Will Couples Therapy Work? A Couples Therapist’s Honest Answer
Most couples in Seattle who come to therapy ask the same question: Will this actually work for us? Whether you’re navigating high-conflict patterns, recovering from infidelity, or managing trauma together, couples therapy can help—but only if both partners are ready to fully engage. As a Seattle LMFT specializing in PACT and ISTDP, I’ve worked with couples across the city, helping them build safety, connection, and lasting change. In this post, I’ll share the real signs therapy will work, the signs it won’t, and how to know if your relationship is ready to transform.
Most couples don’t ask me this question out loud.
They walk into my office—tired, guarded, careful with each other’s eyes—and they ask something safer:
“Can you help us?”
“Are we fixable?”
“Is it too late?”
What they really want to know is: Will couples therapy work for us, or are we beyond repair?
Let me start with a story.
A Couple Who Wasn’t Sure They Would Make It
Recently, I worked with a couple on the brink of divorce. They loved each other deeply but were stuck in a pattern of high-conflict, rupture, withdrawal, and panic. Over the years, a few arguments had escalated into physical altercations. Trauma lived in the room with them—old wounds from childhood, new wounds from each other, and a long history of fear that neither partner would ever truly be understood.
They came to me for an intensive, exhausted but willing. One partner also began their own individual therapy. They cried—a lot. They uncovered triggers and attachment fears. They learned how to interrupt old patterns in real time, how to apologize, how to speak to each other’s vulnerabilities, and how to create real structure and safety in their daily life.
Were they perfect afterward? No.
Did therapy “fix” them? Also no.
But they showed up. They leaned in. They practiced outside session.
And because of that, therapy worked.
The Reality-Based Answer: Couples Therapy Works When Both Partners Show Up Fully
As a licensed marriage and family therapist (LMFT) who practices PACT and ISTDP, I won’t sugarcoat this:
Couples therapy works when both partners choose the relationship over their defenses.
Not when they say they want it.
Not when they threaten each other into showing up (although sometimes that’s how couples start in therapy).
Not when they “try therapy” but expect the other person to change first.
Therapy works when both people decide:
“I’m willing to look at myself as much as I look at you.”
And unfortunately, most couples come years too late—after resentment has calcified, after patterns are deeply grooved, after emotional injuries have stacked up without repair.
That doesn’t mean “too late” is actually a deadline.
But the later couples come, the harder the work legitimately becomes.
What Couples Think Therapy Is vs. What It Actually Is
A common misconception couples bring in is this:
“The therapist will give us advice and fix our relationship for us.”
Absolutely not.
In PACT and ISTDP work, therapy is not passive. You won’t come in, sit on a couch, talk to me, and wait for insight to happen.
I am active in the room:
I interrupt.
I stop fights immediately.
I direct and shape the conversation.
I coach you in real time.
I help you talk to each other, not just to me.
I point out unconscious patterns, defenses, and threat responses as they happen.
I help you feel the emotional signals you’ve been avoiding.
This is closer to coaching, neuroscience-based intervention, and attachment repair than it is to a calm, talk-it-out session.
Therapy is experiential.
It’s now-based.
It’s work.
And it works when both partners engage.
The Harder Truth: When Therapy Doesn’t Work
I once worked with a couple who had been together for decades. Significant trauma on both sides. Years of unspoken resentment. One partner refused therapy entirely until divorce was threatened.
They did make progress—more insight, better communication, moments of closeness. But as soon as the husband realized how emotionally demanding the work would be, he pulled back. He wanted change without discomfort. He wanted a transformed relationship without transforming himself.
And so therapy hit a wall.
Not because they were “broken.”
But because one partner tapped out of the process.
Couples therapy doesn’t fail people—people disengage from the very process that could save them.
The Signs Couples Therapy WILL Work for You
Research consistently shows that couples who benefit most from therapy share these traits:
1. Both partners are actively invested.
Not “I’ll try if they try,” but:
“I’m doing this because I want to be better for myself and for us.”
2. You’re willing to work outside the session.
Homework, structure, new behaviors, follow-through.
Neurobiologically, repetition builds new pathways.
3. You’re willing to look inward as much as outward.
PACT and ISTDP ask you to tolerate emotional intensity and examine your own defenses.
Couples who improve can tolerate discomfort.
4. You’re willing to seek additional support (individual therapy, trauma work).
Couples therapy is not designed to treat all trauma.
When both people get the support they need, the relationship benefits.
5. You believe the relationship is worth fighting for.
Not the fantasy of who your partner could become—but the actual person in front of you.
The Signs Couples Therapy Won’t Work—At Least Not Right Now
Here are the most consistent predictors that couples therapy will stall or collapse:
1. One or both partners will only work if the other person changes first.
This creates a gridlock that therapy cannot break.
2. One partner is attending only to avoid consequences.
(“I’m here because they threatened to leave.”)
3. Emotional injuries have gone unrepaired for so long that both people are emotionally numb.
You can still make progress, but it takes much longer. You feel worse before you feel better, because you begin to feel the pain and anger again when you reengage.
4. One partner refuses to look at their own contribution to the dynamic.
This is a therapy killer.
5. There is a belief that the therapist should “fix us.”
Therapists guide, interrupt, coach, confront, hold—but we don’t rescue.
Why So Many Couples Come Too Late
After six years of working with married, high-conflict, traumatized, infidelity-recovering, and neurodiverse couples, I can tell you this:
Most couples wait far too long.
By the time they show up:
resentment has built up for years
defenses are automatic
emotional injuries are layered
partners are operating from survival mode
patterns feel “normal” even when they’re painful
This is why I often tell couples:
“Don’t wait for a crisis to get help.”
The best time for couples therapy is:
early in the relationship
before marriage
before the first child
at the first sign of recurring conflict
These couples learn repair skills early.
They build secure functioning from the start.
And they avoid the entrenched patterns that make getting therapy later so difficult.
What Couples Therapy With Me Looks Like
My approach is structured, directive, grounded in science and your feedback.
Session Options
Weekly or biweekly sessions
Intensives ranging from:
4-hour half days
Full 6-hour days
Multi-day immersions
How We Work
We set specific goals together.
We return to those goals every session.
I use Feedback Informed Treatment (FIT) to measure progress at every single appointment.
I give actionable homework and skills-based assignments.
I intervene actively in conflict to help you create safety in real time.
You will work hard.
You’ll be challenged.
You’ll be coached.
You’ll get honest feedback.
And if both partners are invested, relationship therapy is one of the most life-changing experiences you can have together.
How to Know If Couples Therapy Will Work for You
Here’s a reality-based, practical checklist:
✔ You want to understand your partner—not just win arguments.
✔ You’re willing to talk about uncomfortable emotions.
✔ You’re open to interrupting your automatic defensive patterns.
✔ You’re ready to practice new skills outside the session.
✔ You’re willing to be honest with yourself.
✔ You can admit when you’ve caused pain—even unintentionally.
✔ You want this relationship badly enough to change for it.
If these resonate with both partners, therapy can absolutely work.
If they don’t, therapy might still help—but the road will be longer, harder, and uncertain.
So… Will Couples Therapy Work?
Here is my honest, clinician-tested answer:
Couples therapy works when both partners show up with humility, curiosity, and effort.
It works when you stop waiting for your partner to change first.
It works when you’re willing to turn toward each other instead of away.
It works when you practice what you learn outside the session.
It works when you commit to the relationship you want to build—together.
Couples therapy is not magic.
It’s commitment in motion.
And it can transform the relationship you’re afraid of losing.
Ready to Start? Let’s Talk.
If you’re reading this because you’re wondering whether therapy will help your relationship—reach out. Whether you want weekly therapy or an intensive, this work can change things faster than you think when both partners are willing.
👉 Book a session or schedule a consultation
Let’s see what’s possible for your relationship.
Couples Therapy in-person in Tacoma and online throughout Washington, Oregon and Utah
