Couples Counseling: When It Helps vs. When It Harms

For couples experiencing relationship issues that they can’t seem to solve on their own, seeking marital or couples counseling is often considered the next step.

However, it’s not always the best. You may not know that experts in the field of abuse and trauma say couples counseling is strictly contraindicated when any form of abuse is present.

In this post, you’re going to learn:

When couples counseling isn’t always the best option
When couples counseling is not appropriate
Why couples counseling exacerbates trauma in cases of abuse
When it’s time to stop therapy

Understanding the goals, purpose, and types of counseling you need can help you choose the best course of action and prevent you and your partner from entering a therapeutic setting that is unhelpful at best and traumatic and harmful at worst.

Is Couples Counseling Right for Your Relationship?

While couples counseling has resulted in transformative work among many intimate partner relationships, it is not the solution to every relational problem.

First, if abuse is not part of the relationship, there are reasons to seek couples counseling that can lead to good outcomes. Among these are problems with physical or emotional intimacy, conflict resolution, communication styles, broken trust, needing a safe space to tell your partner something important, or you both feel that something is missing in the relationship but aren’t sure how to fix it. If you and your partner have mutual respect and a desire to listen and validate one another and are committed to making the marriage work, seeking an expert’s advice is often a great option. Without expert help or objective guidance, the problems can grow in intensity until they feel too numerous or overwhelming to work through, despite your commitment to one another.

So, when is couples counseling not appropriate?

Here’s the short answer:

Couples counseling is not appropriate when any form of emotional, physical, or sexual abuse is suspected or has been identified.

It's also not recommended when one partner is coercive, not fully committed to the process, or when there are severe untreated mental health issues present.

Nearly half of women and men experience subtle or overt forms of emotional abuse in their intimate relationships. And the hidden forms of manipulation and covert emotional abuse tactics are extremely difficult to detect.

Not all counselors, pastors, law enforcement, coaches, etc., are trained to recognize and address abuse. Often, therapists don’t even know they are not adequately trained in best practices. So, they unintentionally respond to or advise in ways that cause further harm.

In his book “Why Does He Do That,” author and abuse expert Lundy Bancroft surmised the problem this way:

“Attempting to address abuse through couple’s therapy is like wrenching a nut the wrong way; it just gets even harder to undo than it was before.”

In a situation where a couple is seeking counseling, and abuse is not present, both partners can own their part and work together toward a solution.

However, this is never true in a relationship where abuse is present.

The abuse must be confronted and thoroughly resolved, and reparations made commensurate to the harm done before couples therapy can be an appropriate option - if it becomes one.

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When Couples Counseling Causes More Harm

When a victim is placed in the same room as an abuser, it can be a highly traumatic experience, if not in the session, then following the session.

Several harmful dynamics can occur during couples counseling where abuse is present in the relationship:

To form a trust alignment with the abuser, the therapist may take time to critique ways the victim may be responding to the abuse. Abuse is traumatizing, and responses are often involuntary. Therefore, the focus needs to remain 100% on the abuser’s faulty beliefs and thinking as well as the specific harmful behaviors that are being displayed for the victim to experience the validation she needs and deserves. Even if the therapist indicates that 10% of the problem is due to the victim’s behaviors, the abuser will treat the 10% as though it is 100% of the problem. If the therapist does not fully align with the victim, the victim is exposed to new trauma and feelings of abandonment by the therapist. These experiences will exacerbate the victim’s trauma.
Focusing on the victim’s reactions during any couples counseling session gives power to the abuser to ignore their behaviors while shifting blame onto the victim.
The victim often needs help understanding the importance of establishing stronger boundaries. It’s usually best to discuss healthy boundaries and boundary setting with consequences determined without the abuser present. The victim has a lower sense of self-worth and lacks confidence. Discussing these fears and viewpoints should be done privately. Otherwise, the abuser will exploit what he learns about his partner.
It’s not unusual for victims to have a hard time describing the complicated nature and specifics of hidden forms of manipulation, intimidation, and covert emotional abuse. This can lead to the therapist not fully understanding the nature and severity of the abuse nor the need for intervention, which adds further trauma to the victim.
Victims may also be afraid to fully disclose what is happening within the relationship for fear of retaliation when they get home. Sharing vulnerabilities in front of the abuser in therapy does not create a safe therapeutic environment for the victim.
Couples therapy can take a long time and can cause the victim to experience increased trauma. Victims become exhausted, which only makes trauma symptoms worse.
The abuser learns therapeutic terminology and twists what the therapist says, which is then used to blame and pathologize the victim incorrectly.
When an abuser participates in therapy, they deny, blame, and avoid responsibility. They lie, distort the truth, assert false accusations against the victim, and use a shred of truth with omissions to confuse the therapist. If the victim is present, these behaviors are highly traumatizing. If the therapist is not expertly trained to clearly and quickly see the signs of manipulation, the victim will be harmed by both their partner and the therapist. The victim will feel that nothing they say will lead to an accurate intervention and that two people are against one. For a victim who is already traumatized and confused, this professional maltreatment or misdirected therapy exacerbates the victim’s trauma.
In couples therapy, the therapist rarely takes sides. They treat the problems as though they are mutual relational issues. Abuse is not a relational problem. Abuse is a choice the abuser makes; it’s not a mistake, and it’s never the victim’s fault.
For many couples, marriage carries spiritual implications, and they may not fit well with a counselor who disagrees with their core beliefs. But be cautious. Most faith counselors have little to no experience in understanding or responding to emotional abuse. They often believe that only physical violence is considered abusive. They may feel strongly that the institution of marriage is more valuable than the victim and children’s emotional and physical safety inside the marriage. Or, they place the lion shares of the responsibility on the woman to submit to her husband and die to herself. Even so, if there is no infidelity in the relationship, there is a common belief among religious counselors that there is no justification for the woman to use her voice, set boundaries with consequences, separate, or divorce.
Victims of hidden forms of emotional abuse often languish in prolonged states of stress and confusion for months, years, or even decades, not understanding the reasons behind their relationship problems. The patterns of destructive behaviors are too complicated to identify or describe. They have not yet learned the proper language, identified as a victim of abuse, or accepted that their partner is an abuser. Suppose you have begun couples therapy before gaining clarity about your situation. In that case, it’s essential that your counselor not confuse wanting to support both partners with their professional obligation to support the victim entirely. They also should not over-confront or shock you with the information but speak with you privately to share what they believe is happening in your relationship. Then, after you have absorbed the reality of your situation, and only with your consent, it can be very validating to be present when the therapist communicates to your abusive spouse that the core reason for the relationship problems is domestic violence. In some cases, this would not be safe. The victim needs to be the one to determine what next steps are best for them. It may be time to confidentially make an exit plan and not disclose plans to the abuser until the victim is fully prepared to do so.

These are just a few of the reasons it is not advisable for couples who are experiencing abuse to undergo couples therapy until they each have been in individual therapy and their therapists and the victim have seen longstanding evidence of change in the abuser.

When It’s Time To Stop Therapy

We encourage you to trust your gut instincts when it comes to therapy.

If something seems “off” in the initial assessment sessions or after multiple meetings as time goes on, you can pause to pay attention to that feeling. Or maybe you don’t feel that your therapist is willing to confront destructive patterns in a timely fashion or support you if you are being victimized or in a way that matches your situation; regardless of why, listen to your gut when it doesn’t feel right or isn’t working well for you. It is okay and acceptable to stop therapy and seek help elsewhere. There is no obligation to continue sessions if you don’t feel the therapist understands the patterns or dynamics or isn’t fully supporting the victim in the process.

And you might not fully understand why you’re feeling uncomfortable or what it is that feels off. That’s normal and okay. Still, trust your instinct.

Not every counselor is a match.

In Conclusion

Relationships are intricate, filled with highs and lows, joys and challenges.

Couples counseling can be a transformative tool for many relationships facing typical issues, but where abuse is present, it can be traumatizing.