How to Know If Couples Therapy Is Right for You

Couples therapy can feel like a complicated and massive ordeal when you first are introduced to the idea. A place where someone tries to help you work on your marriage? For an hour each week? And he charges how much? While it can seem daunting, couples therapy is more of an investment than merely an expense. If you can do the work together now you can reap the benefits for years into the future, no matter where you are starting. And if I am honest, if you are taking the time to see if couples therapy is right for you, then the odds are that it probably is.

In my experience there are four categories where couples can find themselves.

1. Things are good. This does not mean that you both are not facing difficult life transitions, stress, grief and loss, or difficulty parenting. The primary difference with this category is that you both feel connected in the midst of life’s difficulties, you are handling conflict well, you repair well, and you generally feel like your partner has your back. You feel like your partner is your friend, and while it may be hard sometimes you genuinely trust the journey you both are on.
2. You don’t know what you don’t know. Couples in this category may be in a new relationship and not fully know their partner or themselves yet. You may have seen other marriages go off the rails and you want to do some work to prevent that chance. You want to learn ways to communicate, conflict, and build a life together that provides a foundation for the future.
3. Things are bad. You are facing a crisis in your marriage. You have realized that your partner is not the person you thought you knew, and now it seems like you’ll never be able to trust them again. Your fights are escalating out of control and it is beginning to affect your relationship with your friends, family, kids, and your ability to focus on work. Love may still be there often, but you both can’t seem to get out of your own way when things go wrong. You feel stuck in a rut, rehashing the same types of conflict over and over again. Friends and mentors may have mentioned couples therapy. You want to be able to address the crisis at hand and then learn tools to help you connect better.
4. Things are beyond bad. Resentment has seeped in. You both may be able to function together, but the love for one another has grown cold in several areas. There may be glimpses of who you used to be as a couple, but most of each day just feels like parallel roommates. You have been thinking you needed help for years but never took the first step. Or maybe you both tried therapy and the therapist either took sides or acted like things were beyond their capacity. Either way, the distance, the pain, and the bitterness have become all too familiar. You wonder if things can ever get better.

Now be honest with yourself. As you look at those categories, which one feels like the best description for your relationship right now? How does it feel to admit it? You may feel relief, hope, gratitude, shame, anger, or sadness. All of these make sense, and may point to where you want your relationship to grow. Couples therapy is typically for couples who find themselves in categories 2, 3, and 4.

Relationship and marriage expert Dr. John Gottman says that couples tend to wait six years on average while being unhappy before actually seeking help. The best predictors of couples therapy actually working are both partners being motivated to do the work, and also that they have not waited too long to begin therapy.

Here are a few things I would encourage you to consider:

• Talk with your partner about how you feel about your relationship. This could be discussing which category you relate most to and asking them which they think fits as well. Do this with a motivation to connect without blame — to explain how you feel and what you are experiencing, not how they need to change.
• Ask your closest friends or family what they have noticed in your marriage. If things are bad, odds are that others have picked up on it. Ask them for feedback on where you can change, how you can become a better partner for your spouse, and what their concerns are.
• Think about what kind of relationship you hoped for when you were younger. What would you be willing to do to see if that kind of marriage were possible?
• Read Getting the Love You Want by Harville Hendrix and Helen LaKelly Hunt, Love Sense by Sue Johnson, or Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work by Dr. John Gottman. These books synthesize a little of what couples therapy is like and can give you a sense of where you would like to improve in your marriage.
• Watch a few episodes of Couples Therapy with Dr. Orna Guralnik to get a sense of what therapy can feel like.
• Give me a call and ask me any questions you like. Interview me and see if you think I could be a good fit, and if I’m not I am happy to refer you to other couples therapists I know who are excellent. I’m here to get you the help you need.