesn't move them, then that may be their aha moment of oh, I really am done, yeah. So maybe they didn't know it until they could hear their person say their spouse say what they've been wanting them to say for 20 years. And now they're saying it and it doesn't push the needle, as they say.
Karen Covy Host
24:16
Yeah Well, what about those couples who something does happen? They come to a realization that maybe they're not sure, but maybe there's enough spark left to rekindle the relationship, and so they say, all right, let's try marriage counseling. Right, do you do that work, or how does that work?
Dr. Ginny Wright Guest
24:40
I can and many, many I would say the majority probably of discernment counselors do. I am currently seeing probably two or three couples who I started to see through discernment. I refer most of my couples out mostly because I want to do discernment more than I want to do the couples therapy and the commitment to therapy. If somebody is a couple chooses path three, it's a commitment to six months All in couples therapy, divorce completely off the table for that period of time. So it's a really long commitment to therapy too, which is necessary, right.
When you're choosing path three, you're not choosing to stay in the marriage forever. You're choosing to take what you've learned in discernment, including stuff we write down. At the end they take their little plans with them to therapy and an all in effort for six months, during which time divorce is completely off the table. Um, and, and so I one of the things that I've been doing a lot in the last year plus is reaching out and trying to meet as many couples therapists as possible, those who are committed to very solution focused you know, accountability, you know those self-awareness, that kind of focus in couples therapy not just and many couples do well with the guidance of you know you need to have date night and you need to use I statements and communicate.
26:11
Those are all really important things. But these couples really do best if they continue the momentum that started in discernment counseling with a real focus on the interaction patterns and each person's contribution to those.
Dr. Ginny Wright Guest
26:44
I'm sure it can happen. Of course, the problem and you know this in reconciliation it's up and down, right, so it feels really great, and then there's some disappointing event and it feels like they're going back to square one. And they're not, but it feels like it. And one of the reasons we say six months is because a lot of times, three months is about the time with. You know, it's just not so rosy, right, and so we need enough time to say, look, it's not supposed to be rosy, let's see where it goes over the next three. So they can. Obviously, people have agency, right, they have personal agency. They get to choose what they do. I'm going to strongly recommend that they do it in the context of therapy. That is consistent, hopefully even weekly, that it is a top priority in their lives.
27:33
One of the things that couples do post-discernment, before they go to therapy, is they sign a couple of things. One is the agreement to pursue reconciliation, and this is a bullet point that they sign. That basically says having decided to restore our marriage to health or attempt to restore it to health. These are the things that we agree to. It includes respect. It includes surrounding yourself only with people who are in support of reconciliation. So if you've got a friend who's like you know, get away from him, you're not talking about the divorce with that person or the marriage with that person. I should say, right. So there's things that to make it an all in, give it every bit of chance it has. And one of those bullet points is, um, I forget exactly how it's worded, but it basically says show up to your appointments, right, schedule them regularly, prioritize them over the soccer games of your kids and stuff like that I love the ,
Karen Covy Host
28:40
Can you speak to why that matters?
Dr. Ginny Wright Guest
28:43
Well, there are. Look, we have ambivalence throughout, even when we say let's go to path three, of course we still. I mean, we all do, right. We all wake up some mornings and go what? You know why did we decide to do this? Not my husband, but everybody else.
28:59
But there are a lot of people our family, our girlfriends women, I think, are a little bit worse at this than men are who are completely on our side. Right, and you don't have to put up with that, especially if you've got friends who are already in the divorced and re-single demographic. Great friends will say you know what? Think about it from both sides, right, but people who love us are going to convince us that we need better, that we can do better, and it's not helpful to the process Because, again, at the end of six months, not everybody chooses to continue therapy or to continue the marriage. I think it's I don't remember the numbers, I think it's about 50%, right, Of the people who go through path three continue the marriage, but during that time, you have committed to giving it the best shot it has.
Karen Covy Host
29:55
Why and that's another thing too, because I have people who they're trying to hedge their bets right. They've got a foot in both camps. It's they're thinking about divorce, but they're also open to working on their marriage. Can you talk to me from a psychology perspective why that's not helpful?
Dr. Ginny Wright Guest
30:18
Well, I don't know if it's the psychology perspective, but it's hard work and there's going to be a lot of ambivalence and you're not again. You know it's a time limited commitment, right, it's not for the rest of your life, but you won't know. It's very easy to leave hard things, right. It's really easy to quit a sport that you're not getting better at, or to give up on a relationship, or to leave a job because the manager is really tough, and sometimes each of those is important, right, each of those can be a fabulous decision in some situations, but not if it's the first time.
30:58
You feel pain, right, I mean, things are hard and so you, just in order to save a marriage that has gotten all the way to the brink of divorce, it's going to be hard and there's going to be ambivalence, and if you give yourself too much of an out, you're not just making, you're not making yourself safe, right, people do that because, like you're saying, they have a foot over here just to keep myself safe. It's like women who say I'm trying to get pregnant, but I tell myself I'm not, because that way I won't be disappointed when I'm not pregnant. You are, yeah, you are. You're going to be disappointed. No matter what, there is no protection that way, right. So let's take that off the table and realize this is going to be painful and if you stick with it and not run from the pain, you have the best chance of saving your marriage.
Karen Covy Host
31:48
Yeah, that's fascinating, but you know and I love the perspective of even if you don't save the marriage, what you're discovering about yourself will help you in your next relationship, because so many times I've seen clients go literally from the frying pan to the fire. I once divorced a guy. I didn't do all of his divorces, but I think he was on divorce number eight when he became my client. Really great guy Like, and he loved women. Well, he obviously loved women. He kept marrying them and he just and he was older by the time I got him he was divorce number eight and I remember you know the divorce was finished. He walked out the door and I said to him now, mr So-and-so, don't get married again. Ok, no more marrying. And he just looked at me and he winked and he walked out the door and I went he's going to do it again. He's going to get married again. He's going to do it again.
Dr. Ginny Wright Guest
32:43
Well, you know I might have mentioned to you offline, but Bill Doherty, who is the creator of Discernment Counseling, has a great video out there on the consumer marriage and the whole idea now that people enter marriage as a consumer now, as opposed to, you know, long, many, many, many years ago when it was a contract and it was, you know, and there's good and bad of both. Right, but in consumerism it's easy to make returns. Right, you buy something and it's not quite what you wanted, so you know, you have to pay shipping to get it back, but you get most of your refund.
33:24
Right, and people approach marriage that way sometimes, where it's, if it's not everything that I need or want, then I can return it. And what that does and I kind of just alluded to it is that it makes people confused about the difference between wants and needs. Right, we want something and if we're disappointed, we turn it in our heads into a need. I need a person to do this. And again, when something doesn't fit our needs, then it's okay to return it. Right, so it's a great. If anybody hears this, just Google Bill Doherty, consumer marriage. It's a fabulous, quick little video. It's one that, for some reason, a lot of my clients when they show up for their first session or for our first phone call, they've seen that and it's something that rings really true for people. It's great, great little video.
Karen Covy Host
34:17
You know, that's fascinating. And it's fascinating to me from the opposite perspective, because I talk about that with my clients in terms of the divorce and a negotiation, because in a divorce you're going to divide whatever it is that you have or don't have Right. So you've got to distinguish between do I want this or do I need this, and everybody thinks they need everything. But when you need everything, that means you need nothing. You get nothing because you're totally prioritized what you're negotiating for so important for people to hear on both sides of the spectrum.
Dr. Ginny Wright Guest
34:59
And, to be fair, that's a conversation that I have multiple times every day with clients completely unrelated to marriage and divorce and discernment Right, the idea that let's not confuse what you want with what you need. There's very, there's very few needs.
Karen Covy Host
35:16
Yeah, how can you? I'm sorry Now that we're on the subject.
I know it's a far field.
But how do you help people? What do you tell them when they really believe they need everything? How can they start to discern a want from a need?
Dr. Ginny Wright Guest
35:33
Well, sometimes it means just talking about life and death. Do you die without it? If you don't die without it, then let's start there. It's not a need for your life, right?
35:48
And sometimes that's such an obvious discernment you know, and maybe it's facetious in some way, but truthfully, a need implies you need it or something terrible happens Right. And if it's a feeling that happens right, I need the house. What happens if you don't have the house? Are you living on the street? No, you're living in a house that you don't want to live in. You miss your old house or you feel like you've gotten, you know, taken advantage of or what.
Karen Covy Host
36:23
If the result is a feeling, then it's probably not a need, it's probably a want Interesting and I think and to Bill Doherty's point about consumer culture, I mean we've all gotten sensitized or desensitized, I'm not sure which, to thinking that we need everything that we want.
Dr. Ginny Wright Guest
36:46
We see a decent number of kids in our practice and it is and I'll get on my little soapbox here it's a sad statement of our society right now. Kids are constantly comparing what they have, what they're doing, with what they wish they had, and they're confusing what they want with what I need. And if I don't have the best, whatever, however they define, that it's terribly disappointing. And if you are constantly comparing what you have to what you wish you had or what you perceive you need, you are going to be disappointed all the time. Oh, and if you think about that in marriage right, if you think about that.
37:32
In a marriage, if you're constantly focusing on what you don't have, you bring a lot of misery to the relationship, and then we go back to those patterns that we talk about in discernment. If you bring misery and disappointment every day to your marriage, what impact does that have on your spouse and on the interaction? Pretty big one, yeah.
Karen Covy Host
37:50
This is fascinating. It sounds like discernment. I mean, it could be a really good thing for a lot of couples actually, which leads me to my last question. At least I think it's my last question. At what point should a couple consider going to discernment? I mean, clearly, this isn't the kind of thing that you do when you have your first fight. Right, Things have got to be a little farther down the road, but does it have to be so? Dire to the point of one spouse is actually like this close to divorce?
Dr. Ginny Wright Guest
38:24
You know, I guess how close the leaning out is to divorce varies, but there's been, there's been significant conversation where that person has said I don't think we can stay married. There's this process called discernment. I think you should check it out. That happens a decent amount, but other times it happens it's one person learns about it. Often I would say more often than not it's the leaning in the person who has gotten this terrible news about divorce right and they're seeking something, and so that person would come in and and or would make the call and all their spouse, all the leaning out person is committing to, is that first phone call.
Karen Covy Host
39:41
So they can often get them to do that you know, to convince them to do that, one phone call, yeah. So if people that just sorry. It leads me to another question. If people are in marriage counseling and they're to your point, they're going in circles, they're not making any progress. One spouse is like I don't know how much longer I can do this. I'm getting close to being done. The other spouse freaks out and brings them to discernment. What's different about the discernment conversations than about the marriage counseling conversations? That leads them to make a decision?
Dr. Ginny Wright Guest
40:18
Well, a lot of it is the attitude and the interaction with the leaning out. I am not going to try to convince that person to fix the marriage. I'm not going to put him or her on the hot seat for being the person who's, you know, not doing their part to fix it in in. In therapy, the assumption is that both people are wanting to do things to make it better, and so the leaning out person is the bad guy, bad girl every single week, right, because they're not there. So in discernment, the conversation is not about fixing it. It's all about let's just figure out what happened. What is your contribution to that, and does that give you any idea about what you might take back to couples therapy? That would be different.
Karen Covy Host
41:08
Interesting.
Dr. Ginny Wright Guest
41:09
And I can tell you, and I think most discernment I don't think it's anything magical specific to myself I think most discernment counselors would have similar stories often than not at the end of a 20 minute phone call either. But especially the leaning out is likely to say I've been in couples therapy on and off for 10 years and I've learned more in this phone call than I have in that whole time and, yes, this sounds exactly like what I need.
Karen Covy Host
41:36
Wow. Profound.
Dr. Ginny Wright Guest
41:37
Yeah, it's pretty profound.
Karen Covy Host
41:40
That is really powerful and I hope that the people listening hear that powerful message because I mean I've been a big fan of discernment counseling from the get-go. I mean I've known it probably since its inception and I think it's a great tool for the right couples and I hope those couples have heard and got as much out of this conversation as I did. So, Ginny, where can people find you?
Dr. Ginny Wright Guest
42:07
So probably easiest to go to my website. It is LWAdiscernment.com Ok, my practice is Laporte, wright and Associates, so LWA and then the word discernment dot com. You can also just Google discernment counseling. It will almost certainly bring you to the directory of all discernment counselors you know, kind of divided up by state, and I'm easy to find there too.
Karen Covy Host
42:37
Is there a requirement that the discernment counselor has to be working with people within their own state?
Dr. Ginny Wright Guest
42:46
Not specific to discernment. We are, you know, bound by licensing. It's still it's not. There's debate about whether it's a psychological process. You know if there's any code that actually describes discernment counseling? I'm a psychologist and I'm part of SIPAC. I don't know if you know SIPAC, but it is an interjurisdictional agreement between states and there's about 40 different states now that are all within SIPAC, so virtually I can see couples in. I think it's 40 or 41 states now.
Karen Covy Host
43:19
That's awesome, that is wonderful. So, for anyone listening, if you are on the fence in your marriage, discernment is a wonderful process to help you make a decision and get off the fence. Because when you're on, my contention has always been that when you're on the fence, you're not really living your life, you're not being fair to yourself, to your spouse, to anybody. So, Dr Wright, thank you so very much for coming here, for sharing all of your wisdom, and for those of you who are out there watching or listening, if you enjoyed today's episode, if you got a lot out of it, please do me a big favor give it a thumbs up, like the episode, subscribe to the podcast, subscribe to the YouTube channel, and I look forward to seeing you all next time.
Dr. Ginny Wright Guest
44:06
Thank you, Karen.
