Going to couples therapy is a significant time, emotional, and financial investment for most people. Feeling like you ‘tried couples therapy but it didn’t work’ is awful. I have written this post to share the reasons why couples therapy can be ineffective for some people to try and help reduce the chances of this happening to you.
What is couples therapy that ‘works’?
It’s important to first define what effective couples therapy is:
For couples that stay together, it usually means changing the way you relate to each other so that you both feel understood, respected, and loved. This involves building awareness and understanding of yourself and your partner, and learning to act and communicate in ways that support the health of the relationship.
However, it won’t always be the case that effective couples therapy results in a couple staying together happily and in love. Sometimes, the outcome will be that a couple parts ways, ideally in a manner that is healthy and respectful, even if it hurts.
People grow and change throughout their lives and sometimes this means they will grow and change away from each other. We often choose long-term partners when we are young (or even not so young) and still figuring out who we are and what is important to us. A relationship that we are drawn to at one stage of our lives or development is not necessarily the one that will fit us forever.
The end of a relationship, while often painful, does not mean it was a failure, just as merely staying together is not sufficient for a relationship to be deemed a ‘success’.
Why might couples therapy not work?
With this idea of successful couples therapy in mind, understanding why couples therapy might still feel ineffective and what you can do to minimise the chances of this being your experience can help build confidence in a more productive outcome.
Ineffective couples therapy can come about in several ways:
The therapist is not trained sufficiently.
The therapist or their approach to couples therapy is not a good match for you.
One or both people do not actually want the therapy to work/improve the relationship.
One or both people are not willing to take responsibility for their own part in the problems.
There is something happening that contraindicates couples therapy.
What is learned in therapy is not actively applied between sessions.
Let’s look at each of these factors individually in more detail.
1. The therapist is not trained sufficiently and/or
2. The therapist or their approach to couples therapy is not a good match for you.
These can be minimised by:
Screening a new therapist (not just going with the first therapist with availability) and checking they are trained in couples therapy (as it requires different skills and approaches than individual therapy);
Checking out their website or online profile and emailing or phoning to ask any remaining questions about their approach to couples work.
Take the first session or two to check that you and the therapist seem to get along well and you like how they are approaching the work.
If not, and you don’t think it’s just a matter of loosening up and getting to know each other a bit more, thank them for their time and find someone else.
Use what you learned from this experience in terms of what matters to you in a couples therapist and their approach as you screen for your next therapist.
3. One or both people do not actually want the therapy to work/improve the relationship.
Avoiding this requires each partner to be truly honest with themselves. It may be that this is something you come to realise through the therapy, and that’s OK. The decision to end a long-term relationship with someone you have spent so much time with deserves real thoughtfulness.
It might be that you still love and respect your partner but through therapy realise that even if the changes you were looking for are made, the relationship has still reached its natural end.
Couples often feel obligated to stay together through societal messages that separating is a ‘failure’, or that parents must stay together at all costs for their children, or other social pressures. This can mean that couples seek out therapy because they think they should, or they need to be able to say to others that they went.
External motivation like this does not usually work. There needs to be an intrinsic reason why you truly want this relationship to work with this particular person. At the very minimum, you need to want to feel in love with your partner again.
I have seen couples who clearly didn’t even like each other. You need to at least respect the other person in order to be motivated to work on your own part of things. Otherwise when things get tough, or your partner is not having a good day, you will feel completely unwilling to stay focused and dig deep to do your best.
If you are just going to therapy so you can say “I tried but it didn’t help” or to avoid being seen as the person who left, but your heart wasn’t in it so you didn’t really try, then give yourself and your partner (and your therapist!) the grace of being honest about this.
4. One or both people are not willing to take responsibility for their own part in the problems.
Taking full responsibility for your own part in what happens between the two of you is fundamental for seeing improvements in your relationship. Even if one of you is ‘worse’ in some particular aspect of the relationship, the other will still be involved in the response to it. Dynamics are co-created. Taking what I call "radical responsibility for your own side of the street" will give you the most power to create the changes you want.
All of us have individual and relationship strengths and weaknesses and there doesn’t have to be shame and defensiveness in acknowledging that. Our closest relationships allow us to buff up our rough edges, and this usually makes life easier and more enjoyable overall. Win-win!
5. There is something happening that contraindicates couples therapy.
A contraindication means that something else is happening that would make couples therapy ineffective at best, or harmful at worst. These generally include:
An affair that is still ongoing.
An active addiction problem (generally needs treatment separately first, though some couples therapists may work alongside addiction treatment).
A mental health disorder that significantly impacts how one or both partners are able to participate in the couples therapy. These generally need to be treated and stabilised first.
This includes anxiety, depression, and PTSD – couples therapy is hard work, so both partners need to have the mental and emotional bandwidth available so that the couples therapy is safe and not a source of further distress. Seeking individual support (and medication if useful/desired) first will help you to get into a place where you can get the most from subsequent couples work.
Untreated and unmanaged personality disorders also contraindicate regular couples work. As for the above, clients with Borderline Personality Disorder should seek individual support and treatment first to help them build the skills that will best position them for couples therapy.
Narcissistic Personality Disorder (or highly narcissistic traits) can prevent couples therapy from being effective, as it requires a high level of self reflection, humility, and willingness to change. Deficits in these abilities are hallmarks of NPD.
Abuse – couples therapy cannot work if both people are not safe to speak openly and there is no risk that someone will be assaulted afterwards. Physical safety is paramount.
Emotional abuse is more nuanced. Many relationships arrive in couples therapy with a degree of emotional abuse (name-calling, harshness, jealousy, etc) that can be targeted within the couples therapy if it is openly discussed with the therapist and there is a genuine commitment to stopping it.
Serious levels of emotional or psychological abuse however (threats to harm self/partner/others, power and control behaviour, consistent belittling behaviours, etc) would be a contraindication as it is psychologically unsafe for the victim(s) to remain within close proximity. In these situations, you may be advised to live separately and seek individual therapy first if you really want to remain in the relationship.
6. What is learned in therapy is not actively applied between sessions.
Many people understandably think (or wish!) that the changes that they need in the relationship will come about from something that is said or done within the therapy session.
I often tell couples that if I could wave a magic wand in session and they would instantly stop or start doing what they need to to have a great relationship, I would gladly do so, and also charge a hell of a lot more for it.
While couples in session can have blinding insights, truly healing moments of understanding, connection, and forgiveness, what we are often trying to do is achieve long-term change in habits and patterns of behaviour.
Changing a habit or pattern in a relationship is like trying to change or start any new behaviour – it takes intentional, consistent practice.
Imagine going to see a personal trainer at the gym on a weekly or fortnightly basis. You might get a hard workout, understand how to do the exercises with good form, and have them design an effective programme for you.
But if you don’t go to the gym on your own between sessions, follow your programme and push yourself, you won’t have made any progress in your health and fitness by the time you next see your trainer. Would you then conclude that personal training doesn’t work?
Applying what you learn in couples therapy between sessions means being able to recognise the old dysfunctional pattern and preventing or interrupting it.
As you work together with your therapist, you should gain understanding and compassion for why each of you do what you do in the relationship or conflict, and learn new tools and strategies for responding differently.
This is challenging. You are using and strengthening new muscles. You won’t get it right every time, and neither will your partner.
To use the personal training analogy, you will get busy and forget to do your workout. Or absent-mindedly drive straight home from the office instead of detouring to the gym. You'll be tired and want to sit on the couch instead of pushing yourself to do what's difficult.
But if you want change, it will come down to a commitment to keep trying as many days of the week as you can, not just on personal-training day.
You'll have to remind yourself of your reasons for working out, create reminders, and trouble-shoot barriers if you actually want to stick at it and build the habit of working out. And eventually it becomes more than just a habit - being someone who exercises regularly is part of who you are.
Couples therapy is the same. If all the other fundamentals are taken care of - you've found a well trained therapist that suits you, you are both in the right headspace and want to do the work, and you're taking responsibility for your own part in things -
its effectiveness comes from consistently applying the awareness and skills from your weekly or fortnightly sessions with the therapist to your everyday life and interactions until it becomes just the healthy way your relationship works.
I hope this article has provided food for thought on the reasons couples therapy can feel ineffective, and what can considered and done to make it work for you.
When couples therapy is effective, it can be life-changing not just for the couple and each individual within the relationship, but for any children they may have too. In this way, couples therapy can have far-reaching impacts that pay off for generations, a very worthwhile endeavour indeed.
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