Couples counseling in Seattle
Couples Counseling in Seattle
Most couples do not come to therapy the week things start to feel off. They come months or years later, after trying to handle it themselves, when the pattern has become too familiar to keep ignoring.
The moment couples usually reach out
It is rarely one thing. More often it is the same argument returning in a new outfit: the same fight about money, time, sex, parenting, or feeling unheard, just with different words attached this week. Sometimes one partner has been ready to get help for a while and the other has just agreed, which can make the first call feel lopsided before it even starts.
Sometimes the trouble is quieter than a fight. Two people who used to talk for hours now coordinate schedules and split chores, and the relationship has slowly become more like a logistics partnership than a marriage. Nobody did anything wrong, exactly, but the closeness thinned out somewhere along the way and neither person is sure how to get it back.
And sometimes there has been a betrayal or a disclosure: an affair, a secret, a pattern of dishonesty, a confession that changes what the other person thought they knew. In that case the question in front of the couple is not only how to repair, but whether repair is even what they want, and how to find out.
Deciding whether to stay
Some couples come in already fairly sure they want to work on the relationship. Others come in genuinely unsure whether to stay together, separate, or make one focused attempt at repair before deciding. Both are reasonable reasons to start. Couples therapy does not require certainty about the outcome, only a willingness to look honestly at what is actually happening between you.
What a first couples session is like
Not knowing what to expect keeps a lot of couples from calling in the first place. A first session is usually a conversation, not a test. I ask each person how they see the relationship, what has been hardest lately, and what brought you in now rather than earlier or later. I am listening for the pattern underneath the content: what happens when one of you reaches and the other pulls back, what happens after a fight, what each of you has stopped saying out loud.
Both partners get room to talk. I am not there to referee who is right. I am more interested in how the two of you get stuck together, and what might help you get unstuck, than in assigning blame for any one incident.
How I think about the work
My training is in marriage and family therapy, so I tend to think in terms of patterns rather than isolated incidents: how each of you learned to pursue, withdraw, protect, or repair, long before you met each other. I have experience with Emotionally Focused Therapy (EFT) and draw on that lens when it fits the couple in front of me, alongside a broader systemic and relational approach. I am not EFT certified.
Some couples I see are unsure whether to stay together, separate, or attempt a focused repair. I have studied discernment counseling and may draw from its structure to help those conversations become more honest and contained. I am not certified in Discernment Counseling, and I do not present this as a formal Discernment Counseling service.
Current context
I am currently in a supervised training context at Connection Therapy Center, which has offices in Seattle and Edgewood. This page is informational and does not create a separate scheduling, waitlist, or consultation path through this site. Current clinical questions should go through my CTC profile.