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November 3, 2026 | Vicki Ailey-Roberson
Is Marriage and Relationship Counseling Right for You?
Learn when couples therapy may help, how Gottman and EFT work, and what to expect in the first sessions.
Could Counseling Help Your Relationship?
You may feel stuck in the same arguments, emotionally distant, or more like roommates than partners. This guide explains how to decide whether marriage and relationship counseling fits your needs, what evidence-based couples therapy involves, what to expect in the first several sessions, and when joint counseling should not be the first step.
Recognizing When It Is Time for Marriage and Relationship Counseling
Conflict alone does not mean your relationship is failing. A stronger warning sign is a pattern that neither of you can change despite repeated attempts. You may discuss money, parenting, intimacy, chores, or family boundaries only to end up in the same painful place.
At Ankeny Family Counseling, we help couples identify these patterns and create a safer way to discuss what is happening. Signs that it may be time to seek help include:
- You feel more like roommates than romantic partners.
- One person pushes for an answer while the other shuts down, withdraws, or leaves the conversation.
- Small disagreements quickly become personal criticism, defensiveness, sarcasm, or silence.
- Unspoken needs and unresolved hurts are creating emotional distance.
- You avoid important subjects because you expect the conversation to end badly.
- Trust has been damaged, and your attempts to repair it have not restored a sense of security.
The Gottman Institute identifies criticism, contempt, defensiveness, and stonewalling as destructive communication patterns. These behaviors can replace the original issue with a fight about who is at fault or who cares less.
Another common pattern is the demand-withdraw cycle. One partner pursues the conversation more intensely to seek connection or reassurance, while the other retreats because they feel overwhelmed or fear making matters worse. Both can end up feeling rejected. Our guide to why couples keep having the same fight examines this cycle in more detail.
How Evidence-Based Therapy Helps: Gottman Method and EFT
We use evidence-based approaches tailored to each couple, including the Gottman Method and Emotionally Focused Therapy, or EFT. Ankeny Family Counseling owner Vicki Ailey-Roberson, LMHC, specializes in couples work using Gottman and EFT, and our therapists provide LGBTQIA+ allied care.
The Gottman Method
The Gottman Method focuses on how partners communicate, manage conflict, respond to bids for connection, and maintain friendship. Therapy may help you notice criticism or shutdown as it happens, replace broad attacks with specific concerns, and make repair attempts before an argument escalates.
This approach is not about eliminating every disagreement. Couples can hold different views and learn to discuss them without causing the same harm. The work also addresses positive connection outside conflict, including affection, shared meaning, and awareness of each other’s inner lives.
Emotionally Focused Therapy
EFT looks beneath the surface argument. Anger, pressure, or withdrawal may protect more vulnerable feelings, such as fear of abandonment, loneliness, shame, or the belief that you do not matter to your partner. Understanding these emotions can help you respond to the need beneath the reaction.
Early EFT work aims to de-escalate the negative cycle. Later sessions help partners express vulnerable needs more directly and respond in ways that build emotional safety. This may be especially relevant when a crisis or betrayal has disrupted trust. Repair remains a structured process rather than a demand to forgive quickly. Couples addressing a relationship breach can also read our guidance on rebuilding trust after betrayal.
What to Expect: Intake, Sessions, and Timeline for Change
Beginning therapy does not require you to arrive with a shared explanation of the problem. Early sessions explore each person’s concerns, the relationship’s history, current stressors, and what you want to change. We assess your needs and work with you to set practical goals.
A clinician may ask about recurring arguments, emotional or physical intimacy, parenting, finances, trust, and commitment to the relationship. Assessment can include joint discussion, individual conversations, or questionnaires, depending on the therapist’s approach and your circumstances. Safety and confidentiality expectations should also be explained at the outset.
After assessment, sessions usually alternate between understanding the pattern and practicing new interactions. You might learn to raise a concern without attacking character, pause when either person becomes overwhelmed, or name a need that usually appears as anger. Practicing these skills during ordinary conversations helps turn insight into a more dependable habit.
Many couples at our practice begin to notice positive changes within 6–8 sessions, although that does not mean every concern will be resolved by then. Your timeline depends on your goals, the depth of disconnection, breaches of trust, outside stress, and how consistently both people engage. According to the American Association for Marriage and Family Therapy, marriage and family therapy averages about 12 sessions.
Meaningful, lasting change is possible when both partners are willing to participate in rebuilding the relationship. That can include listening differently, taking responsibility for harmful behavior, and trying unfamiliar ways of connecting.
When Joint Counseling Is Not the Right First Step
Joint counseling is not appropriate when speaking openly could put one partner at greater risk. Active intimate partner violence, threats, stalking, severe coercive control, or fear of retaliation require private assessment and safety planning rather than standard couples sessions.
Coercive control is different from an argument that escalates because partners lack conflict skills. It is an ongoing pattern in which one person uses physical, sexual, emotional, or economic control to dominate the other. The American Psychological Association explains this distinction and the importance of screening for violence and coercion before joint treatment.
Joint work may also need to wait when severe substance dependence or unmanaged psychosis prevents safe participation, or when an ongoing affair remains undisclosed and there is no commitment to address it. The next step may be confidential individual support, medical or substance-use treatment, domestic-violence advocacy, or a personalized safety plan. If you are unsure whether attending together is safe, seek a private assessment before involving your partner.
Taking the Next Step Together in Ankeny and Across Iowa
We offer in-person couples counseling at 1850 Southwest Plaza Shops Lane, Suite D, Ankeny, IA 50023, along with secure telehealth throughout Iowa. Evening appointments are available, and same-day appointments may be offered depending on availability.
We accept most major insurance plans and Medicaid, verify coverage before the first appointment, and offer flexible self-pay options when a plan does not cover therapy. Review our marriage and couples therapy services, then register online. After registration, call (515) 508-1150 to secure your appointment, or our scheduling team will contact you to finalize booking for in-person or telehealth care.
