Within the first session or two, marriage counsellors make silent assessments about whether this relationship is viable.
We look for criticism, contempt, defensiveness, and stonewalling.
Particularly contempt.
Research shows that contempt is the single best predictor of divorce.
When I see genuine contempt — not frustration or anger, but true disdain — I know the relationship is likely over.
Contempt means one or both partners have fundamentally lost respect for the other. And you can’t rebuild respect through communication techniques or date nights.
We’re also assessing:
Is anyone actually willing to change? Or are they here to prove the other person is the problem?
Is there any remaining affection or goodwill? Or has the relationship calcified into bitter resentment?
Are they fighting to stay together or fighting to be right? There’s a crucial difference.
Has one person already emotionally left? Sometimes people come for counselling to ease their guilt about a decision they’ve already made.
Research shows that viable couples have “accessibility, responsiveness, and engagement” — the sense that your partner is there for you emotionally.
When all three are absent, when neither partner turns toward the other, the relationship is functionally over, even if they’re still living together.
I can usually tell within two sessions whether a couple has these qualities. And if they don’t — if what I’m seeing is contempt, emotional abandonment, and entrenched patterns neither person wants to change — then I know couples therapy is likely a waste of their time. But I’m not supposed to say that.
I’m supposed to “give therapy a chance”, and “work with their ambivalence”, and “facilitate their process”.
Even when I can see they’re just prolonging the inevitable.
The Types of Couples I See (And Which Ones Can Actually Be Helped)
After years of doing this work, I’ve started categorizing the couples who walk into my office. Because not all struggling relationships are created equal.
Type 1: The Fundamentally Sound Couple Going Through a Rough Patch
These couples still like each other. They have shared history that matters to both of them. They turn toward each other, even in conflict. They’re willing to be vulnerable, to acknowledge their own contributions to problems, to actually listen to their partner.
They might be dealing with a major stressor — new baby, job loss, family illness, or infidelity. They need help navigating it, but the relationship foundation is solid.
These couples? Therapy works beautifully. We process the crisis, rebuild trust if needed, learn better communication patterns, and they leave stronger than before.
This is maybe 20% of the couples I see.
The Couple Where One Person Has Already Left
One person is done. They’ve emotionally exited the relationship, sometimes months or years ago. But they agreed to therapy because their partner begged, or they feel guilty, or they want to say they “tried everything” before filing for divorce.
Research on “mixed agenda couples” shows this dynamic is incredibly common — and incredibly difficult to work with. The person who’s left won’t admit it (sometimes not even to themselves). They go through the motions of therapy, but nothing changes because they’re not actually invested in the outcome.
I can usually spot this by the end of the first session. The checked-out partner is polite but disengaged. They agree to do homework but don’t do it. They acknowledge problems but show no urgency about fixing them.
The other partner is desperate, trying everything, making themselves smaller to please someone who’s already gone.
These situations break my heart because the abandoned partner doesn’t see what I see: Their partner’s body language, their flat affect when talking about the relationship, the way they light up when the conversation moves away from the marriage.
I want to pull the desperate partner aside and say, ‘They’re gone.’ Stop begging someone to stay who’s already left.
But if I say that too directly, they often just find another therapist who will let them keep trying.
The Fundamentally Incompatible Couple
These are people who were never really compatible but didn’t realize it until they were already married, maybe with kids. They don’t fight particularly badly — they just have completely different values, needs, or visions for life.
One person wants kids; the other doesn’t. One person needs emotional intimacy and deep connection; the other is perfectly happy with a companionate partnership. One person’s identity is built around their career; the other prioritizes family time.
Personality similarity predicts relationship satisfaction better than almost any other factor. When core values and needs are mismatched, no amount of communication skills will create compatibility.
I can teach them to fight more constructively. But I can’t make them want the same things from life.
These couples sometimes stay together and build functional-but-not-passionate partnerships. But often one or both partners spend years feeling fundamentally unseen by their spouse.
The Couple Staying Together for Wrong Reasons
Fear of being alone. Religious prohibition against divorce. Not wanting to disappoint family. Worrying about finances. Believing children need an intact household, no matter what.
These couples are miserable but trapped — or believe they’re trapped — by external factors.
Research on divorce and remarriage shows that children in high-conflict intact families often have worse outcomes than children whose parents divorced amicably. Staying together “for the kids” when the relationship is toxic doesn’t protect children — it teaches them that misery is normal in intimate relationships.
But try telling that to parents who’ve built their entire identity around keeping the family together.