Couples Therapy

What this is

Couples therapy is a space where two people can say the difficult thing with someone in the room to keep it safe.

Most couples who come to me are not fighting about what they think they are fighting about. The argument on the surface — the money, the phone, the in-laws, the chores — is usually standing in for something older and harder to name: not feeling chosen, not feeling respected, not feeling wanted any more.

Almost every couple has a pattern: the same disagreement in different clothes, arriving on a loop, each person certain the other started it. We slow the conversation down enough for both people to be heard, and for the pattern to become visible. Then we look at how you each learned to handle conflict long before you met, what happens in your body the moment things escalate, and how you repair afterward — which matters far more than never rupturing at all.

What it can help with

The same argument, on a loop, for years
One of you raises everything and the other goes quiet and leaves the room
After an affair, or after a secret came out, whatever you decide to do next
Living like efficient housemates and not touching
Constant low-level irritation with someone you do love
Money, and what each of you learned money means
Families — his mother, her mother, whose holidays, whose expectations
Disagreeing about children: whether to have them, or how to raise the ones you have
Rebuilding after a long stretch of stress, illness, or being apart
Deciding whether to continue at all, and wanting to do that decently

What a session is like

Let me answer the fear both of you are arriving with, because it is usually the same fear on both sides: that this will turn into a trial, and that I will decide who is right.

I will not. It is not my job and it would not help you. Two people can each describe the same evening accurately and describe it completely differently, and that is not a lie on either side — it is what a pattern looks like from the inside. So I am not gathering evidence. I am watching what happens between you, which is a different thing entirely.

Practically: you both talk. If one of you takes up more of the room, I will bring the other in — not to score it evenly, but because I need both parts to see the shape. I will interrupt when the conversation starts sliding into the old track. That is most of what I am doing in the room.

You control what you say. If there is something you are not ready to put on the table, do not put it on the table. Neither of you will be cornered into an apology to move things along.

And this matters: coming here does not commit you to staying together. It commits you to understanding what happened. Some couples leave closer. Some arrive at the decision to separate and do it with less damage than they would have alone. Both of those are honest outcomes and I am not steering you toward either.

Practical details

Session length: Ask when you message — I’ll tell you before you book
Fee: Ask when you message — I’ll tell you before you book
How many sessions: It depends on what you come with. We review as we go, and you decide whether to continue
Languages: Ask when you message — I’ll tell you before you book
Where: In person at Center St. Elie in Antelias, or online
Cancellations: Ask when you message — I’ll tell you before you book
To book: Either partner can message me on WhatsApp or call 03-267-243. Both of you are welcome to message me beforehand with questions.

Common questions

My partner thinks this is a trap to prove them wrong.

That is a reasonable thing to suspect, and it is worth saying out loud in the first session rather than sitting on it. Nobody is here to be prosecuted. If your partner wants to message me first and ask what actually happens, they can, and I will answer honestly.

What if only one of us wants to come?

Then come alone. Working on your own side of a pattern is real work and it changes what happens at home. A reluctant partner sometimes joins later; sometimes they do not, and the work is still worth doing.

Will you tell us to break up, or tell us to stay?

No. That decision is yours and it should stay yours. What I can do is make sure you are making it with a clear view of what has actually been happening, rather than in the middle of a bad week.

Will you repeat to my partner something I tell you privately?

Therapists handle this differently, so I set out how I handle it at the start of the first session — before either of you has told me anything private. It deserves an answer up front, not a surprise later. If you want that answer before you book, ask me on WhatsApp or call 03-267-243.