This week, I’m taking an interlude from my reality TV blog series after watching the romantic comedy, Crazy, Stupid, Love, which I learned is one of my husband’s favorite movies (a delightful surprise given that he typically tries to make me watch devastating war movies). Crazy, Stupid, Love follows a married couple with children navigating the fallout of a messy and emotional separation, and it serves as an excellent case study of how a divorce can go wrong without the right support or process in place.
The movie opens with a scene where the wife, Emily (played by Julianne Moore), surprises her husband, Cal (played by Steve Carell), with news that she wants a divorce after 25 years of marriage. Cal is stunned and shuts down, while Emily pushes him to talk more about the breakdown of their marriage and confesses that she had an affair. The exchange escalates quickly when Cal throws himself out of a moving car, all to avoid talking about it more.
I’m probably not alone in saying that I’ve worked on plenty of divorce cases involving couples who have experienced similarly extreme responses to the challenges in their relationship. One of the reasons why I became a Collaborative Divorce practitioner is to help couples navigate their divorce differently. Collaborative Divorce is a process where the parties work with a team of professionals, including a legal, mental health, and financial professional, to resolve their divorce in a way that is sustainable and supports the entire family.
Ann Cerney is a mental health professional who is also trained in Collaborative Divorce, and she has a practice that focuses on couples coaching and counseling. If the couple in Crazy, Stupid, Love had the good fortune of meeting Ann in real life, I’m confident their relationship would have evolved much differently. One early intervention Ann could have offered is “Discernment” counseling, which is a type of counseling that is designed for couples who aren’t sure whether they want to stay married or not. Later, after the decision to divorce was made, Ann could have supported them as a divorce coach within the Collaborative Divorce process, helping them move forward with greater clarity and respect.
Most people may not have heard the term “Discernment counseling” before, but I understand that it has become a much more common type of couples counseling. Can you say more about what discernment counseling actually is?
Discernment counseling is a very specific and structured, short-term decision-making process for committed couples who have what we call a "mixed agenda". One person is leaning out of the relationship, feeling hopeless about the possibility of change for the better, while the other person is holding on to the relationship, and wants - often desperately - to make it work. They are in very different decision-making and emotional places in the relationship. The goal of discernment counseling is to help the couple come to clarity and confidence for a future direction, with a deeper understanding of how they got here and what each of them contributed to the problems in the relationship. The process is designed for up to five sessions.
If the couple from Crazy, Stupid, Love came to you a month before Cal jumped out of a moving car, how do you think discernment counseling would have helped prevent them from getting to this boiling point?
Had they reached out for Discernment counseling, Emily might have already expressed her desire to end the marriage, or at least have conveyed her deep discontentment. In Discernment, her authentic feelings would be uncovered, and hopefully the affair would have come out. She would be guided to look at what's motivating her choices, and what she is actually longing for in the marriage. Cal would have an opportunity to surface his own anxiety and distancing behavior, and the effect it has had on the marriage. They would no longer be able to avoid their relationship issues, which it seems has been the ongoing dynamic in the marriage - avoidance. Cal’s reaction to avoid learning about the trouble in their marriage is a stark example of how far he will go to avoid hearing something troubling from his wife - he jumps out of a moving vehicle.
Now that Cal has gone to the extreme of jumping out of a car, is it too late for this couple to go to discernment counseling?
I don't think so, because Cal is avoiding pain by saying "I'll leave tonight, just stop talking about it." He may be swayed to go to Discernment, if Emily suggests it. If she begins to understand that she doesn't really want to end their marriage, that could be the spark for them to recover. If that were the case, she could become the 'champion' for this relationship, reaching out for Discernment - she would take the lead in bringing them in. Unless Cal is firmly shut down and chooses to hold onto his hurt and anger and Emily has no energy to champion the marriage, I think they could benefit from Discernment counseling.
If, after discernment coupling, Cal and Emily still decided to get a divorce, do you think they would benefit from the Collaborative Divorce process? How?
If they decided to move forward with divorce, Collaborative Divorce would be good for them. Their style of conflict resolution is conflict avoidance, as evidenced by Emily’s affair and Cal’s desperate exit from the automobile. The Collaborative model offers the support of communication coaches, and encourages transparency in not only asset division but also in terms of interests, needs, and the feelings that underlie those things. The interdisciplinary team is designed to contain both parties and if it arises, to support the expression of their disappointments and unmet needs as they part. In my experience, this helps set them up for a softer landing post-divorce as co-parents.
What is your role in the Collaborative Divorce process?
I am a communications coach, for either one of the parties or a neutral coach to both of the parties. I have also worked as a child specialist in the process, where I meet with not only the parents but with the children. The child specialist helps parents with current and future planning and provides a clinical perspective into how to best support their children during the transition.
How would you have approached working with Cal in the collaborative process? What about with Emily?
Cal needs help in self-defining. In other words, reflecting on his own wants, feelings, and preferences, and then confidently expressing them. Emily needs support in the same area. What I know of her problem-solving capacity is that she has found a way to get her needs and wants met outside of their marriage. They are both conflict avoidant, which has kept them from moving forward as a couple. In their divorce, they will both need support in clarifying what is important to them, and then communicating that to each other and the professional team. It could be a huge growth experience for both of them.
I want to uplift professionals like Ann who offer Discernment counseling and practice Collaborative Divorce, because they offer meaningful support in the real world for couples like Emily and Cal. Ann and I work together on the Collaborative Divorce Golden Gate’s Divorce Options Committee, which hosts free monthly workshops to help you understand the basics of divorce and the process options available to you. If I were meeting with Cal or Emily as potential clients, the first thing I would do is refer them to Divorce Options.
Divorce doesn’t have to be crazy, and it isn’t, for people who are able to connect with the right resources and choose the best process that works for them and their family. So, if you’re on a path toward divorce, I encourage you to explore Divorce Options and consult with a Collaborative Divorce professional as soon as you can!
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