Should we try counselling?

Somebody suggests it, in a row or after one. Counselling. The word lands differently depending on who you are: a last resort, an admission, a sensible step, something other people do. Before you book anything or refuse to, it helps to know what it is for, what it costs in the UK, and when it is the wrong answer.

What couples counselling is good at

A trained third person in the room changes how a conversation goes. Things that have been said a hundred times at home get heard for the first time, because someone neutral is holding the space and nobody can walk out. Couples counselling tends to help with communication that has broken down into the same argument on a loop, with recovering from a specific event like an affair or a bereavement, with decisions you cannot make together such as children or a move, and with the slow drift where nobody did anything wrong and you have stopped talking.

It also helps couples end things well. A good counsellor is not there to keep you together. Some couples use the room to separate with care, especially where there are children.

What it needs from you is that both of you want to be there, more or less, and that both of you are willing to look at your own part. It works badly when one person attends to be seen to have tried while having already decided, or when one person believes the counsellor's job is to fix the other.

How it works in the UK

Relate is the largest provider, with centres across England and Wales and online sessions. You can go as a couple or alone. Fees vary by centre, and many offer lower rates based on income, so ask. There is often a wait. Relate also offers sex therapy and family counselling. Relationships Scotland does similar work in Scotland. Relate NI covers Northern Ireland.

Private therapists. Look for accreditation by BACP, UKCP or, for sex and relationship work, COSRT. Many offer a free or cheap first session to see if you fit. Fees are higher than Relate but there is usually no wait.

Tavistock Relationships in London offers longer-term work and a sliding scale.

Your GP cannot usually refer you for couples work on the NHS, but can refer either of you individually, and will know what exists locally.

Expect six to twelve sessions as a typical course, though some couples stay longer. Expect the first session or two to feel awkward. Expect to leave some sessions feeling worse before you feel better: things get said.

When one of you should go alone first

Sometimes the problem the couple has is really the problem one person has. Long stretches of being low, anxiety that has taken over, drinking, grief that has not moved, a history that keeps showing up. Couples work can help around those, but it cannot do the work of them.

In England, NHS Talking Therapies is free and you can refer yourself online without seeing a GP. Relationship difficulty is one of the most common reasons people go. The rest of the UK routes through your GP. Individual therapy is also the right first step if you are not sure you want to stay and need to work that out before you can sit in a room with your partner and be honest.

If the suggestion of counselling has come after your partner did something that hurt you, it is also worth asking what else has changed. Attending counselling is a good sign, but it is one sign. Real change or performed change is free and is about telling the difference.

When couples counselling is the wrong move

This needs saying plainly, because it is the part most articles leave out.

Couples counselling assumes two people who can speak freely in a room and go home afterwards without a price. It does not work, and can make things worse, where one person is afraid of the other. If you soften what you say at home to avoid a reaction, if disagreeing has consequences that last for days, if you are monitored or controlled or made to doubt your own memory, then a counselling room becomes another place where you cannot say what is true, and the drive home afterwards can be dangerous. The main UK domestic abuse services say this clearly, and good counsellors screen for it and will decline to work with a couple where they find it.

If any of that is familiar, the right first step is What is coercive control? rather than a joint session, and after that a conversation with someone trained for it: National Domestic Abuse Helpline 0808 2000 247, Men's Advice Line 0808 801 0327, Galop 0800 999 5428.

If it is not familiar, and you are two people who have got stuck and can both say so, then yes. Try it. Most couples who go wish they had gone sooner.