Can Couples Therapy Help Your Relationship?

My friends Jenny and Jon* have always seemed like the perfect couple. They laugh at each other’s jokes, eat off each other’s plates and have just the right amount of competitive spirit when playing Euchre and “That’s Not a Hat.” So, I was surprised when Jenny said they were going to couples therapy. Naturally, my brain went to the dark side. Was he cheating on her? Did he have a secret family? Did he even like card games?Before I got too far down the rabbit hole, Jenny said they’d been bickering about small things, and she didn’t feel heard in their relationship. Couples therapy, she said, was helping them get on the same page and back to enjoying time together. Ironically, when couples therapy started back in the 1930s, it didn’t have much to do with interacting with your partner. Couples had individual, separate therapy sessions focused on individual problems, which yes, sounds just like individual therapy. But I digress. Over the decades, couples therapy had its a-ha moment: Put couples together in a room with a licensed therapist. Now more than 7 out of 10 psychotherapists offer couples therapy, and research shows up to half of couples in the U.S. have tried therapy at some poi...