How Discernment in Relationships Can Help You Make the Right Choice
Discernment in a relationship at a crossroads is not simply about making good decisions.
We make thousands of choices every day. According to Google’s AI, the number is around 35,000. Most often, we don’t notice until we are taking action. What to wear, what to eat, or which email to answer first.
But deciding whether to stay or leave a relationship is a whole different matter. It’s different to the 34,999. This decision requires discernment, not just quick thinking.
What Is Discernment in a Relationship?
We often think of discernment as good judgment, but in the context of relationships, it’s more than thinking.
This involves using our heads, hearts and souls to perceive and feel honestly, compassionately and bravely as we face our present reality.
Discernment wants us to take a moment and understand our relationship and ourselves.
Such reflection is seldom easy, and we should allow for discomfort, not remove doubt, but learn to be with it.
The Inner Work of Discernment In Relationships
We all have different parts inside us, or subpersonalities. These are aspects of the psyche that each has its own needs, fears, and desires.
Certain parts are tied to the ego: those that seek control, approval, or avoidance of rejection.
The Shadow contains our hidden traits: anger, envy, grief, and potential.
A sense of duty, loyalty, or fear drives some other parts.
The Inner Orchestra
Think of your internal world as an orchestra. If our inner parts do as they please, it creates noise but not music. The percussionist may disregard the woodwinds, the violins could drown out the cellos, and nothing feels unified.
The music flows when each instrument is played mindfully. We can hear each instrument, working together in harmony.
Discernment is similar to a conductor: recognising and uniting our diverse inner parts.
Only then will your choices regarding marriage and life be balanced and clear.
You may reflect on:
- Who is calling the shots currently? Is it the fearful ego, the wounded child, or the wiser Self? How do you know that?
- What aspects of your shadow self seek acceptance, and which do you still reject?
- Do you project your expectations onto your partner, causing you to see them as a rescuer, a villain, or an idealised figure?
Projection often distorts our perception, causing us to view our partners as reflections of ourselves rather than their true selves.
Discernment: A Joint Effort
Self-awareness and discernment help us spot our projections, reflect inward, and gain a better, more honest understanding of ourselves, our partner, and the relationship.
Fear, impulse, and denial no longer drive decisions. Instead, they arise from an inner sense of balance and a greater comfort with using our will to make meaningful and empowered choices.
Discernment is a deeply powerful practice.
Seeing What You Would Rather Not See
Myths and fairy tales can often reflect our inner world. They remind us that we humans have always used discernment to see the bigger picture and make sense of it so that we can transform our lives.
In Red Riding Hood, a young girl walks through the forest, meets a wolf, and naively tells him her destination.
The wolf runs ahead, eats Grandma, and pretends to be her.
Red Riding Hood knows something’s wrong when she arrives: the voice, the eyes, the teeth. However, she delays, choosing to inquire rather than act on the wisdom of her instincts.
Seeing and Not Seeing
This might occur subtly in relationships.
- We’re overlooking minor issues because we want things to go well.
- Justify actions that seem wrong.
- Mistaking passion or charisma for genuine closeness.
- Confuse excitement with anxiety and drama.
- You might confuse rejection with setting healthy boundaries.
We often cloud our judgment by projecting our own hopes, wounds, or unresolved narratives onto our partner, seeing them through our own lens rather than as they truly are. We place our perfect parent, our hero, or our personal flaws onto them. Discernment helps us reclaim our projections, allowing us to see our partner as they truly are, not as we need them to be.
Discernment challenges us to pause and reflect: Are we truly seeing, or are we seeing what we want to see?
The Wisdom of Waiting
Just as Red Riding Hood teaches us to see, Isis, the Egyptian goddess, teaches us patience.
She doesn’t immediately seek revenge when Set murders her husband, Osiris. Instead, she begins a long, patient search for his remains, led by deep faith and intuition.
She acquires knowledge. Isis is listening. She has grief, but it doesn’t take over. Her strength lies not in fast responses, but in her patience as she grasps things.
Trusting the Process of Discernment
This story emphasises the importance of not reacting to pain or panic in relationships.
- Spending time observing patterns instead of reacting quickly.
- Allowing feelings to calm before making important decisions.
- Believe that stillness and reflection are a sign of strength, not weakness.
Hurting makes it tough to be patient. However, as Isis’s story demonstrates, understanding often comes with time, ritual, and thought, rather than speed.
Living Discernment
Discernment isn’t a one-time decision; it’s an ongoing relationship with truth.
In long-term partnerships, we will face seasons of uncertainty, moments when our marriage feels clouded by resentment, fatigue, or fear.
Discernment invites us to approach those times not with blame or avoidance, but with curiosity.
Begin practising discernment by using these three inner skills:
- Take time to listen to yourself before anything else. Rather than seek external guidance, inquire: What is my inner truth? What part of me doesn’t want to hear this?
- Manage your feelings: You can feel love, anger, and fear, but don’t be overtaken by them. Feelings provide information, but they aren’t the whole story.
- Life is rarely simple; it is often complex. Even if someone loves us, they may not be the right person for us. Compassion can exist even when we must move on. Discernment asks us to hold the both/and rather than simplifying our experience.
It’s a process of self-discovery.
This includes improving self-awareness, gathering and sorting the seeds. It can seem chaotic, sluggish, and unpredictable.
However, as we begin to listen inwardly, our ability to discern functions as an inner guide; it doesn’t offer simple solutions but instead directs us towards honesty.
By practising discernment, we observe the ego, shadow, and deeper Self. This understanding lets us choose honestly, completely, and not reactively.
Walking the Path of Discernment
To practice discernment in relationships is to be present, to be conscious, to learn how to trust, to know when to wait, and to recognise when to step away.
It’s the difference between seeing the wolf for what he is and being deceived by the disguise. Between reacting from fear and responding from deep knowing.
Between staying asleep in old patterns and awakening to the truth of who we are.
How Discernment Helps You Choose Well
Discernment doesn’t guarantee an easy or pain-free outcome, but it helps you make a conscious, wise choice, the one that comes from integrity rather than impulse.
When we take the time to listen to all our inner voices, we act with good judgment, courage, autonomy, and a clear vision. We act from our scars, not from the wound.
That’s what makes a choice ‘right’. Not because it looks perfect from the outside or is free from any regret, but because it is integrated.
Whether that means staying and rebuilding, or leaving and beginning again, discernment ensures that your decision is made in awareness, not avoidance.
For those standing at a crossroads, unsure whether to stay or leave, couples counselling or individual coaching can offer a holding space to slow down, breathe, and listen to what is beneath the surface.
Discernment doesn’t promise certainty. But it does offer clarity, the kind that arises when we stop rushing for comfort and start listening to the ever-present wisdom within us.
And perhaps that is the real work: learning to trust that, in time and with intention, clarity will come. When it does, we will know what to do, not because someone else told us, but because the many parts of us are finally facing in the same direction.
Mini Discernment Exercise: Tea or Coffee?
Before choosing your morning drink, pause and notice the different voices inside: the habitual part saying, ‘Coffee, like always,’ the curious part or, ‘Maybe green tea today, and the practical part reminding you, ‘Water first.’
Listen without judgment, notice which voice is loudest and which might get ignored, and choose with awareness. What do you choose? Even small decisions are practice for discernment.
Over To You
If you’re standing at the threshold of an ending in your marriage, wondering what the next step should be, you don’t have to hold it alone. I’d be honoured to walk alongside you as you explore what it means to move forward with peace and grace.
Book a complimentary consultation, and let’s begin the conversation.
P.S. Pass It On
Have you enjoyed this post? Use the icons below to tweet, share on Facebook, and email them to specific friends. Join my email list for regular insights and tips on cultivating conscious relationships.
© Sandra Harewood 2025
References:
Hollis, James, Living an Examined Life. Wisdom for the Second Half of the Journey. A 21-Step Plan for Addressing the Unfinished Business of Your Life, Sounds True.
About Sandra Harewood
Sandra Harewood is a registered Psychotherapeutic Counsellor, Couples Counsellor and Jungian Coach. Sandra is a specialist in working with women and couples who are in crisis or at a crossroads in their marriage. Over the last 15+ years, Sandra has helped 100’s of women and couples transform their lives and relationships. She has a private counselling and life coaching practice in Pimlico and Bromley in South London. Sandra is passionate about helping couples create conscious relationships, putting the soul back into their lives.
