Sessions with both partners, online. For arguments that keep repeating, emotional distance, infidelity or long-distance relationships — including when you're in different countries.
Who it's for
The most common reason isn't a spectacular crisis. It's tiredness: the same arguments, for years, on the same themes, with the same ending. Or the opposite — no arguments at all, just two people sharing a house with nothing left to say.
A second large group: couples separated by migration. One partner away for work, the other at home with the children. The relationship gets administered through ten-minute calls about logistics, and intimacy thins without anyone doing anything wrong.
A third: after an infidelity, when both want to stay together but neither knows how. Or ahead of a decision — move in together, have a child, separate.
You don't have to be married, you don't have to live together, and you don't have to agree that there's a problem. A sceptical partner who comes once is a valid start.
Signs it's time
The same arguments, the same words, the same ending
Conversation reduced to logistics and the children
You avoid whole topics to stop them escalating
One asks for closeness, the other needs space — constantly
After an infidelity, you both want to stay but don't know how
How it works
Sessions run 60-90 minutes, with both partners present. The first one or two are assessment, and the therapist may ask for a short individual conversation with each — for history, not to gather ammunition.
The work begins by identifying the cycle: the sequence that repeats regardless of topic. One presses, the other withdraws; or both attack; or both go silent. Almost every couple recognises the cycle the moment they see it named, and many say that alone changes the tone of arguments at home.
Then you work on what sits underneath the reactions. Anger almost always covers something else — fear, shame, loneliness. A partner who gets to say "I'm afraid I don't matter to you any more" gets a different answer than "you never care" receives.
The therapist doesn't arbitrate and doesn't decide who's right. If you leave a session feeling you were the only one criticised, say so in the next one — that's an imbalance to correct.
The first session
The first session is about what brings you and what a typical argument looks like — the therapist will often ask for a recent example in detail, because the detail reveals the cycle. Each of you gets time to speak uninterrupted; if it escalates, the therapist stops it. Nobody is asked to admit fault and no one establishes who started it. At the end you get a formulation of the pattern and an estimate of duration.
When it is NOT the right service
Couples therapy is not done where there is violence in the relationship. Asking the vulnerable partner to open up emotionally in front of the person hurting them isn't merely ineffective, it's dangerous — you work separately, and safety comes first. It also doesn't work when one partner has already decided to leave and comes to announce it: separation therapy fits there, is a different thing, and is legitimate, especially where children are involved. And an active untreated addiction sabotages the process — it's treated first.
Can we have sessions if we're in different countries?
Yes, and it's one of the reasons the online format matters so much here. Each partner joins from wherever they are, in the same call. The only real requirement is that each of you is in a private space — not the shared kitchen with in-laws in the next room. Time-zone differences are handled at booking.
My partner won't come. What do I do?
Come alone. The cycle needs two people to repeat — if one changes it consistently, the other can no longer play the same sequence. Many couples end up coming together by the fourth or fifth session, after the reluctant partner notices a real difference at home. The best invitation isn't an argument, it's the change they see.
Does couples therapy actually work, or does it just delay the breakup?
It works for most couples who enter it with both partners engaged — trials of emotionally focused therapy report significant improvement in roughly 70-73% of couples. For some, the outcome is a less destructive separation, and that isn't a failure of the therapy, particularly where children stay connected to both parents.