What to Expect in Your First Couples Therapy Session

You’ve found a couples therapist and clicked on their scheduling page. Before you pick a time, you start wondering what you’ll say in your first couples therapy session.

You want to explain why things have felt so hard lately, but you can already hear your partner saying, “That’s not how it happened.” You wonder whether the therapist will think one of you is the problem. Or maybe your partner suggested therapy, and you’re worried you’ll spend the first session defending yourself.

In a first couples therapy session, the therapist usually wants to hear what brought each of you in, get some context about your relationship, and understand what you hope to change.

You don’t have to see the problems in your relationship the same way as each other to come in. I want to hear what things have been like for each of you.

What happens in the first couples therapy session?

In the first session, we’ll build on what you shared during the phone consultation, and take more time to talk about how those concerns are affecting your relationship day to day.

One of you may still be thinking about a fight last weekend, while the other is thinking about how lonely the past year has felt. You may both have noticed that most of your conversations are about things like who’s picking up dinner. Hearing what stands out to each of you helps us decide where to begin.

We may also talk about what is working well between you.

You might feel like a team when something goes wrong with the kids, and have a much harder time during a tense conversation about the two of you.

That difference gives us something specific to explore: What makes it easier to listen to each other in one situation, and harder in another? There’s no need to tell your whole relationship story in your first appointment, or to decide in advance which parts of it matter most.

What questions might the couples therapist ask?

I might ask you to walk me through a recent conversation that was difficult for one or both of you. Say you expected your partner home by six, and by seven you still hadn’t heard from them. If you argued when they got home, I might ask each of you when things started to feel tense for you. Was it when you looked at your phone and saw there was no text? Was it when you walked in and heard, “Where were you?”

Other questions might sound like these:

After your last argument, did either of you bring it up again, or did you go back to talking about everyday things without mentioning it?

When a conversation starts to go badly, what do you usually do next?

What have you tried to change, and what happened when you tried it?

Can you think of a recent time when you enjoyed being together or worked through a problem as a team?

If therapy were helping, what’s one thing you’d notice was different between you?

You might know you’re tired of having the same argument over and over, yet still have trouble saying what you’d like to happen differently the next time the subject comes up.

For example, you might say, “I’d like to be able to tell you I’m upset without spending the rest of the night wondering if I should have kept it to myself.” Your partner might say, “I’d like to be able to ask for a few minutes to think without you thinking I’m ending the conversation.” Those answers give us something specific to work on in therapy.

Will the therapist take sides?

When you describe an argument in your first session, you might downplay how angry you felt because you’re worried the therapist will think you overreacted. You may have tried to explain your side at home and felt that the harder you tried, the less your partner heard you. You can say that directly in session: “I’m afraid this is going to turn into a list of everything I’ve done wrong.” We can talk about that worry before we get into the argument itself.

My job is to understand each person’s experience and pay attention to what is happening between you. I may ask one partner to hold on for a moment so the other can finish. I might ask one of you how a comment came across, then ask the other what they meant by it. I can listen to both of you without assuming you’re equally responsible for the argument.

One of you may remember asking a question, while the other remembers feeling cornered. I might ask what you were hoping to find out when you asked, and what your partner heard that made it hard to answer. Understanding doesn’t equal agreement. You can disagree about what was said or in what order and still try to understand where your partner was coming from.

What if we start arguing in front of the therapist?

You might start talking over each other in session. Or one of you might go quiet and think, “I wish I hadn’t brought this up.”

If you start arguing in your first couples therapy session, I might pause the conversation and go back to the moment when it got hard to listen to each other.

Imagine you’re talking about a weekend plan that changed. One partner says, “I just wanted to know when you were coming home.”

The other answers, “It sounded like you’d already decided I did something wrong.”

I might pause and ask the partner who was waiting, “What went through your mind when you didn’t hear from them?”

Then I might ask the other partner, “When you heard that question, what did you think your partner was upset about?”

There may also be a straightforward issue to address: perhaps one of you had agreed to text and didn’t. We can talk about what made the argument upsetting for each of you, and still come back to the agreement to send a text.

What you’ve learned to expect from your partner

In my attachment-based work with couples, I’m interested in what each of you has learned to expect when you need something from someone close to you.

You might keep asking when your partner will be home because their plans have changed before and you’ve had to adjust yours at the last minute.

Or asking for a little time to think may feel risky because in earlier relationships, any hesitation was taken as proof you didn’t care.

We can look at what’s happened between you and how earlier experiences may shape what each of you expects from the other when a conversation gets difficult.

If one of you tends to keep asking for an answer while the other pulls away, I write more about how that pattern develops in The Anxious-Avoidant Relationship Trap.

What if one of us isn’t sure about couples therapy?

One of you may have spent months thinking about therapy. The other has only had a few days to consider it. You might agree that something needs to change, and feel differently about whether talking to a therapist will help. Or you might be worried your partner will hear your hesitation as a sign that you don’t care about the relationship.

If you’re unsure about starting couples therapy, you can tell me what’s making you hesitate. You could say, “I’m willing to come, but I don’t know what you’re expecting me to say,” or “I’m worried I’ll agree to something in the room because I don’t want to disappoint you.”

We can talk about what each of you would want help with if you came back for another session. And if one of you is still deciding whether to stay in the relationship, you can tell me that, too.

How can you prepare for your first couples counseling session?

If you’d like to prepare for your first session, think of one recent moment that shows what’s been hard between you.

It could be a conversation you couldn’t finish. Or maybe you remember the evening you realized you’d stopped bringing something up. You expected the same old argument if you brought it up again.

If you’re worried you’ll lose your train of thought in session, jot down a few words about what you want to say. You can each make your own notes. If you remember the conversation differently, you don’t have to sort that out before the session.

If you still have questions after the phone consultation, you can write those down, too. You might want to ask what you can do if you go quiet during a session or whether there’s anything you can try between appointments. If there’s a topic you want to bring up but don’t know how, you can say, “There’s something I want to talk about, but I’m not sure how to start.”

What can you expect to leave the first session with?

After your first couples therapy session, you may have a clearer idea of what you’d like to work on together. You might realize that when your partner goes quiet, you assume they’re ready to move on even though they’re still upset. Or you might notice that you stop talking about a disagreement but are still thinking about it the next day.

You might leave feeling relieved, upset, or unsure whether you want to schedule another session. Give yourself some time to think about whether you felt heard, whether both of you had a chance to speak, and whether you understood what the therapist suggested working on next. If you decide to come back, you can start with any questions that came up after the first session.

I offer couples therapy in Encino and online throughout California. If you’re considering starting, I offer a free 30-minute phone consultation. You can tell me what you’re looking for, ask questions, and get a feel for how I work before deciding whether to schedule a first session.