How Do I Know If We Need Couples Therapy—or If This Is Just a Rough Patch?

Every relationship goes through difficult periods.

Stress at work, young children, illness, aging parents, financial worries, sexual difficulties, or simply being exhausted can leave two people with much less patience and tenderness for each other. Couples may argue more, have less sex, spend less time together, or feel temporarily disconnected.

That does not necessarily mean your relationship is in trouble.

So how do you know when you are going through a rough patch—and when it might be time to consider couples therapy?

After many years of working with couples, I think one of the most important questions is not “Do we fight?”

It is “What happens between us when something goes wrong?”

Healthy couples fight, too

One of the myths about good relationships is that happy couples don’t have much conflict. They do.

Partners misunderstand each other. They become defensive. Someone says something they wish they hadn’t. One person wants to talk while the other wants space. Old sensitivities get activated.

The difference is often what happens afterward. Can you calm down and come back to each other? Can one of you say, “I didn’t handle that very well”?

Can you become curious about what your partner was actually feeling? Can you apologize—and can the apology be received?

Can you find your way back to affection?

Psychologists call this repair. The ability to repair after disconnection is one of the important signs of a resilient relationship.

A rough patch can hurt. But the relationship still has a way home.

When the same argument keeps happening

Couples often come into my office saying some version of:

“We keep having the same fight.”

The subject may appear to be money, sex, parenting, household responsibilities, in-laws, or how much time someone spends on a phone.

But frequently the subject isn’t really the problem.

The cycle between the partners has become the problem.

One partner may pursue harder because they are frightened by the distance:

Why won’t you talk to me?

The other becomes overwhelmed and withdraws:

Nothing I say is ever good enough, so why bother?

The withdrawal makes the first partner more anxious, so they pursue even harder. That makes the withdrawing partner retreat further.

Before long, both people feel alone.

Neither partner necessarily created the cycle deliberately. Both may actually be trying to protect the relationship—or themselves—but their protective strategies trigger each other.

Couples therapy can help slow this dance down enough for partners to see what is happening underneath it.

Some signs that it may be more than a rough patch

I would pay attention when conflict is no longer followed by meaningful repair.

Perhaps you are beginning to avoid difficult subjects because talking always makes things worse. Maybe arguments escalate quickly or end in days of silence. Affection and curiosity about each other have diminished. Resentment is accumulating.

Other warning signs can include contempt, chronic criticism, defensiveness, emotional withdrawal, increasing loneliness within the relationship, or a growing sense that your partner is no longer emotionally safe to approach.

Sometimes one partner has begun imagining life outside the marriage—not necessarily because they have decided to leave, but because they can no longer imagine how the relationship could become different.

And sometimes there has been a significant injury such as infidelity or another betrayal. In those situations, simply deciding to “move on” rarely heals the wound. Trust usually has to be rebuilt deliberately.

Don’t wait for a crisis

One thing I wish more couples knew is that you don’t have to wait until your relationship is on the verge of ending before seeking help.

Couples therapy is often easier when there is still goodwill between partners.

Think of it less as an emergency room and more as a place to understand what has begun happening between you.

Sometimes a relatively small change in the pattern can create a surprisingly large change in the relationship.

What if only one of us thinks there is a problem?

This is very common.

Usually one partner has been unhappy longer. That person may have been asking for counseling for months—or years—while the other thinks things are basically okay.

If your partner repeatedly tells you that they are lonely, unhappy, or worried about the relationship, I would take that seriously even if you don’t experience the relationship the same way.

You don’t have to agree about how bad the problem is in order to become curious about why the person you love is hurting.

And sometimes it really is a rough patch

Not every difficult season requires therapy.

If you can still talk honestly, repair after disagreements, show affection, laugh together, respond when the other person reaches out, and remember that you are on the same team, you may simply be weathering a difficult period of life.

Relationships have seasons.

The question is whether the stress is passing through your relationship or gradually becoming the relationship.

That distinction matters.

A question worth asking each other

If you’re wondering whether you need couples therapy, try asking each other:

“When we get disconnected, do we still know how to find our way back to each other?”

If the answer is usually yes, you may have more resilience in your relationship than you realize. If the answer is increasingly no, you don’t have to wait until one of you has given up.

Couples therapy can help you understand the pattern that has developed between you, strengthen your ability to repair, and begin creating a different way of relating.

At the Center for Healing and Resilience in Northfield, Minnesota, I work with couples using approaches including Gottman Method Couples Therapy, Emotionally Focused Therapy, and Relational Life Therapy. My goal is not to decide who is right or wrong. It is to help couples understand what happens between them—and whether they can build a safer, more connected relationship.

Sometimes the most important reason to seek help isn’t that your relationship is broken. It’s that you don’t want to wait until it is.