When one of you is unsure — couples therapy for a relationship at a crossroads
A private, couples-only practice in Mornington, working also in Melbourne and online, for two people who no longer want the same thing at the same time.
An enquiry does not commit you to anything, and you do not need to have decided.
One of you is leaning out. The other is holding on.
This is one of the most common situations couples arrive in, and one of the least well served. One partner has been thinking about leaving — perhaps for a long time, perhaps quietly. The other wants to repair things and is frightened. Both of you are exhausted.
Ordinary couples therapy often struggles here, and it is worth saying why. Most couples work assumes that both people are trying to stay. When one of you is not sure you want to, that assumption quietly undermines every session: one partner is working on the relationship while the other is working out whether to be in it. The result tends to be months of effort that satisfies neither of you.
What is needed first is not repair. It is clarity.
What this work is
This is short, structured, and deliberately different from ongoing therapy. Its purpose is not to save the relationship and not to end it. Its purpose is to help the two of you reach a clear, considered decision about direction — one you can each stand behind, rather than one that happens to you by drift or by exhaustion.
Work of this kind is known internationally as discernment counselling. The foundation for it here is clinical: an MA in Clinical Psychology and Gottman Method training to Level 3, integrated with attachment-based and depth-psychological practice. Assessing whether a relationship is workable, and helping two people see their own part in it clearly enough to choose, is core clinical work rather than a separate technique.
In practice, we look honestly at three possible directions:
- Continue as you are. Nothing changes for now. Sometimes this is the right answer for a period, and it is better made as a choice than as a default.
- Move towards separating. If that is where this is going, doing it with clarity and care — particularly where children are involved — is worth a great deal.
- Commit to a defined period of full effort. A set span of months in which separation is off the table and both of you work at repair without one foot out of the door.
No direction is recommended over another. That is the point. My task is to help each of you see your own part in what has happened clearly enough to choose well.
How it runs
Sessions are ninety minutes and there are usually few of them — often between one and five. This is not open-ended work, and it is not intended to become so.
Each session moves between conversation with both of you together and separate conversations with each of you individually, within the same appointment. That structure matters. It allows the partner who is leaning out to speak honestly without immediately having to defend it, and it allows the partner who is holding on to say what they feel without pleading for it. Both of you are given the same time and the same seriousness.
After each session, each of you decides whether to return. The work ends when the direction is clear, not when a number of sessions has been used.
Who this suits, and who it does not
It suits couples where one person is genuinely uncertain and the other wants to try — including couples who have already had therapy that did not hold, and couples who have been circling this decision privately for a year or more.
It is not appropriate where a decision has already been made firmly by one partner and the work would only delay it, nor where there is family violence, coercive control, or safety is in question. Where a different kind of help would serve you better, I will say so plainly, and I will say it early rather than after a course of sessions.
If you are not safe. Couples work is not appropriate where there is violence or coercive control in a relationship. In Australia, 1800RESPECT is available on 1800 737 732, and emergency services on 000.
Fees
- Ninety-minute session — AUD 350
- Payment is settled when a session is confirmed
- Couples therapy is not covered by Medicare in Australia; the fees page explains
Every fee at this practice is published in full on the fees page. There is no charge for asking a question before you begin, and no obligation attached to an enquiry.
If you have been circling this for a while
Most couples who come to this work have been having a version of the same unresolved conversation for months, sometimes years. Making a considered decision, together, is generally less painful than continuing not to make one.
You do not need to agree with each other before you write. It is enough that one of you is ready to find out where you stand.
Related: couples therapy · recurring conflict · after an affair · couples intensives · marathon couples therapy · intercultural couples