People want to know this before they book, and I understand why. If you're going to sit in a room and be asked about your marriage, you'd like some sense of what's coming.
So here's a real look at it. Not a script, because the conversation follows you rather than a list, but the territory is consistent and worth knowing.
Two Things to Understand First
The questions are different for each of you. This is the part most people don't expect. Discernment counseling isn't a shared interview. The partner leaning toward leaving and the partner hoping to stay are working on genuinely different questions, because they're in genuinely different positions. That's why most of the process happens one-on-one.
Your answers aren't reported to your spouse. What you say in your individual time stays there unless you choose to share it. At the end of each session we come back together and each of you says what you want to say. Nothing gets carried across without your say-so. That's what makes honesty possible, and honesty is the entire point.
The Three Questions Underneath Everything
Whatever direction the conversation takes, it keeps returning to these:
What happened to us? Not who's at fault. What actually occurred, over what stretch of time, that brought a marriage from where it started to where it is.
What did I contribute? Every person in a struggling marriage has a part. Not an equal part necessarily, and not a blameworthy one, but a part. This is the hardest question and the most useful one.
What would I need to change, and am I willing? This is where clarity comes from. Not whether your spouse would need to change, which everyone can answer immediately.
Most of what follows is a way into those three.
Questions for the Partner Leaning Out
If you're the one considering leaving, expect questions like:
What brought you to the point of thinking about ending this?
What have you tried already, and how did those attempts go?
What has your spouse's response been when you've raised things?
Is there anything your spouse could do that would change your thinking, or is that door closed?
If you knew a real, time-limited effort was possible, one where both of you were fully in it, would you be willing to find out what that produced?
That last one gets to something important. Many leaning-out partners have never experienced their spouse genuinely engaged, only the version of them that's frightened of losing the marriage. Those are different people.
Questions for the Partner Leaning In
If you're the one wanting to save it, your questions are different, and some of them are uncomfortable:
What have you been doing since you realized this was serious?
What did you contribute to this marriage getting here?
If your spouse decides to leave, what do you want to be true about how you handled this period?
What would you actually need to change, not to keep them, but because it needs changing?
Waiting to find out whether your marriage survives changes how people behave. Most leaning-in partners have spent months pursuing, pleading, over-explaining, monitoring, then getting resentful about it. It's a normal response to fear, it usually pushes the other person further away, and almost nobody sees it while they're doing it.
Looking at that isn't a criticism. It's often the most immediately useful thing in the process, and it serves you regardless of what your spouse decides.
Questions About Your Children
If you have kids, they come up, and carefully.
What do you think each of your children currently understands about your marriage?
What would you want them to be able to say about how their parents handled this?
If you separate, what kind of co-parents would you be? Be honest.
Are you staying because of them? What would it cost you and them if that's the reason?
That last question is one people find hard. Children are a legitimate factor in this decision. They shouldn't be the whole of it, and they shouldn't be a place to hide from a decision you've already made.
Questions About What Comes Next
Toward the end, we work through the three paths concretely:
What does keeping things exactly as they are look like a year from now?
If you separated, what would the first six months actually involve, practically and financially?
If you committed to six months of full-effort couples therapy with divorce off the table, what would you each have to bring?
What would you need to see in that time to know it was working?
Making the options concrete is what turns a vague dread into a decision you can actually make.
What If You Don't Know the Answers?
Most people don't, and that's not a problem.
You're not expected to arrive prepared, and there are no right answers. "I don't know" is a legitimate response, and often the honest one. Part of my job is helping you find out what you think, which is a different task than reporting what you already know.
You also won't be pushed faster than you can go. Each of you decides at the end of every session whether to come back.
Where to Start
These questions are hard, and that's the point. They're the questions that most couples in this position have been circling for months without ever quite asking, usually because there was no safe place to ask them. I offer discernment counseling in Houston, and virtually across Texas, California, Georgia, and Florida.
If you're stuck between staying and leaving, contact us and let's talk about whether this is the right starting point.