Overcoming Resistance: How to Stay Open During Couples Therapy
If couples therapy feels uncomfortable, frustrating, or even threatening at times, you’re not doing it wrong. Resistance often appears when something meaningful is at stake, such as your sense of safety, your identity, or the future of your relationship. Learning how to recognize and move through that resistance can shift couples therapy from something you endure into something that actually brings clarity, closeness, and healing.
Understanding Resistance in Couples Therapy
Why do partners resist attending or participating in therapy? Because couples therapy asks people to face vulnerability before they feel safe doing so. Additionally:
- You might go silent when asked a difficult question.
- Your partner might deflect with humor instead of sharing real feelings.
- One of you may arrive late, forget assignments, or want to skip sessions when things get uncomfortable.
Can couples therapy work if one partner is resistant? And what does resistance in couples therapy look like? While resistance is a protective mechanism, it rarely affects just one person. When one partner shuts down, the other often feels abandoned or frustrated, creating a new cycle of disconnection.
6 Common Reasons Partners Resist Therapy
1. Fear of being blamed
Many people worry couples therapy will turn into a courtroom. If one partner raises concerns first, the other may assume they’ll be labeled the problem and brace themselves defensively.
2. Shame about vulnerability
Opening up doesn’t feel safe for everyone. For those who learned early on to keep emotions contained, sharing inner thoughts can feel exposing rather than healing.
3. Past therapy experiences
Past experiences that felt dismissive, biased, or unproductive can make it hard to trust the process again.
4. Fear of what you’ll discover
Couples therapy resistance sometimes protects against uncertainty. Facing deeper truths about the relationship dynamic, or yourself, can feel overwhelming before it feels clarifying.
5. Exhaustion from conflict
When conflict has gone on for a long time, couples therapy can feel like just another place to rehash the same issues, rather than a space for relief.
6. Different readiness levels
Partners rarely arrive at couples therapy at the same pace. When one feels pushed or rushed, resistance can become a way to hold onto autonomy.
How Resistance Can Impact Relationship Progress
How does resistance affect progress in couples therapy? Resistance often shows up quietly. One partner may disengage, minimize issues, or stick to surface-level topics while avoiding deeper emotions. Sessions can feel stalled, leaving the other partner feeling alone or unsure whether change is possible. The important thing to know is that resistance is information. When it’s recognized, it becomes something that can be addressed rather than avoided.
Strategies to Stay Open and Engaged in Sessions
1. Name your resistance out loud
When you feel yourself shutting down, say it: “I’m noticing I’m becoming defensive right now.” This simple acknowledgment creates space between you and the reaction.
2. Prepare before sessions
Take ten minutes before your appointment to check in with yourself. What are you feeling? What are you hoping for? What are you dreading? Writing these down can help you show up more authentically.
3. Remember your “why”
Why did you start couples therapy sessions? What do you hope will be different six months from now? Keep this vision front and center when resistance appears.
4. Focus on curiosity, not judgment
How can I stay open during couples therapy sessions? Instead of deciding whether something your partner says is right or wrong, get curious about it. Ask yourself, “What might make them see it this way?”
5. Take breaks when needed
If you’re overwhelmed, it’s okay to ask for a moment. Say, “I need a minute to gather my thoughts.” This is healthier than pushing through and shutting down.
6. Do the homework
Between-session assignments aren’t busy work. They’re opportunities to practice new patterns in your daily life. Engaging with them shows commitment to the process.
7. Celebrate small wins
Did you share something vulnerable today? Did you stay present when usually you’d check out? Acknowledge these moments. They’re building blocks of change.
Communicating Honestly Without Feeling Defensive
What strategies help reduce defensiveness in therapy? Defensiveness is resistance in conversation form. When you feel attacked, your nervous system kicks into protection mode. Your heart races, your thoughts scramble for counterarguments, and listening becomes impossible. To decrease the conflict:
- Use “I” statements – Focus on your experience, not your partner’s character. Example: “I feel unheard when I’m talking and you’re on your phone.”
- Pause before responding – Take three deep breaths before replying to prevent reactive responses.
- Ask for clarification – Avoid assumptions. Example: “When you said that, did you mean…?”
- Acknowledge what’s true – Find kernels of truth in your partner’s words to defuse tension.
- Own your part – Recognize your contribution without taking all the blame
- Express the fear beneath defense – Share the vulnerability behind your defensiveness. For example, “When you criticize how I parent, I feel like I’m failing our kids, and that terrifies me.”
The Role of Trust in Overcoming Resistance
1. Trust your marriage counselor first
If you can’t trust your partner yet, start by trusting your family therapist. A skilled mental health professional creates a safe supportive environment where difficult conversations can happen without escalating.
2. Trust the process, not just the person
Even if you’re angry with your partner, you can trust that the therapeutic process has helped countless couples before you. Sometimes trusting the method is enough to begin.
3. Start with small risks
You don’t have to share your deepest wound in session two. Trust builds incrementally. Share something slightly vulnerable and see how it’s received.
4. Repair matters more than perfection
Your partner will sometimes respond imperfectly to your vulnerability. What matters is whether they can acknowledge the misstep and try again. Trust grows through repair.
5. Trust yourself
How can trust and communication reduce resistance in sessions? When you trust yourself, you’re less dependent on your partner’s reactions. This internal trust is the foundation for taking authentic risks in couples counseling. Therefore, try to trust that you can handle difficult emotions. Trust that you’re strong enough to hear hard truths. Trust that you won’t fall apart if this conversation gets intense.
Tips for Supporting Your Partner Through Therapy
How to deal with a partner who is resistant to therapy? The approaches that follow center on empathy, pacing, and keeping the relationship intact while personal growth unfolds.
- Don’t criticize resistance – Acknowledge the difficulty instead of shaming: “I can see this is really hard for you.”
- Share your own vulnerability first – Model openness to make it safer for your partner.
- Validate feelings without agreeing – Acknowledge their perspective: “I understand why you’d feel that way.”
- Be patient with pace – Change takes time; pushing usually backfires.
- Notice and appreciate small efforts – Thank your partner for sharing, no matter how small.
- Address your own resistance – Work on your blocks to create mutual investment in the process.
When to Seek Additional Guidance or Support
When should a couple seek additional support if resistance continues? When resistance doesn’t soften over time, it may be a sign that something deeper needs attention. Extra support can help uncover what’s blocking progress and create a safer path forward for both partners.
- Persistent resistance – If you’re still shutting down after 6–8 sessions, discuss it with your family therapist; they may suggest a new approach.
- Feeling unsafe with your marriage counselor– If you feel judged or dismissed, it’s okay to find someone else; the couples therapist relationship matters.
- Individual trauma surfaces – Sometimes personal wounds tied to the different types of trauma need separate therapy alongside couples work.
- Substance abuse – These require specialized treatment before couples therapy can work effectively.
- Need a different modality – Some couples benefit more from approaches like cognitive behavioral therapy, emotionally focused therapy, or Gottman; ask about alternatives if the current method isn’t working.
How Staying Open Leads to Real Change
How do therapists help couples overcome resistance? The magic of couples counseling happens in moments of openness. This is one of the many benefits of couples counseling before marriage, learning how to communicate honestly, and build patterns of connection that support long-term partnership. When you lower your defenses, even briefly, transformation becomes possible.
- Seeing your partner differently – You notice their fears and longings behind complaints, shifting judgment to understanding.
- Understanding yourself better – Therapy reveals patterns you can now choose to change.
- Conflict feels less threatening – Difficult conversations build confidence and reduce fear.
- Deeper intimacy – Risking authenticity and receiving care strengthens emotional connection.
- Breaking generational patterns – Couples counseling helps you create healthy relationship habits to pass on.
- Feeling empowered – You recognize your agency and actively and positively shape your relationship issues.
Recognizing Signs of Progress Despite Resistance
What are signs that resistance is improving in therapy? Progress doesn’t always look dramatic. Small shifts, more openness, less defensiveness, or increased curiosity, often signal that resistance is softening and meaningful work is beginning.
- Awareness of patterns – Noticing defensiveness is the first step toward change.
- Longer engagement – You can stay present in conversations longer than before.
- Curiosity about your partner – You consider their perspective instead of only defending your own.
- Accessing emotions – Feeling sadness, discovering the hidden signs of depression, anger, or tears in session signals real progress, and may point toward finding the best therapy for anger management when strong reactions surface.
- Thinking about marriage counseling between sessions – Insights are integrating into daily life.
- Partner notices changes – They observe improved listening and safer communication.
- Self-compassion – You acknowledge mistakes without harsh self-judgment.
- Smaller conflicts – Disagreements escalate less and repair is quicker.
- Willingness to sit with discomfort – You accept uncomfortable moments as part of growth.
Breaking Through Resistance in Couples Therapy
Healing isn’t linear. Some sessions will feel easy, others difficult. You’ll make progress, then hit a wall. What matters is that you keep showing up and choosing openness.
The courage to stay open is one of the most powerful gifts you can give your relationship. Your relationship is worth the temporary discomfort, you are worth the vulnerability, and the love you’re fighting for is worth staying open for.
If you want to work with a marriage counselor or mental health professional to navigate these challenges and strengthen your connection, book a consultation today. We’re here for you. We understand you. We see you.