Couples therapy is always a reasonable choice for couples who find themselves wanting to improve their communication or intimacy issues to build a healthier relationship. Sometimes, relationship therapy is something partners with urgent needs undergo as it can address a range of problems, including mental health issues, life crises, and relationship distress. However, a lot of patients actually find that couples therapy is helpful at addressing ongoing issues and sustains the happiness and completeness of an already healthy relationship by teaching you and your partner how to communicate, accept any differences, solve relationship issues you are currently facing, and find common interests.

Couples therapy differs from family therapy because it is for a couple, any couple – married, non-married, monogamous, polyamorous, or even an individual working on a partnered relationship. This form of therapy can be helpful for relationships of any kind – whether you're in a long-term relationship, long-distance, an open relationship (or considering entering one), or all and none of the above. And couples seeking therapy don’t need to be married (or monogamous) to consider therapy. While family therapy may touch upon many of the same issues – reconciling troubled relationships and building healthy communication skills, couples therapy concerns the interests of the couple as well as the whole family.

A good couples counselor should be helpful to move the relationship forward by giving couples a safe and open space to talk and tackle problems that they may be reluctant to address. The exact focus of your treatment will depend on the particulars of your relationship counseling sessions, and your therapist’s approach. Understanding the basics of your relationship and comparing that to information about a counselor is a great basis for finding the right couples therapist and therapeutic tools for you.

What Couples Counseling Can Help With

Here are a few areas that couples counseling can help you with:

• Infidelity — whether that's a physical affair or emotional cheating. In the wake of an affair, marriage counseling can help you to see past the hurt and repair the relationship. Many couples come away stronger after treatment with a professional for infidelity issues.
• Life crises that are out of your control. A therapist can help you navigate the aftermath of a crisis together. That may include a situation like a medical illness, ongoing mental health issues, substance use relapse, job loss, or the death of a loved one.
• Difficulty communicating with each other. Whether you've always had a different fighting style, or you've recently hit a rut after welcomeing a baby into your life, relationship counseling can help you understand where your partner is coming from, develop better communication skills with effective tools, and create space for you to reconnect.
• Financial issues and money concerns. Money can be a heated, stressful subject. Discussing the "F" word (finance!) with the guidance of a seasoned pro can help cool things down and be honest where it really matters.
• Challenges related to sex and intimacy. Maybe you're not having sex, or maybe you're having sex but not feeling intimate, or maybe it just feels like you've lost touch with each other altogether. A couples counselor can help you be honest with your feelings and reconnect, especially in regard to intimacy issues. You can also work with a specially certified sex therapist who sees couples as part of their work.
• Issues with friends or other family members. Issues related to friends and family can be tricky. It could be that you've never felt respected by your in-laws and wish your partner had your back more when they're around, or perhaps you resent all the time your partner spends with their friends. Relationship counseling can help you find a middle ground where you both feel comfortable and respected.
• Getting ready for marriage. Some couples decide to attend premartial counselling before they tie the knot. The benefit of this highly specialized type of therapy is that it helps couples prepare for all aspects of marriage, from raising children and visiting in-laws, to how much sex they want to have, handling conflict, and sharing finances. Premarital counseling  can be religious (and some religions and beliefs require, or strongly urge, couples to attend, as with Pre-Cana in Catholicism), or it can be secular.
• General relationship skills and strengthening. You don't have to have a particularly acute problem to seek relationship therapy. In fact, many couples who seek counseling are simply looking for an added resource to strengthen their bond and make their relationship even happier!

What to Expect When Starting Couples Therapy

The first session will give you a glimpse of whether the therapist is right for you and your partner. However, it’s best not to immediately conclude that your chosen therapist can’t solve your problems during your first session.

Any therapy session, including couples therapy, usually takes three to four sessions to build rapport and allow the therapist to assess how they can help.

While the exact structure of your treatment will depend on your specific needs and your therapists' approach, here is the general structure of what you can expect from couples therapy:

• When you first meet, you'll discuss your shared goals and any concerns you have and set a treatment plan. You’ll often begin with an open-ended discussion of your concerns and goals around couples therapy, both as individuals and as partners. Together, you’ll work with your therapist to set up a treatment plan and shared goals in your early sessions.
• You may meet individually with your therapist before continuing treatment as a couple. Either before or after your first couples session, many therapists recommend starting with one or more individual therapy sessions. This way, the therapist can get to know you and your partner as individuals and get a balanced perspective on your work as a couple.
• Your therapist will recommend discussions and activities after they've gotten to know you. Once you've gotten to know your therapist better (and they you!), later sessions will include a mixture of discussion and activities. These activities might include role-playing, communication exercises, mindfulness practices, and conflict resolution techniques, among others.
• There's a good chance you'll have "homework" between sessions. If your counselor assigns homework between sessions – and many do – then your sessions will also include a review of that homework and how it may have affected your relationship outside of sessions. Homework might include trying out new communication strategies, scheduling time to spend together, or observing your typical interaction patterns.