One of the questions I get asked, sometimes directly and sometimes indirectly, is, “What kind of couples therapist are you?”
It’s a fair question. People want to know what they’re signing up for. They want to know if there is a roadmap. A method. A secret formula.
The answer is both simpler and less satisfying than that.
I pay attention to what helps you change.
Because here’s the thing. Couples are weird. I mean that in the nicest possible way. I’ve never met two relationships that got stuck in exactly the same place for exactly the same reasons.
I’ve met couples who can talk for hours but never actually say what they’re feeling. I’ve met couples who can barely make it through two minutes without escalating into conflict. I’ve met couples who have one giant problem, and couples who have several tiny problems that somehow add up to a large amount of pain.
It doesn't make much sense to treat them all the same way.
Some couples need to slow down. They’ve become so hyper-reactive that conversation blows up before either person can process what's happened.
Some need to stop spinning their wheels. They’ve gotten so careful and so polite that nothing meaningful ever gets said.
Many couples ask for "tools." That’s become a bit of a buzzword, and it may or may not be helpful. Other couples need a new perspective. Some need permission to stop trying to solve a problem and simply understand what’s happening between them. Most need a little bit of everything, and not usually in the same order.
That’s one of the odd things about change. It rarely happens the way we think it will.
We often expect a breakthrough. Another buzzword. We want a single conversation that changes everything. And actually, sometimes that does happen. More often, it’s more subtle than that.
One of you pauses for three seconds before responding. The other asks a question instead of assuming. Someone notices they’re getting defensive and decides to stay in the conversation anyway.
It might not look like much. Until you realize that’s not what would have happened six months ago.
Relationships don’t usually improve because people become perfect. They improve because people become a little more flexible, a little more curious, a little less certain that they already know what the other person is thinking and feeling.
The goal isn’t to stop disagreeing. I don’t know any couple who's managed that. The goal is to get unstuck. To have the argument go somewhere new. To recover a little faster. To find yourselves having a conversation that would have been impossible a few weeks ago.
That’s why I don’t believe in forcing couples into a process, or applying a template to therapy. If something is helping, we'll lean into it. If something isn’t, we won’t keep doing it, or insisting it will work.
Your relationship has its own history, its own strengths, its own blind spots, its own language. It deserves an approach that takes all of that seriously.
Because at the end of the day, couples counseling isn’t about learning the right way to have a relationship. It’s about discovering what makes your relationship work.
And that answer is usually more interesting than any formula.