'Do we need couples therapy?'

You might be wondering about couples therapy and if that is the next resort for your relationship. It may or may not be, but maybe this will help you understand better.

Couples therapy can help partners improve their communication, resolve conflicts, rebuild trust, and deepen emotional intimacy. A couples therapist acts as a neutral guide, helping both people understand each other’s needs, express feelings more effectively, and develop healthier ways to interact. It’s useful not just during crises, but also for strengthening a relationship.

The ways couples therapy works:

• Helps partners identify and express deeper emotional needs and vulnerabilities, strengthening attachment bonds.

• Improves communication by teaching skills like soft start-ups, managing conflict, building trust, and creating shared meaning.

• Encourages partners to explore how childhood experiences shape current relationship patterns and teaches conscious, empathetic dialogue. The things partners learnt and saw from their parents and adults around them in early childhood.

• Targets negative thought patterns and behaviours that harm the relationship and helps partners replace them with more constructive ones.

• Helps couples "re-author" the story of their relationship by identifying and changing unhelpful narratives or beliefs about each other.

• Rather than focusing on problems, sometimes couples therapy emphasizes finding immediate solutions and building on existing strengths.

Couples therapy can be sought for many different relationship issues including:

• Psychosexual issues (sexual dysfunctions, erectile dysfunction, vaginismus, low sexual desire, dyspareunia, rapid ejaculation, delayed ejaculation)

• Emotional distance or loss of intimacy

• Child loss/miscarriages (couple bereavement and grief counselling/therapy)

• Divorce/Separation process

• Pre-marriage counselling

• Negotiating differences

• Infidelity/Breaches of trust

• Parental disagreements

• Life transitions (having a baby, moving, job loss, retirement, or grief)

• Financial stress (disagreements about money, budgeting, spending, or financial goals)

• Family issues (blended family challenges, stepfamilies, co-parenting with ex-partners, or integrating new family dynamics)

Many couples seek therapy before things get severe, while others go when they feel stuck or near breaking point — both are valid.

Couples therapy could be seen as love coupon - a gift to offer a different way of loving.

Signs that you might need couples therapy:

• Communication feels tense, hostile, or completely shut down. You can't talk about important things without arguing or withdrawing.

• Recurring conflicts never seem to get resolved. You fight about the same issues over and over with no real progress.

• There’s been a breach of trust. Affairs, lies, or other betrayals have damaged the foundation of the relationship.

• You feel more like roommates than partners. Emotional or physical intimacy has faded, and you feel disconnected.

• Big life changes are straining the relationship. Moving, career shifts, illnesses, or becoming parents is causing friction you can’t easily manage.

• One or both partners are considering ending the relationship. Even if you're not sure you want to separate, feeling unsure about staying is a major signal.

• You’re staying together mainly for external reasons (kids, finances, fear). If love, connection, or genuine desire to be together is no longer the main reason, therapy can help clarify next steps.

• You want to improve a mostly good relationship. Therapy isn’t only for problems — it can be preventive, helping you grow closer and build skills for the future.

• There’s been emotional or physical abuse. In these cases, therapy needs to be approached carefully, often with individual safety as the top priority.

Most importantly, couples therapy can only work when the two people want to work. A couples therapy should not be doing overtime or working harder than the couple, as this is suggestive of that the couple is not ready to commit to real change in their relationship.