Marriage & Couples Counseling
Getting support isn’t giving up. Couples counseling that helps you find your way back to each other, in person and online.
Navigating Marriage & Couples Counseling
What Is Couples Counseling?
Couples counseling is structured, evidence-based therapy that helps partners understand the pattern underneath their conflict and rebuild communication, trust, and connection. It gives both of you a place to be heard, and a framework for changing the cycle you keep getting stuck in, rather than settling the argument of the week.
Our couples work is grounded in a systems perspective. In our work with couples, we don’t look for who’s right and who’s wrong. We look at the pattern between you, and at how pressure from outside the relationship (work, health, family) feeds the loop. Counseling isn’t only for marriages in crisis, either: we see married couples, long-term partners, and engaged couples who want to start strong.
Communication & Recurring Arguments
The same fight on repeat is rarely about the dishes. We help you find the cycle underneath it and change how it runs.
Trust, Infidelity & Betrayal
Rebuilding after a rupture takes more than apologies. Counseling brings structure to repair, accountability, and the slow return of safety.
Intimacy, Distance & Life Transitions
Distance rarely arrives all at once. A new baby, a move, an empty nest: transitions redraw the relationship, and counseling helps you redraw it together.
Illness, Caregiving & Health Stress
A diagnosis changes both partners’ lives. When infertility or chronic illness strains the relationship, that’s the strain a behavioral medicine practice knows best.
Premarital Counseling
Strong marriages front-load the hard conversations: money, family, roles, expectations. Before the wedding, not after.
Roles, Money & Expectations
Different ideas about roles, money, career, or having children put quiet pressure on a partnership. Counseling makes those expectations explicit, so you can negotiate them instead of colliding with them.
Why Do Couples Wait So Long to Get Help?
Most couples don’t seek marriage counseling when problems start. They wait, and the waiting is what does the damage. When was the last time a disagreement between you actually ended somewhere new? The research on couples who eventually reach therapy tells a consistent story: help works, and it’s sought far too late. We’ve seen what changes when couples stop waiting.
Randomized Trials Say It Works
A 2019 meta-analysis of 33 randomized trials found medium-to-large gains in relationship satisfaction. Journal of Marital and Family Therapy
%
Of Caregiver Burden Is Marital
When health stress hits, marital satisfaction explains 41% of the variation in caregiver burden. PMC, 2019
How Do You Get Started With Couples Counseling?
Starting is the part most couples get stuck on. Here’s exactly what happens, from the first call to your first session together.
Start by Reaching Out
Call us directly, fill out the interest form, or schedule a free consultation, whichever is easiest for the two of you.
One-on-One Intake Conversation
Our intake team reviews your information and reaches out for a one-on-one call to talk through your history, concerns, and goals. If you would rather skip the phone, this step can happen over email.
Expert Therapist Match
Based on your needs and preferences, we match you with a therapist trained in couples work, factoring in the type of therapy that fits your situation and your location for in-person or online care.
Start Your Journey Together
Once matched, you begin sessions together at our office or through our secure online platform, whichever works best for you both.
How We Work With Couples
Both partners count here. Every plan is built around what the two of you actually want to change.
Built Around Both of You
Every couple arrives with a pattern. We help you see yours, interrupt it, and build the skills to keep it from running the relationship, without either of you on trial.
A Systems Lens
We treat the pattern between you, not one identified patient. Both partners get heard in every single session, and both of you shape what the plan focuses on next.
Skills You Take Home
Communication and repair tools that you practice in session and then use at the kitchen table that night, rather than insight that stays behind in the office.
Health Stress Expertise
When illness, infertility, or caregiving strains a relationship, your therapist understands both the medical side and the marital side of what you are carrying.
Honest Timelines
You will get a straight answer about progress and about pace. If something is not moving, we say so and change the approach rather than letting the sessions drift.
In Person or Online
Weekly sessions in our Burbank office, or secure online therapy across every state we serve, so counseling fits the week you actually have, evenings included.
Why Choose Rowan Center for Couples Counseling?
Illness, infertility, caregiving, and stress aren’t background noise in a relationship. For many couples, they’re the fight itself. Our practice was built to treat exactly that: the relationship and the life pressing on it, together.
Couples work led by licensed therapists. You’re matched with one therapist who stays with your work from the first session on.
Book a free consultation
Approaches backed by randomized trials, including emotionally focused and behavioral methods, with progress you can see session over session.
Talk with a therapist
Couples counseling that treats a health crisis as part of the relationship story, not a footnote. That focus is rare, and it’s ours.
See if we’re a fit
A warm office in Burbank that feels more like a living room than a clinic, with privacy you can count on.
Find a time that works
A free consultation before you commit, so you both can tell whether the fit feels right.
Get started today
Evening appointments and telehealth options that work around both of your schedules.
Ask about availabilityFrequently Asked Questions
About Couples Counseling
Is it too late for couples counseling to help us?
Rarely. Couples often arrive convinced they’re the exception, usually after years of the same conflict. The evidence says otherwise: a 2019 meta-analysis of 33 randomized trials found couples therapy produces medium-to-large improvements in relationship satisfaction. What matters more than how long you’ve struggled is whether both partners are willing to show up and try something different.
Do we need to be married to come to couples counseling?
No. We work with married couples, long-term and cohabiting partners, and engaged couples seeking premarital counseling. The patterns that bring couples to therapy don’t wait for a wedding, and neither should support.
How many sessions does couples counseling take?
Every couple is different. Many notice the tone of their conflicts shifting within the first two to three months, while longer-standing patterns take more time to change. Your therapist will review progress with you both along the way, so counseling lasts as long as it’s useful and no longer.
Does insurance cover marriage counseling?
Usually not. Plans reimburse treatment for a diagnosed condition in one person, and counseling that is about the relationship itself does not fit that model. We do not bill insurance for couples counseling. It is private pay, and our team will go over the cost with you before your first session.