Couples Therapy

Couples & Relationship Therapy

Two people, one room, and enough structure that the conversation you keep failing to have can finally happen without it turning into the same argument.

Arrange a free 15-minute callCall 07395 854051
Two mugs and two chairs at a kitchen table in morning light, mid-conversation.

  • Session length

    60 minutes

  • How it runs

    In person or online

  • Typical course

    Commonly 8–16 sessions

  • First step

    A free 15-minute call

Who this is for

Where people usually are when they get in touch

Couples rarely come because of one argument. They come because of the shape the arguments have taken: the same disagreement, in different clothes, for the third year running, with both people now defending a position neither of them entirely believes.

Couples therapy puts a third person in the room whose job is not to adjudicate. It is to slow the exchange down enough that you can both see what is actually happening — who moves towards, who moves away, what each of you is protecting — and to make it possible to say the difficult thing without the roof coming off.

This is active work rather than a supervised argument. Sessions have a structure, the therapist interrupts, and there is usually something specific to practise between appointments. It is often uncomfortable in the early weeks, and most couples report that the discomfort is the point at which something moves.

Two people sitting a little apart on a sofa, seen from behind.

This is often the right service when

  • You have had the same row so many times that you can both predict the next four sentences.
  • One of you has had an affair, and neither of you knows yet whether the relationship survives it.
  • You are polite, efficient co-parents who have not had a genuine conversation since the second child.
  • Sex has quietly stopped and neither of you can find a way to raise it without it becoming an accusation.
  • You are thinking about separating and want to do it thoughtfully rather than through a series of escalating rows.
  • One of you wants to work on the relationship; the other is not sure they want to stay in it.
  • You are about to move in together or marry, and want to talk properly about money, family and children first.
  • A bereavement, a diagnosis, a redundancy or a new baby has landed on the relationship and it has not recovered its footing.

Common ground

What people bring to this work

Not an exhaustive list, and you do not need a label to book a session. If what you are carrying is not named here, say so on the first call and we will tell you honestly whether this is the right place.

  • Recurring conflict that escalates faster each time
  • Communication breakdown and long silences
  • Affairs, secrecy and rebuilding trust
  • Jealousy, checking behaviour and insecurity
  • Differences in sexual desire and intimacy
  • Disagreements about parenting and discipline
  • Step-parenting and blended-family strain
  • In-laws, extended family and boundaries
  • Money, debt and unequal financial power
  • The effect of one partner's anxiety, depression or long-term illness
  • Life-stage transitions — new baby, teenagers, empty nest, retirement
  • Deciding whether to separate, and separating with care

The approach

The models this work draws on

No single model fits everyone, and nothing here is applied from a manual. These are the established approaches the work draws on, described plainly so you can see what you are agreeing to.

Emotionally focused therapy (EFT)

Developed by Sue Johnson and grounded in adult attachment theory, EFT treats the argument you keep having as a cycle rather than a series of individual failures: one partner presses for contact, the other withdraws to stop things escalating, and each move triggers the other. The work is to slow that cycle down, name it as the shared enemy, and reach the softer feeling underneath the familiar one — usually fear of losing the other person rather than anger at them. It is one of the more thoroughly studied couple approaches in the field.

The Gottman Method

Built on decades of observational research by John and Julie Gottman, this approach is unusually practical. It begins with a proper assessment of how you actually interact, then works on specific, observable things: reducing criticism, contempt, defensiveness and stonewalling; noticing and accepting the small bids for attention that make up most of a relationship; and learning to manage the disagreements that are perpetual rather than solvable — which, in most couples, is the majority of them.

Systemic couple work

Systemic practice looks at the relationship as a system rather than at two individuals who happen to share a mortgage. It asks what each person's behaviour makes sense as a response to, and how much of the pattern was inherited from the families you both grew up in. It is particularly useful where work, money, culture, faith, illness or children have reshaped the relationship without anyone deciding that they should.

Discernment counselling

Developed by Bill Doherty for couples where one partner is leaning out of the relationship and the other is leaning in, discernment counselling is deliberately short — usually no more than five sessions. Its purpose is not reconciliation. It is to help you both reach clarity and confidence about a direction: staying as you are for now, separating, or committing wholeheartedly to a defined period of couples therapy. It is a legitimate outcome for that direction to be separation.

Which of these gets used, and in what proportion, is decided with you rather than for you. You can ask at any point why a particular approach is being taken, and you should expect a straight answer.

What happens

From the first phone call to the last session

There are no surprises built into this process. Here is the whole sequence, in order.

  1. A free 15-minute call

    Either of you can make the first call; it does not commit your partner to anything. We check that couples work is the right service, explain how the sessions run, and answer the question most people are actually ringing to ask — whether the therapist is going to take sides.

  2. The first joint session

    A longer conversation covering how you met, what the relationship was like when it worked, what has changed, and what each of you hopes might be different. Both of you get uninterrupted time. We also agree the ground rules for the room, including what happens when it gets heated.

  3. One individual session each

    Most couples work includes a separate session with each partner early on, because there are usually things easier to say alone. Before those sessions we agree explicitly, in advance and with both of you, how anything said in them will be handled — so nobody is later surprised by what the therapist does or does not hold in confidence.

  4. Naming the cycle, then working on it

    We set out a shared description of the pattern you are both caught in — the trigger, the move, the counter-move, the aftermath — and then work directly on it in the room. Conversations are slowed down, interrupted and replayed. Between sessions there is usually something concrete to try: a repair attempt, a weekly check-in, a specific thing to stop doing.

  5. Reviewing where this is going

    Every few sessions we take stock openly. Sometimes the work concludes with the relationship in better shape. Sometimes it concludes with a decision to separate, reached carefully rather than in the middle of a row — which, for a family with children in it, is not a failed outcome.

Two armchairs facing a third across a warm consulting room, unoccupied.

The question everybody asks

Whose side is the therapist on?

Neither of yours. The therapist's client in couples work is the relationship — the thing between you — which means the job is to make sure both accounts are heard properly rather than to decide which is more accurate.

In practice that means being interrupted. If one of you consistently gets more airtime, that gets named. If a familiar argument starts building, it gets stopped and unpicked rather than allowed to run its usual course. Most couples find this a relief within two or three sessions, because it is the first time the conversation has had a referee who is not invested in the outcome.

It also means neither of you will be asked to accept a version of events you do not recognise. Two people can describe the same evening completely differently and both be telling the truth about their own experience. The work starts there, not with establishing a verdict.

Direction of travel

What people often work towards

These are the changes people commonly aim for in this work. They are not promises, and no honest practitioner can guarantee any of them — progress depends on what you bring, what is going on around you, and time.

  • Being able to name the cycle while you are in it, instead of a day later
  • Arguments that end sooner and leave less damage behind them
  • Repair after a rupture that takes hours rather than a fortnight of silence
  • Being able to raise money, sex or your mother without a predictable escalation
  • A clearer, more honest account of what each of you actually needs
  • Co-parenting that works even when the romantic relationship is under strain
  • For some couples, a considered decision to separate, made together and with less harm
Two people walking side by side along a riverside path in low winter sun.

Being straight with you

Couples therapy is not appropriate where there is domestic abuse, coercive control or fear of a partner. Joint sessions can make things more dangerous, because one person cannot speak freely and may face consequences afterwards. If any of that is happening, please contact the National Domestic Abuse Helpline or the Men's Advice Line — both are listed on our urgent help page — and speak to us about individual support instead. Couples work also needs both people in the room; it is not something one partner can do on the other's behalf.

See urgent help and 24-hour support lines

Questions

Couples Therapy: the questions people ask first

The things people most often want to know before booking. If yours is not here, ask it on the free call — no question is too small or too awkward.

My partner will not come. Is there any point in me coming alone?

Yes, though it is a different piece of work. Individual relationship-focused sessions can help you understand your part in the pattern, decide what you want, and work out how to have a conversation you have so far been unable to have. What they cannot do is change your partner, and no honest therapist will offer that. If your partner later becomes willing to attend, we would normally talk about whether the couples work should start with a different therapist, so that neither person begins at a disadvantage.

We have already decided to separate. Is it too late?

It is not, and this is one of the more valuable uses of the service. Therapy during a separation focuses on ending the relationship with as little damage as possible: how you tell the children, how you talk about each other to them, how you divide practical life without every conversation becoming a proxy for the marriage. Couples who separate carefully tend to co-parent better for years afterwards.

Do we have to talk about the affair in detail?

Some of it, but not in the way people fear. Rebuilding after an affair usually needs an honest account of what happened, sustained transparency going forward, and space for the hurt partner's questions — which do not disappear because they are inconvenient. What is rarely helpful is exhaustive detail about the physical relationship, which tends to create images that are hard to live with afterwards. We would work out together what needs to be said and what does not.

What if one of us gets angry or walks out?

Strong feeling in the room is expected and is usually workable. Session ground rules are agreed at the start, and part of the therapist's job is to stop an exchange before it becomes destructive rather than after. If someone needs to step out for a few minutes, that is allowed. What is not workable is intimidation or contempt directed at a partner, and that will be named clearly if it appears.

How long does couples work usually take?

More than a handful of sessions and usually fewer than a year. Eight to sixteen sessions is a common range for focused work on a recurring pattern; recovery after an affair often takes longer, because trust rebuilds on evidence over time rather than on insight. Discernment counselling, where one partner is unsure about staying, is deliberately capped at around five sessions.

Can we do couples therapy online?

Yes, and it works well for many couples, including those joining from two different locations. The practical requirements matter more than usual: both people need privacy, a decent connection, and an agreement that neither will end the call in the middle of a difficult moment. Where there is high conflict, or where one partner is significantly less willing, being in the same physical room usually helps.

More general questions — about confidentiality, records, insurance and how appointments are booked — are answered on the frequently asked questions page.

Related

If this is not quite the right fit

People often start in one service and move to another, or do two in sequence. Nothing about that is unusual.

Family Therapy

Work with the household rather than with one person in it — because the problem is almost never sitting where everyone thinks it is.

Read about family therapy

Individual Therapy & Counselling

A confidential hour that belongs entirely to you — to think out loud, to make sense of what is happening, and to work out what you want to do about it.

Read about individual therapy

See all four services compared

Getting started

Start with a conversation, not a commitment

Fifteen minutes on the phone is usually enough to work out whether couples therapy is the right place to begin. There is no charge for it and nothing to sign afterwards.

Book a first sessionCall 07395 854051

Enquiries are answered within one working day. This is a planned-appointment service and not a crisis line — if you need help now, please use the urgent help page.

A kitchen table laid for two at dusk with a single lamp lit.