You’re having the same fight in different clothes.
It starts somewhere new every time — the dishes, the calendar, your mother, a tone of voice — and it always ends up in the same place. You both know the script. You could each perform the other’s lines. And neither of you can work out how to stop.
Nothing is wrong. Everything is off.
Most couples don’t come to me in crisis. They come because something has gone quietly flat and neither of them can name it.
You’re still functioning. The logistics get handled, the kids get where they need to go, the bills get paid. You’re polite. From the outside you look completely fine, which is part of what makes it so disorienting — there’s no single event to point at, no villain, nothing that would justify how lonely it feels.
But the conversations have got shorter. You’ve started editing what you say to avoid setting something off. There are two or three subjects you both steer around so automatically you barely notice you’re doing it. And when you do finally talk about something real, it goes sideways so fast that you file it away as evidence not to try again.
Somewhere in there you stopped being on the same team. Not through any decision. It just became easier to manage each other than to be close to each other.
You’re not failing at this. You’re caught in a pattern — one that’s far more common and far more changeable than it feels from inside it.
The cycle you’re both stuck in.
Almost every couple I see is running some version of this. The specific words change. The choreography doesn’t. And here’s the important part — each of you is responding perfectly reasonably to what the other is doing. That’s exactly why it’s so hard to stop.
Now read the two columns again, side by side. The pursuing makes the withdrawing worse. The withdrawing makes the pursuing worse. Neither of you is doing anything unreasonable, and together you have built a machine that runs without either of you steering it. That machine is the problem — not you, and not your partner. Most couples feel something loosen the first time they see it laid out like this.
Some of the reasons people call me.
You don’t need a catastrophe to justify getting help. Most of the couples I see are dealing with something on this list, and most of them waited longer than they needed to.
- The same argument on repeat, in different disguises
- Conversations that escalate before you know what happened
- Emotional distance you can’t explain and can’t close
- Feeling like efficient roommates or co-parents rather than partners
- Resentment that has hardened into something you can taste
- An affair, a betrayal, or a broken trust you’re trying to come back from
- A transition that knocked you off balance — a baby, an empty nest, retirement, illness, a move, a job
- Mismatched desire and a sex life neither of you is happy with
- One of you is wondering whether to stay
“Shared space”
kitchen table, porch, or two chairs by a window
This is not a weekly place to complain.
You already know what’s wrong. You’ve said it to each other, at length, more than once. Saying it again to me in a nicer room won’t change anything, and I’m not going to let sessions become that.
We map the choreography
First I want to see the dance in detail — who moves first, what the other does, what each of you concludes about the other in that moment. Once it’s visible, it stops being a mystery and starts being a pattern with parts you can change.
I interrupt it live
When the cycle starts happening in the room — and it will — I’ll slow it down or gently stop it. Not to referee. Because that’s the moment you can both actually feel what’s driving it, and that’s where change is possible.
You each find your own part
Not to assign blame — the opposite. Your part is the only piece you control, which makes it the only place your power lives. Most people find this a relief rather than an accusation.
We aim at something
Not just “stop fighting.” Closeness, ease, being on the same side, actually enjoying each other again. It’s far easier to walk toward a place you can both picture than to walk away from one you can’t name.
And it doesn’t only happen in session. The work continues between appointments — small, specific, practicable things, not homework for its own sake. Insight on its own is famously bad at changing a marriage. Repetition changes a marriage.
Warm, and honest enough to be useful.
People tell me I’m warm and steady and rather direct. I think respect can include challenge — in fact I think leaving the challenge out is a way of not really showing up. So I’ll like you, and I’ll also tell you the truth as I see it.
I hold couples as capable. Not fragile, not broken, not in need of managing. In fifteen years of working only with couples, I have almost never met a pair who didn’t already have what they needed — they just had it pointed in the wrong direction.
And I work with couples exclusively. This isn’t individual therapy with a second chair added. Everything about how I work — the training, the structure, the pacing — is built for two people in the room at once.
Sessions tend to feel like a workshop more than a confessional. A place to try different language, test a new move, and find out what happens when you do the opposite of your usual thing. Most couples leave a session clearer and calmer than they came in.
What you’re signing up for.
Both of you, always
Every session is the two of you together. I don’t hold individual sessions and I don’t keep secrets from either partner.
Three to six months, typically
Some couples finish sooner with a focused question. Some stay a year for something deeper. You’re not committing to forever.
By video, across Washington
HIPAA-compliant Zoom. Sit together on your own sofa, or join from two places when the week demands it.
Trained specifically in couples work
Emotionally Focused Therapy externship, PACT with Stan Tatkin, Crucible Therapy with David Schnarch, and AASECT certification in sex therapy.
What couples ask me first.
We’ve tried couples counseling before and it didn’t help. Why would this be different?
Usually because the previous therapy became a weekly report on the week. That’s comfortable and it changes nothing. I work on the pattern between you rather than the content of the latest argument, I interrupt the cycle while it’s happening in the room, and I send you home with something specific to practice. If your last therapist mostly listened, this will feel quite different.
What if we fight in session?
Good — genuinely. If the pattern shows up live, I can see it rather than take your word for it, and I can stop it mid-flight and ask what just happened. That’s far more useful than a calm description of a fight from last Tuesday.
Do you take sides?
No, and I’m not being diplomatic. I genuinely don’t think either of you is the problem — the cycle is. I will be direct with each of you about your own part in it, which sometimes feels like taking sides for about ten minutes, but it evens out because I do it with both of you.
Can couples counseling help after an affair?
Yes, and I’ve seen couples come through it into something more honest than what they had before. It takes time and it takes both of you willing to do hard things — the person who had the affair being genuinely accountable, the hurt partner being willing to eventually move toward repair. It isn’t quick and I won’t pretend otherwise.
Is it too late for us?
My honest answer: if there’s still love and goodwill between you, it’s not too late, almost regardless of how bad things currently feel. What I can’t work with is contempt, or one person who has already privately decided to leave and wants therapy as documentation. If you’re unsure which of those you’re in, that’s worth a conversation rather than a guess.
What’s the difference between couples counseling and sex therapy with you?
Mostly the presenting problem, and honestly the two overlap a great deal. If the relationship itself is where it hurts — conflict, distance, resentment — start here. If sex is where it hurts, start with couples sex therapy. Pick whichever feels closer and we’ll sort it out together; plenty of couples find we end up doing both.
You don’t have to stay stuck.
And you don’t have to work this out on your own. Tell me a little about what’s been going on between you, and we’ll find out whether I’m the right person to help.
Or call 206-919-9488 · change@jessazimmerman.com