By Spencer Posey, LMFT #141641, with a clinical focus on couples therapy and infidelity repair.
Couples rarely reach out to a therapist on an easy day. By the time most partners look into couples therapy, the same argument has repeated for months or years, trust may be bruised or broken, and one or both people feel alone inside the relationship. At Landmark Christian Counseling in Westlake Village, we work with couples who want more than a truce. This post explains why couples get stuck, how couples therapy works, and what you can expect if you begin this work with us.
Why do we keep having the same fight?
Most recurring fights follow a cycle rather than a topic. One partner pursues connection through criticism or pressure, the other protects the relationship by withdrawing, and each move triggers the next. The subject changes, the pattern repeats. Couples therapy helps partners see this cycle clearly, which is often the first step toward changing it.
Attachment research, built on the work of John Bowlby and Mary Ainsworth, offers a useful lens here. Each of us carries early experiences of how reliable people were when we needed them, and those experiences shape how we react to a partner's silence, distance, or anger today. A husband who goes quiet during conflict may be protecting the marriage the only way he learned how. A wife who presses harder may be fighting the fear of being left. When partners begin to see their reactions as understandable attachment responses instead of character flaws, blame tends to soften. Compassion gets room to breathe, and safer conversation becomes possible.
How does couples therapy actually create change?
Insight alone rarely shifts a relationship. Change usually comes from structured practice: naming the negative cycle together, slowing conflict down in session, and building new experiences of being heard and responded to. A therapist guides that process, keeps it safe for both partners, and helps new patterns take hold between sessions, where relationships actually live.
Two widely researched approaches shape much of modern couples work, and both are worth knowing about. Emotionally Focused Therapy, developed by Sue Johnson, helps partners identify their negative interaction cycle and express the softer feelings underneath their reactions, so they can reach for each other again. The Gottman Method, developed by John Gottman and Julie Gottman, teaches couples to spot the conversation habits that reliably damage connection, including criticism, contempt, defensiveness, and stonewalling, and to practice concrete skills for de-escalating conflict and strengthening friendship. Our couples work at Landmark Christian Counseling is shaped around each couple's specific history, pace, and goals rather than a single script. Between sessions, couples often practice small assignments: a different way to open a hard conversation, a nightly check-in, a repair attempt made sooner. Small moves, made consistently, are usually what turn insight into a different relationship.
Can couples therapy help after an affair?
Yes, though repair after infidelity asks more of both partners than general communication work. The betrayed partner needs safety, honesty, and room for grief before rebuilding begins. The partner who broke trust needs to offer consistent accountability, transparency, and patience. With structure and time, many couples find that honest reconnection becomes possible again.
Discovering an affair can produce trauma responses in the betrayed partner: intrusive thoughts, hypervigilance, waves of emotion that arrive without warning. Because betrayal trauma is one of our practice specialties, we pace couples work around those realities, making sure the betrayed partner is stabilized and both people are ready before the deeper repair conversations begin. Infidelity recovery moves in stages, and rushing the early stages tends to undo the later ones.
How does faith fit into couples therapy?
For couples who want it, faith can be woven directly into the work. Themes of grace, forgiveness, and restoration often speak deeply to partners trying to rebuild after hurt. We follow each couple's lead here: faith integration happens at your invitation and your pace, and couples of every background are fully welcome.
Sometimes one partner holds faith closely and the other holds it loosely, or has set it down altogether. We can work well with that difference. Forgiveness deserves careful handling in couples work: it is a process that belongs to the person who was hurt, and it unfolds on its own timeline. When couples ask us to bring prayer or scripture into a session, we do so thoughtfully and sparingly, always in service of the relationship in front of us. Shared beliefs can become a source of strength for the rebuilding work rather than a source of pressure.
What should we expect from a first session in Westlake Village?
A first session is mostly conversation. We hear how you met, what drew you together, and when things began to feel harder. Each partner gets room to share their perspective, and together we start mapping the cycle that keeps repeating. From there we shape a plan that fits your specific relationship and goals.
We see couples at our Westlake Village office and by telehealth anywhere in California, which helps partners with long commutes or mismatched schedules keep sessions consistent. Regular attendance matters; this work builds on itself week to week. If either partner is in acute crisis, individual support may need to come first, and the 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline offers free, confidential help by call or text at any hour.
Reaching out takes courage, especially when trust has been broken. Couples who begin this work often tell us the hardest step was the first phone call. Whatever season your relationship is in, honest help is available close to home.
Common questions
How long does couples therapy take?
Length varies with the couple and the goals. Some couples come for a few months to interrupt a specific pattern; others stay longer, especially when rebuilding after betrayal. We review progress together openly, so you always know where the work stands and can adjust the pace as your relationship changes.
What if my partner refuses to come?
You can begin on your own. Individual work on your side of the pattern often shifts things at home, and a hesitant partner sometimes becomes willing after seeing change happen. We can also help you think through how to raise the idea in a way your partner can actually hear.
Do you take sides in couples therapy?
Our client is the relationship. Each partner gets heard fully, and each will sometimes feel gently challenged. The aim is to help both of you see the cycle you share, take responsibility for your part in it, and practice new ways of reaching each other that feel safer for both.
Is couples therapy only for marriages in crisis?
Couples come to us at every stage: engaged partners building a foundation, spouses stuck in a frustrating loop, and couples recovering from serious betrayal. Earlier tends to be easier. Patterns addressed before years of resentment build are often quicker to shift, so waiting for a crisis carries a real cost.
Spencer Posey, LMFT #141641 | Landmark Christian Counseling | https://landmarkchristiancounseling.com
This content is for educational purposes only and does not constitute therapy or a therapeutic relationship.