What Your Couples Therapist Is Getting Wrong

About Your High Conflict Relationship

You and your partner fight—a lot. Your fights are unproductive and unresolved. So you march yourselves to couples therapy to get some help.

But you start to notice that the help isn't helping. Maybe it feels like you just reopen wounds in every session and are left with barely enough time to patch them up. Or perhaps you play out your typical conflict dynamic in front of the therapist who watches with overwhelm or confusion. You might start to circle the root of your patterns, going back to your childhoods and families of origin to understand why you each tick the way you do.

And it might feel good in the moment, like you're starting to get somewhere. But then, your next conflict comes around and lo and behold, absolutely nothing has changed. The way you fight is preserved in amber, protected and pristine, untouched by the hard work you're doing in therapy.

You think, "respectfully, what the fuck are we doing all this therapy for if we are still going to fight like this?"

Friend, you are not alone. I have spent years shouting on the internet that high conflict couples are a specialty population who many generalist couples therapists are simply not prepared to help. I wrote a whole book about how high conflict couples actually heal (coming April 2027!) because I know so much of the support you're finding just doesn't fit.

So today, I'm breaking down exactly what might be going wrong in your couples therapy—plus what to do if you realize that your therapy is going sideways in exactly these ways.