Is marriage counseling the same as couples therapy?

At Denver Men’s Therapy, we use “marriage counseling” and “couples therapy” interchangeably. Our approach helps couples at any stage of their relationship, married or unmarried, to build healthier communication patterns and strengthen their emotional connection.

Who needs couple counseling?

Any couple experiencing challenges like constant arguments, emotional distance, trust issues, or difficulties navigating life transitions can benefit from couples counseling. Our therapists provide the support and guidance you need to build a stronger, more fulfilling partnership.

How do I know if my partner and I need relationship counseling?

If you find yourself stuck in negative communication patterns, feeling emotionally disconnected, or struggling to resolve conflicts, it may be time to consider relationship counseling. Our therapists can help you identify the underlying issues and develop practical strategies to improve your relationship.

Can your counseling really save my relationship?

While there are no guarantees in life or relationships, couples counseling at Denver Men’s Therapy has helped many partners rediscover their love and build a stronger, more resilient bond. Our structured, goal-oriented approach addresses the root causes of your challenges and provides you with the tools to navigate future obstacles together.

What if only one partner wants to go to couples counseling?

It’s not uncommon for one partner to be more open to couples counseling than the other. If this is the case in your relationship, we encourage you to express your concerns and desires openly and honestly with your partner. Emphasize the importance of working together to improve your relationship. Consider starting with individual therapy to work on your own personal growth and gain clarity on your needs.

Is your couples counseling confidential?

Absolutely. At Denver Men’s Therapy, we prioritize the privacy and confidentiality of our clients. All couples counseling sessions are strictly confidential, and we adhere to the highest ethical standards in the mental health profession. You can trust that your personal information and the details of your relationship will be kept safe and secure throughout the counseling process.

Couples Counseling Services

Falling in love tends to just happen, but finding your way back to love takes commitment and genuine effort from both partners.

Relationships are one of the most rewarding parts of life…and often, one of the most challenging. A partnership is a team sport. It brings together two personalities, backgrounds, and value systems. Similar to paddling a canoe, you learn how to move in harmony with one another, you develop a rhythm. This becomes the pattern of the relationship, the flow you return to both consciously and unconsciously. Sometimes the rhythm can falter, the canoe becomes off-balanced. The once-great ride is now bumpy. You will need to find a way to sync up again or risk tipping over. Both partners will need to learn a new way to paddle. For this reason, it can be extremely valuable to work in tandem with a couples’ therapist. Our goal here is to help men in every phase of life, including in your relationships, which is why we offer couples counseling in Denver along with individual therapy for men.

Couples counseling in Denver Men’s Therapy focuses on creating healthy patterns of communication.

We typically spend 8-12 weeks working with a couple. It is not an open-ended dialogue where we rehash the same issues over and over. The focus is to move you out of reactivity and into conscious responding to each other’s needs. We find that those goals can be met within a few months for most couples.

Meet Our Couples Therapists

Alexis Ward, MFT

I offer individual therapy for men and couples therapy in Denver and virtually. I help my clients find their way back to healthy communication and emotional intimacy through understand the cycle of their conflict and learning to express their needs in a more effective way.

BRANDON BOLDEN, LMFT

As an LMFT in Denver, I help men work through past and present obstacles that cause confusion about who they are, create a sense of instability in their personal/professional lives, and get in the way of healthy relationships with themselves, their loved ones, and their communities.

Couple Therapists in Denver

As couples therapists in Denver, we work with couples to prioritizes what is practical and effective. Our intent is to get a clear sense of what each person wants to address and create a plan for accomplishing those goals within a 4-8 week framework. In a partnership, it works best if both people are moving in the same direction, or one person’s growth can feel to the other like they are being left behind. Let’s work together to make sure you don’t tip the canoe!

We work with clients and their significant others on a variety of issues that affect a relationship.

Some examples include:

Infidelity
Communication
Blending Families
Grief and Loss
Childhood trauma impacting the relationship
Substance use and abuse
Intimacy
Critical decision making
Life transitions

Individual and Couples Counseling

Depending on your unique situation, you may be needing to see an individual therapist and couples therapist at the same time. We will help your partner understand the process you are undergoing and the changes it is most likely provoking in you so that they can feel included in the process and aware of how they can support you. We will explore how your individual therapy has affected the relationship and establish goals regarding how you would like to grow together. If your partner understands why you might be reacting differently and feels motivated to support your growth because they see how it aligns with the goals of the partnership, you are far more likely to integrate and sustain what you learn in individual therapy

What to Expect in Couples Counseling

Couple’s counseling at Denver Men’s Therapy focuses on 9 different steps:

Identify what issues in the relationship are causing conflict.
Come to clearly understand the cycle of reactivity through which these issues are expressed.
Explore the core needs and unacknowledged emotions that underlie these patterns of reactivity.
Look at the areas of conflict through the lens of the cycle you have been experiencing, the intimate emotions not being expressed, and the inherent human needs that those emotions arise out of.
Cultivate self-awareness and self-acceptance in regard to your needs and emotions.
Develop compassion and acceptance for your partner’s needs and emotions.
Create healthy ways of expressing your needs to one another that increases the likelihood of those needs being met. Facilitate connection through responding to one another in new, more loving ways.
Reexamine old problems from this more connected place. Explore solutions.
Solidify new patterns of communication and maintain the intimacy you have developed through the healthy expression of and response to each other’s needs

If you and your partner have fallen into a rut, can’t get out of resentment with one another, are exhaustedfrom having the same argument over and over with no resolution, are navigating your way through a major life transition, are trying to heal from a betrayal, orjust feel like there is a distance between you, engaging in couple’s therapy can be a tremendously healing and rewarding process.

Falling in love tends to just happen, but finding your way back to love takes commitment and genuine effort from both partners. It can be the beginning of a whole new level of intimacy and the start of a wonderful new chapter in your lives together.