Couples Counseling
Substance use rarely sits inside one person. It moves through a relationship — through the late-night arguments, the things that didn't get said, the moments one of you stopped trusting the other to drive home. Couples counseling is for the relationship, not for picking a side in it.
Who couples counseling fits
Couples around substance use come in at a few common moments: when one partner has just started recovery and the household is recalibrating; when one partner wants the other to start and the conversation has stopped going well; when both partners use and want to renegotiate the relationship around that; or when a relapse has happened and what comes next is unclear. We've worked with all of these.
What a session looks like
Sessions are 60–80 minutes, usually weekly to start. The first one or two sessions are an assessment — we listen to both of you, separately and together, to understand the shape of the relationship and what each of you actually wants. From there, sessions are structured around skills (communication, repair, deescalation), patterns we've identified, and the specific issues you bring in each week.
What we draw from
- Gottman Method Couples Therapy — particularly the work on bids, repair attempts, and the four communication patterns that predict distress.
- Emotionally Focused Therapy (EFT) — for couples whose work is more about attachment and cycles of withdrawal/protest.
- Behavioral Couples Therapy for substance use — an evidence-based approach specifically designed for couples where one or both partners have a substance use disorder.
What it can help with
Communication breakdown around use, trust repair after relapse, deciding next steps, parenting around recovery, sex and intimacy in early recovery, sober dating, and the particular disorientation that comes when "the household has stopped knowing how to be" after major change.
If only one of you can come
That's okay too. Many partners of people with substance use start in individual therapy or in our family-and-loved-ones group (see Family of Loved Ones in Recovery) before — or instead of — couples work.