6 Things Your Marriage Therapist Wants You to Know

1) You didn’t get to this place in one day — I can’t get you out of it in one session either. Please, be patient.

When couples arrive in therapy, they’re usually coming in after years of hurt, miscommunication, shutdowns, or repeated destructive cycles. No therapist—no matter how skilled—can unwind all of that in 50 minutes. Healing isn’t linear, and it isn’t instant. Each session builds on the one before it, slowly helping you slow down, feel safer, identify patterns, and reconnect emotionally. Patience isn’t passive; it’s an active decision to stay committed long enough for real change to take root.

2) I can’t address everything you bring up—I don’t have time. EFT has a roadmap, so I’ll focus on what moves you forward.

Couples come in with so many important stories, hurts, and questions, but we simply cannot untangle all of them at once. Emotionally Focused Therapy (EFT) is structured for a reason: it follows a clear roadmap researched over decades. EFT focuses on your core emotional cycle—the deeper patterns underneath the surface fights (money, sex, parenting, chores). If we chase every issue as it comes up, we lose the bigger picture. My job is to distill what matters most, follow the roadmap, and guide you into a more secure, connected emotional bond. That’s how change actually happens.

3) Trust the process. It’s not easy to bring up painful things—but I’m here with you.

Talking about unmet needs, betrayal, loneliness, or years of emotional distance is incredibly vulnerable. EFT is deliberately designed to help you face hard things with safety, structure, and support. You may feel overwhelmed, exposed, or unsure if therapy is “working.” But the process itself—slowing down, naming what you feel, understanding your partner differently—is what transforms relationship dynamics.You don’t have to hold it alone. I’m here to guide, contain, and support you every step of the way.

4) Consider doing a multi-day intensive—because you can get farther, faster.

A 2–3 hour session, or a 1–3 day intensive, allows you to go deeper without breaking momentum. Traditional weekly therapy means you spend half the session “getting back into” the material. Intensives give you:

• fewer interruptions

• deeper emotional access

• quicker movement through the EFT steps

• the ability to address emotionally charged material while staying regulated

Research support:

Research on massed therapy (longer, more concentrated sessions) shows it can speed progress and improve outcomes, especially when addressing attachment trauma and relational distress. A notable study by Ecker, Ticic, & Hulley (2012) on “deep emotional processing” found that extended sessions increase access to memory reconsolidation—the brain mechanism behind lasting change. https://www.apa.org/pubs/books/4318126

While not EFT-specific, this literature supports why condensed emotional work leads to faster breakthroughs.

5) Fixing your relationship takes time — EFT research shows many couples need 40–52 sessions.

EFT is highly effective—70–75% of couples move from distress to recovery, and 90% show significant improvement—but it still requires time.The original EFT research by Johnson & Greenberg and later outcome studies (Wiebe & Johnson, 2016) found that the full EFT protocol often takes 40–52 sessions for deep, lasting change, especially in high-distress couples.

Research links:

• Johnson, S. (2004). The Practice of Emotionally Focused Couple Therapy.

• Wiebe, S. A., & Johnson, S. M. (2016). A review of the research in emotionally focused therapy. https://doi.org/10.1037/cou0000097

Therapy isn’t slow—it’s thorough.

6) You really do need to come every week. Consistency matters—research backs this up.

Couples who attend weekly sessions progress significantly faster and have better outcomes than couples who attend sporadically. Momentum matters.Therapy that happens every 2–4 weeks tends to stall because:

• you forget insights

• old patterns take over

• you lose emotional continuity

• the cycle re-strengthens between sessions

Research support:

A study in the Journal of Marital and Family Therapy found that weekly sessions lead to significantly higher treatment success than biweekly or monthly sessions (Sexton et al., 2004). https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1752-0606.2004.tb01224.x

Another study on therapy “dose” shows that consistent weekly attendance is strongly correlated with better outcomes across modalities. Hansen & Lambert, 2003: https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-006X.71.2.331

Weekly sessions keep the emotional window open long enough for change to actually stick.