Mixed-Faith Marriage Counseling
One of you stays. One of you steps away — or is quietly on the way out. Mixed-faith marriage counseling is couples therapy built for exactly this: staying married, and staying kind, across a belief difference. I’m Daniel A. Burgess, LMFT, and I hold one commitment above all in this work: no agenda for either partner’s faith.
Is this your marriage?
- Every church-adjacent decision — attendance, tithing, garments, the kids’ baptisms — has become a negotiation or a landmine.
- The believing spouse feels the eternal family slipping; the transitioning spouse feels unseen or judged.
- Conversations loop: persuasion, defensiveness, silence, repeat.
- Extended family and the ward have opinions, and the two of you haven’t agreed on what to tell anyone.
- Intimacy has gone quiet while everything gets renegotiated.
What we work on
- De-escalating the fear on both sides — because under every doctrinal argument is “I’m afraid I’m losing you.”
- Ending the persuasion cycle — replacing conversion projects with genuine curiosity, in both directions.
- The practical decisions — children’s religious participation, temple expectations, tithing, garments, Sundays, in-laws — negotiated explicitly instead of fought symbolically.
- Grief without a villain — the believing spouse’s loss is real; so is the transitioning spouse’s. Neither gets dismissed.
- Shared values beneath different conclusions — most mixed-faith couples discover their values overlap far more than their beliefs now do; we build the marriage on that ground.
- Protecting and rebuilding intimacy — faith transition reshapes a couple’s sexual relationship in ways almost nobody warns you about; addressing it directly is part of the work, not a separate problem.
Why this specialty needs its own kind of therapist
Most counselors have a side, even when they don’t mean to. A faithful counselor can subtly treat the questioner as the problem; a secular one can do the same to the believer. Mixed-faith work only helps when the therapist can sit with both of you without needing either to change. I spent more than forty years inside Latter-day Saint life — mission, temple marriage, leadership — before stepping away, so I know both positions from the inside, in your vocabulary, without translation. My clinical specialization in faith transition, religious trauma, and sexual health covers the full territory these marriages actually traverse.
How it works
Sessions are 50 minutes over secure video. Therapy is available to couples located in California and Utah; coaching is available to couples anywhere in the world, and mixed-faith navigation is often well suited to coaching when trauma isn’t central. We begin with a free 15-minute consultation — both of you welcome on the call — to sort out fit, format, and cost.
Frequently asked questions
Whose side are you on?
The marriage’s. I’ve been the believer and the leaver, and neither of you will be treated as the problem to solve.
Can a mixed-faith LDS marriage actually last?
Yes. What predicts survival isn’t shared belief — it’s respect, negotiated agreements, protected friendship, and both partners retiring the conversion project. Those are learnable skills.
What about the kids?
Children’s religious participation is one of the central negotiations of this work — handled as a joint parenting decision, with a united front and no recruiting. We’ll build your family’s specific agreements together.
My spouse won’t come. Can I start alone?
Yes — individual work on your side of the dynamic changes the dynamic, and reluctant spouses often join once they see the work is fair to their position.
What does it cost?
Fees depend on therapy vs. coaching and format; we review them on the free consultation call.
Related reading: the Mixed-Faith Marriage Survival Guide, My Spouse Left the LDS Church — Now What?, and Protecting Intimacy When One of You Stops Believing.