Do you need a couples therapist or a mediator

A couples therapist and a family mediator are different professionals doing different jobs. A therapist helps you explore what's happening in the relationship, why it feels stuck, and whether you want to repair it. A mediator helps you reach concrete agreements on practical questions like finances, childcare, and living arrangements. Therapy is best when you're still figuring out if you want to stay together. Mediation is best when you've decided what kind of separation or arrangement you're aiming for and need help working out the details. Some couples do both, often in sequence: therapy first to decide, mediation after to agree.

For about six months I thought I needed a mediator. I'd been reading on Mumsnet and the recurring advice was "go to mediation". I think because most of the threads were about people who'd already decided to split and were arguing about who gets what.

That wasn't us. We hadn't decided anything. I just wanted someone to help us stop having the same argument every Sunday evening. When I actually called a mediator's office, they were lovely and they were also clear: mediation isn't really for what we were describing. They suggested couples therapy and gave me a referral path.

The reason this matters is that the two professions are doing different jobs. A mediator helps you decide how to do something you've already decided to do. A therapist helps you figure out whether you want to do it. I'd been wanting a therapist and asking for a mediator.

I think a lot of people make that mistake because mediation sounds practical and therapy sounds heavy. You can show up to a mediator with a problem to solve. A therapist asks you to sit with the problem first, and that's uncomfortable. But if the problem you've actually got is "I don't know if I want to be married", a mediator can't help with that. They'll refer you on, which is what happened to me.

We went to a therapist for three sessions, then I stopped. I'm not proud of that. I'd say the three sessions did more than the six months of Mumsnet did, but they also made me realise the conversation I needed to have was with my husband, not with a stranger. Whether the next step from here is more therapy or a mediator, I don't know. I think it depends on which question we answer first.

In the Solo Session afterward, Meedi asked me whether I'd describe what we needed as a decision or a conversation. I said both, and she said start with the conversation; the decision comes after. That was useful.