COUPLES THERAPY & MARRIAGE COUNSELING IN VIRGINIA AND WASHINGTON, DC

You've built a good life together. You just can't seem to reach each other anymore.

Two careers. Maybe kids. A full life on the outside. And somewhere along the way, the two of you quietly became the last thing on the list.

Meaningful work. Children you're devoted to or are planning for. A life that, by every external measure, is going well.

Behind closed doors, something isn't working anymore.

Conversations that should be simple become tense, circular, or end in silence. You've had the same argument enough times that you both know exactly how it ends — which is why one of you has stopped starting it, and the other has stopped expecting anything different.

You've become very efficient at coexisting.

You used to be more than that.

Something is eroding.

You still care about each other — that's not the question. The question is whether caring is enough to close a distance that keeps growing, slowly, without either of you fully choosing it.

And you've been in it long enough that it's starting to feel like just the way things are.

And the distress is getting unbearable.

NOTE: If you are in crisis with some sort of betrayal or infidelity, follow this link to see how I can help.

To everyone around you, your life looks right.

Most couples arrive here after a long stretch of “fine.”

Fine means the logistics are handled. The kids are fed, the schedules are managed, the house runs. From the inside, you and your partner have quietly (or maybe loudly) been existing in the same space without actually reaching each other.

You've both noticed. Neither of you knows how to say it without starting something.

So you don't.

What that erosion actually costs:

You stop bringing the real version of yourself to the relationship.

Not dramatically. Incrementally. You learn which topics create tension, so you avoid them. You learn what your partner's shutdown looks like, so you stop pushing. You get efficient at coexisting and call it a good week. Or you’re the one who shuts down because your partner’s feelings and needs overwhelm you.

Meanwhile, one of you keeps trying to get through — through an argument, through intensity, through saying the same thing a different way. And the other one keeps going quiet, or leaving the room, or waiting for it to pass.

Neither of you is wrong. Both of you are exhausted.

The waiting trap:

Most couples wait for a sign that things are bad enough to justify asking for help.

The relationship doesn't feel broken — it feels flat. Managed. Like a business partnership that used to be something else.

That threshold never arrives clearly.

What arrives instead is the quiet awareness that you've been waiting for a long time, and things haven't changed on their own.

They won't.

pink picture of the shadow of a couple kissing

You're not people who ignore problems. You're people who solve them.

You've probably already tried. The conversations, until they went sideways. The books. The podcast. Maybe a previous therapist who helped you understand your patterns without changing them.

Understanding your patterns doesn't interrupt them.

In the moment, when one of you goes quiet and the other escalates, or when a conversation about schedules becomes about everything that's wrong, insight doesn't help. You know what's happening. You can name it. You still can't stop it.

That's not a failure of effort or intelligence. It's a failure of method.

Why lots of couples therapy doesn't work:

Most couples therapy is built around talking about the relationship. You describe the conflict. The therapist reflects it back. You gain perspective.

And then you go home. The same moment arrives. Your nervous system does exactly what it always does — because talking about something is not the same as changing how you respond to it in real time.

The couples who've tried therapy before and didn't find it useful aren't wrong to be skeptical. They're right that something was missing.

What was missing: the actual moment — where connection is either made or broken — and someone trained to work with what happens in that moment, not just after it.

If any of this sounds like your relationship, you don't need to read further to know it's time.

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Most therapists are trained to work with individuals. I trained specifically in couples.

That distinction matters.

What happens between two people isn't just two individual psychologies sitting next to each other. It's a system — with its own patterns, its own momentum, and its own moments where everything either opens or closes.

The cycle you're living in isn't a character flaw in either of you. It's what happens when two people with different ways of managing connection get locked into a pattern neither of them chose.

My work is grounded in PACT — the Psychobiological Approach to Couple Therapy — a structured, research-informed approach that focuses on what happens between you in real time, not what you report about it afterward.

Rather than always talking about your conflicts in the abstract, we work directly with what unfolds between you in the room: your reactions, your assumptions, the split-second moments where connection is made or missed.

This is experiential work. It's sometimes uncomfortable. It moves faster than traditional therapy because we're not waiting for insight to trickle down into behavior — we're changing the behavior directly, as it happens.

Sessions look different too:

Longer — typically 90 minutes to two hours
More focused — on interaction, not just discussion
More efficient — many couples need fewer total sessions than with talk-based approaches

I've built practices across four continents, working with people from more than 20 different countries.

I've worked with couples navigating pressure that most therapists in this area haven't encountered in the same depth — professional demands, cultural complexity, the specific strain of a life that looks successful from the outside and feels increasingly thin from the inside.

I know what it takes to change something that's been stuck for a long time.

This work is well-suited for couples who:

Are functional and competent — and aware that something between them has shifted

Feel more disconnected than explosive — though the arguments happen too
Have tried to fix it on their own and run out of road
Are both willing to look honestly at their own contribution — not just what the other person needs to change
Want a real partnership again, not just a well-managed household

One or both partners believe the problem is located entirely in the other person's behavior and are not willing to examine their own contribution.
In that case, the goal of therapy becomes convincing the therapist of a position. That's not therapy. It's arbitration.
Couples in acute safety crisis
Couples whose primary goal is deciding whether to separate rather than working on the relationship
For those situations, I'm glad to refer you to colleagues who specialize in that work. If you're not sure which category you're in, the consultation will help clarify that.

This work is not the right fit when:

The first session is often a relief.

Not because it's easy, but because for the first time, someone is in the room with both of you, paying attention to what's actually happening between you rather than to each of your individual accounts of it.

What changes over time:

Patterns that once felt automatic become visible. You begin to respond differently because something has shifted in how you experience each other in those moments.

The relationship becomes more secure. Not perfect. Not conflict-free. But a place where both of you can be more fully yourselves, where repair is possible, and where the distance that brought you here is no longer the dominant experience.

What working together looks like

Before couples therapy

Conversations feel transactional: logistics, schedules, the management of daily life.

When something harder comes up, it escalates or ends in silence.

The same conflicts repeat. One of you reaches; the other withdraws.

You love each other and increasingly feel like strangers.

The distance has become so familiar it almost passes for normal.

After couples therapy

Conversations feel different: calmer, more accurate, even when the topics are difficult.

You listen with more precision and feel more understood.

Conflict becomes something you move through rather than something that moves through you. The pursuit and withdrawal that defined your dynamic loses its grip.

You function as partners again, not just co-managers.

The relationship becomes a source of steadiness rather than another thing that requires management.

Two ways to work together

Ongoing Therapy

Weekly or biweekly sessions of 90 minutes to two hours. A steady rhythm for couples who want consistent support as the work unfolds. Works well when the relationship feels strained but not in acute crisis.

Intensives and Retreats

Longer sessions — typically three to six hours — scheduled close together. Designed for couples who want to make meaningful progress more quickly, or whose schedules make weekly sessions difficult. Many couples use an intensive as a starting point and continue with ongoing sessions for integration.

Learn more about Intensives and Retreats

Not sure which is right for you? We'll figure that out together in the consultation.

You found this page because you're the one who noticed.

Maybe your partner knows things aren't right. Maybe they're less sure, or less willing to say it out loud. But you're the one who searched. You're the one reading this right now.

Here's what I know about this moment: it doesn't stay open indefinitely.

Not because things will suddenly get worse — but because life fills back in. The next week arrives. The kids need something. Work gets demanding. The conversation you almost had doesn't happen. And the version of yourself that opened the laptop and started looking quietly closes it again and waits for the next time things feel bad enough to do something.

You don't need to have everything figured out before reaching out. You need enough willingness to begin.

A consultation is a conversation, not a commitment. We talk about what's happening in your relationship, how you've been trying to address it, and whether the way I work is the right fit. You'll know by the end of it whether this feels right.

The couples I work with are capable, busy, and tired of feeling like strangers to each other. They don't need to be in crisis to deserve support. They just need to decide that the distance is no longer acceptable.

If that's where you are, I'd like to talk.