The fact that you’re asking how to prepare tells me something important about you already. You’re trying to show up well. That matters.
Let me tell you what I actually see when couples walk through my door, and then I’ll tell you what I wish they had done before they got there.
Most couples come in with competing agendas. You’ve got your video, your partner’s got their video. Your video starts when they hurt you. Their video starts when you hurt them. And both of you are fully prepared to present your evidence to the judge.
So the single most important thing you can do to prepare is this: start loosening your grip on your individual narrative. Start asking yourself, genuinely, not as a performance but as a real question, “How might we both be hurting here?” Not “how do I explain to the therapist what they did to me.” But “what is it like to be us right now, together, in this pain?”
Because here’s what I know for certain. If you notice you’re hurting, your partner is hurting. If you notice they’re behaving badly, you’re behaving badly too. Every time. Without exception. That’s not blame. That’s just the truth of what happens when two people who love each other get scared.
The second thing I’d ask you to do is let go of the expectation that therapy is going to be comfortable. It isn’t. Think of it like this: imagine you open your navigation app and it shows there’s a thirty minute traffic jam ahead. That traffic jam is real. It’s the only road. You don’t get to go around it.
Preparing for therapy means accepting, ahead of time, that there is going to be a traffic jam. You’re going to feel threatened. Your partner is going to feel threatened. Things might get worse before they feel better. That’s not a sign therapy isn’t working. That’s the actual work.
Third, and this is really important: come in willing to feel your own vulnerability, not just describe it. There’s a difference between walking in and saying “I felt abandoned” as a way of building your case, and walking in and actually letting yourself feel the terror underneath that. The terror that says, “Are you still there for me? Am I enough for you?” That’s the real stuff. That’s what we’re going to work with.
Here’s how you’ll know if the therapy is actually working over time. You’ll start coming in and telling me about a fight you had that week, but instead of taking turns presenting your individual cases, you’ll both be telling me the same story. “We both got hurt. We both scared each other. It was hard for both of us.” And maybe, if things are going really well, you’ll reach over and hold each other’s hand while you say it.
That’s the shift we’re looking for. That’s when you stop protecting yourselves from each other and start protecting the relationship together. You don’t have to be there yet. You just have to be willing to go.
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Figs is a licensed marriage and family therapist with 16+ years of experience working with couples. He’s the co-founder of Empathi, host of the “Come Here to Me” podcast, and author of an upcoming book on relationships and the systems that shape how we love.
Read more: What to Expect in Your First Couples Therapy Session
