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Not sure whether to stay or divorce? Discernment Counseling helps couples gain clarity about their marriage — without pressure to decide before they're ready.

By Brian Burns, LMFT In my last post, I wrote about the power of seeing your own contribution to what's going wrong in your marriage. That's the first move. But it stays abstract until you know what you're actually looking for. In years of sitting with couples, I keep seeing the same handful of patterns show up—dressed differently each time, but built from the same parts. Most people don't recognize their own until somebody names it for them. So here are eight of the most com

How Understanding Your Own Contributions to the Problem Gives You More Power I hear some version of this almost every week. “I’ve tried everything. Nothing works. I don’t think it even matters.” The person sitting across from me is genuinely exhausted. Not “we had a rough month” exhausted. I mean battle-worn, hope-thinning, seriously-wondering-why-they-bother exhausted. They’ve read the books. They’ve had the hard conversations — or tried to. They feel invisible in their own

When separated parents argue about parenting schedules, they often sound like they’re debating logistics. Should the child switch homes on Friday or Monday? Is 5-2-2-5 better than alternating weeks? Should overnights happen midweek? What about hockey practice? But underneath those conversations is usually something much more emotional: Fear. Fear that life after separation may feel worse than life before it. Fear that time apart from a child might slowly become emotional dis