We keep having the same fight.
One of you pushes to be heard. The other shuts down to keep things from getting worse. Both of you end up alone.
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Christian marriage counseling · Joplin & Webb City
You can believe your marriage is sacred and still be scared by what it has become.
I offer Christian marriage counseling for couples in Joplin, Webb City, and the surrounding Four States area. I’m Shira Hearn, LMFT, and I use Emotionally Focused Therapy to work with recurring conflict, emotional distance, betrayal, and intimacy concerns. We can include your faith when both of you welcome it.
You pray, apologize, promise to communicate better—and then the same argument returns. One of you reaches harder; the other shuts down. I help Christian couples slow that cycle, uncover the hurt beneath it, and rebuild safety, trust, and closeness.
$180per appointment
100–110 minutesenough time to do the work
In personnear Joplin & Webb City
Private payboth partners attend
When faith and effort have not fixed it
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You can love God, love each other, and still be caught in a pattern that hurts.
You may have prayed about it, promised to be kinder, read the books, or tried to let it go. Then the same trigger lands and both of you are right back in the same lonely place. That does not make your faith weak or your marriage hopeless. It means the pattern needs help.
We feel like roommates.
The household still works, but affection, curiosity, playfulness, and the feeling of being chosen have gone quiet.
Trust was broken.
You may want to forgive and still feel unsafe. Apologies alone have not stopped the questions, fear, shame, or defensiveness.
Intimacy feels loaded.
Sex, affection, rejection, or silence has become another place where pressure builds and both of you can get hurt.
What faith-integrated counseling means here
Faith belongs in the room.
Faith belongs in the room.
It should never be used against either of you.
I understand that words like covenant, forgiveness, submission, grace, and sexual faithfulness can carry enormous weight. I will not flatten those convictions into generic language—or use them to rush past pain that needs honest attention.
This is not a Bible study, and I will not preach at either of you. We can pray together, talk about Scripture, and wrestle with the hard questions. What does forgiveness look like when you’re still hurting? How do you love someone you’re struggling to trust? Those conversations belong here. The clinical work remains structured, ethical, and grounded in couples therapy.
No spiritual scorekeeping.
I will not decide which spouse is the better Christian.
No weaponized verses.
Faith will never be used to silence hurt, excuse harm, or force premature forgiveness.
No pressure to perform.
A skeptical, tired, angry, or uncertain spouse is still welcome in the room.
Wherever you are in your faith.
I meet you where you are spiritually—whether you’re just beginning your Christian journey or have walked with God for decades. You and your spouse don’t have to be in the same place.
Two kinds of support
Christian marriage counseling and pastoral counseling
Your pastor may know your family, understand your beliefs, and have walked with you through some of the hardest parts of your life. That support can matter enormously. When the same painful argument keeps returning, it also helps to have someone trained to work with what happens between the two of you.
“Christian counselor” can describe people with very different qualifications. Some offer licensed psychotherapy; others offer pastoral care or another form of support. Some pastors are also licensed therapists. Ask what the person is trained to do and what kind of service they are offering.
I’m a Missouri-licensed Marriage and Family Therapist, and couples are my entire practice. I use Emotionally Focused Therapy to slow down the argument, help you reach the feelings underneath it, and help your partner hear what you have been struggling to say. Faith can be part of that work. Prayer and Scripture are included when both of you welcome them.
You can continue receiving support from your pastor while you come to therapy. We can discuss whether any coordination would be useful and what you want shared.
Faith-informed. Evidence-based. Built for couples.
Prayer and good intentions matter. The cycle can still take over before either of you knows what happened.
I use Emotionally Focused Therapy (EFT) to help you understand what happens between you when connection feels threatened. We do more than discuss last week's argument. We slow the pattern down while it is happening and create a safer way to reach for each other.
See the cycle
We name the pursue, withdraw, criticize, defend, or freeze pattern so the problem is no longer simply your spouse.
Reach what is underneath
We find the fear, grief, longing, shame, and need for reassurance hidden beneath the reaction.
Practice a new response
You learn to stay emotionally present, speak vulnerably, and respond in ways that rebuild safety and trust.
Couples are my whole practice.
Why a couples-only therapist matters
Your marriage should not be squeezed into individual therapy.
Couples work requires more than being a good listener. It means tracking two nervous systems, protecting both partners, recognizing the cycle in real time, and helping each person reach the other without turning the session into a courtroom.
I am a Christian, a pastor's daughter, a Fuller Seminary–trained Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist, and an advanced student of Emotionally Focused Therapy. My caseload is couples exclusively. I understand church language from the inside—and I know clinical skill still matters.
- I will challenge both of you—and work hard to understand both of you.
- Faith can shape the work without deciding who wins.
- Advanced EFT training keeps the work focused on lasting relational change.
- Ongoing specialized study in sexual health supports honest work around intimacy.
When the hurt has a particular shape
Some wounds need more than a general marriage conversation.
Start with the concern that feels most urgent. Each path stays grounded in the same couples-only, attachment-focused work.
Repeated conflict and emotional distance
When every conversation becomes the same fight—or no conversation happens at all.
Explore this path →Affair recovery and broken trust
Structure for the questions, shame, hypervigilance, grief, and repair after betrayal.
Explore this path →Sex, desire, and covenant connection
A safe, non-performance-focused way to talk about intimacy, rejection, pressure, and longing.
Explore this path →Christian premarital counseling
Build a stronger pattern before old defenses and unspoken expectations become the marriage.
Explore this path →What repair can feel like
The goal is not a conflict-free marriage. It is to stop losing each other when conflict comes.
You notice the old spiral earlier. You say what actually landed instead of launching the counterattack. You stay in the room. Forgiveness becomes a process of honest repair—not pressure to pretend the injury no longer matters.
- You feel like teammates instead of moral opponents.
- Hard conversations stop becoming character trials.
- Affection and sex are not loaded with pressure.
- Faith becomes a source of courage and compassion—not leverage.
- There is room again for ordinary warmth, laughter, and closeness.
The practical part, minus the runaround
No mysterious pricing. No 50-minute cliffhanger.
$180per appointment
100–110 minutes · in person · private pay
Couples work needs enough room to get beneath the argument, help both of you feel understood, and practice something different before the session ends. My office is near the Webb City/Joplin border.
You do not need matching explanations—or matching enthusiasm.
Choose an appointment online. You do not need a complete relationship history, a rehearsed opening statement, or certainty that counseling will work. You both need enough willingness to show up.
See available appointment timesBefore you book
The questions Christian couples actually ask.
Do we both have to be Christian?
No. I work with couples of all backgrounds. If faith is part of how you understand your marriage, I will meet you there. If one partner is less certain—or does not want a faith-based frame—that difference will be respected, not argued away.
Will you use Scripture or prayer in our sessions?
When it is relevant and genuinely welcomed, yes. Scripture and prayer can support the work; they are not a substitute for the clinical work, and they will never be used to shut down pain or pressure either partner.
Will you take sides?
I will challenge both of you and protect both of you. Your relationship is the client. My job is not to name the better spouse or better Christian; it is to help both of you see and change the pattern that is hurting you.
What if one of us is skeptical about counseling?
You do not need matching levels of enthusiasm. Skepticism is welcome. You both need enough willingness to show up, be honest, and let us look closely at what keeps happening between you.
Can Christian marriage counseling help after an affair?
It can help you face the injury honestly, stabilize the relationship, and rebuild emotional safety if both partners are willing to do the work. Forgiveness is not treated as a shortcut around accountability or repair.
Do you take insurance?
No. Sessions are private pay at $180 for 100–110 minutes. Working outside insurance keeps the length and structure of the work focused on what your marriage needs rather than a claims department's rules.
What is Christian marriage counseling?
At my practice, Christian marriage counseling is couples therapy with room for your Christian faith. We work on the conflict, distance, trust, or intimacy concerns that brought you here, using Emotionally Focused Therapy. We can also talk about how faith shapes your marriage. Religious practices are optional, and both partners’ preferences matter.
Where do sessions take place and do both of us attend?
Both partners attend together, in person, at my office in Webb City near Joplin. Sessions last 100–110 minutes and cost $180. Couples travel here from Joplin, Webb City, and surrounding communities. I do not offer online appointments.
Can we come before we are married?
Yes. I also offer Christian premarital counseling. We can work on how you handle disagreement, ask for support, and talk about the expectations you are bringing into marriage, including faith, money, family, and sex.
Further reading
More room to think about your marriage.
You only need enough willingness to begin
You do not have to solve the whole marriage before you ask for help.
You can arrive hopeful, skeptical, exhausted, angry, or unsure. We will start with what keeps happening between you—and what each of you is trying so hard not to lose.
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