Couples Therapy: Help or Hindrance?

More than one thing is true.

Couples therapy is great. Couples therapy has problems.

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Couples therapy is great because:

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It involves the two of you agreeing that the relationship is important. You are showing that the relationship is worth the time and money. This alone can be what gets you through or on to better - that you are both willing to try.

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It can create a safe space where the truth can come out, and more than one truth can exist at the same time. Really hearing your partner’s deeper truths (and letting them be true without resisting) is most of the work of communication.

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Great therapists have pattern recognition that lets them quickly cut right to the heart of the issue. They have the moves to open someone up and help them find a new way of perceiving. This feels like magic.

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It’s a practice. Sometimes, life is just busy, and what is really important just isn’t urgent enough to get our consistent attention. Therapy puts deeper conversations on the calendar. It gives us a consistent drumbeat– consistent practice creates change.

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Couples therapy is problematic because:

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It gets expensive quickly at $150 to $350 an hour, plus a babysitter. Finding a therapist is an especially annoying way to spend money; you spend $1000 to introduce yourselves and then try to decide if the therapist is a fit for everyone. If not, you start again.

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We usually think about it wrong, with one of us (never me, though) thinking the therapist is there to decide which one of us is right. We can’t wait for the therapist to force our partners to see the error of their ways.

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Therapy is stigmatized and embarrassing. Therapy is often seen as a failure - you might as well say you are going to get divorced. Most couples wouldn’t share that they have a therapist, and therefore, they can’t share any insights that could be useful at a dinner party. We all have to learn on our own.

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It’s late. On average, unhappy couples wait 6 years to see a therapist. That’s a lot of time for a lot of hurt.

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It can be disempowering. This is the other side of the ‘safe space’ benefit - it’s easy for couples to get into a rhythm where they wait to have hard conversations until the next session. The therapist becomes the crutch, and the couple doesn’t build the muscles they need on their own.

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