7 Reasons Couples Don't Start Therapy And What Each One Holds Up To
7 Reasons Couples
Don't Start Therapy
And What Each One Holds Up To
No time, tried it before, can't afford it, partner won't come, not bad enough yet. Each reason examined honestly. Online couples therapy in NH, ME, MT, and TX.
Sagebrush Counseling
Learn more about Sagebrush Counseling ›Most couples who eventually start therapy say the same thing looking back: they wish they had started sooner. And most couples who have not yet started have a reason. Usually it is one of seven.
This post goes through all of them. Not to dismiss them, some are real, but to look at what each one holds up to, and what the honest alternative to therapy ends up costing. The goal is not to pressure anyone. It is to make sure the reason is a real reason and not a deferral that has calcified into a decision.
A free 15-minute consult is the smallest possible first step.
No paperwork, no commitment. A conversation about what is going on and whether this is the right fit.
LCMHC · LCPC · LPC · NH · ME · MT · TX · $200/session · No waitlistWhich one is yours?
Select the reason that has kept you from starting. Jump straight to that section.
1. We Don't Have Time
This is the most common reason couples give and the one worth examining most carefully, because what it often means is not "we have no time" but "we have not prioritized this."
What weekly couples therapy requires: 50 minutes. No commute, because sessions at Sagebrush Counseling are entirely online. No parking, no waiting room, no coordinating two people to the same physical location. You click a link. For couples in New Hampshire, Maine, Montana, or Texas, that 50 minutes can happen from anywhere in those states.
What the alternative eventually requires, if the relationship continues to deteriorate: lawyers, whose hourly rates start where therapy session costs end. Mediation. Two households. Custody arrangements and the logistics of co-parenting. The time required to explain the situation to children, to parents, to mutual friends. The months or years of a contested divorce. The emotional overhead of all of it, which does not stay contained to the hours explicitly devoted to it.
This is not a threat. It is math. The 50 minutes a week that felt impossible is a fraction of what the alternative consumes. The time excuse is worth looking at directly.
Sessions at Sagebrush Counseling are online, with no waitlist, and can typically be scheduled within a few days of the free consult. Evening and weekend availability exists. The scheduling barrier is smaller than most couples expect.
2. We Tried Therapy Before and It Did Not Work
This is a real reason. Therapy that does not work is a real experience, and it makes sense that it produces reluctance to try again. The question worth asking is why it did not work, because the reasons are usually identifiable, and they are usually not "therapy does not work for us."
The wrong therapist
Therapeutic fit matters enormously. A couples therapist who is technically competent but not a relational match for a specific couple will produce sessions that feel like going through motions. The therapeutic relationship is the primary vehicle of change, and if that relationship is not present, the modality does not matter. A previous bad fit is not evidence that the next fit will be bad.
The wrong modality
Couples therapy is not one thing. Some approaches are primarily skill-based and communication-focused. Others go deeper into the relational patterns and individual dynamics that generate the communication problems in the first place. A couple that spent months learning communication scripts without those scripts producing change may not have had a communication problem. They may have had a deeper relational problem that the surface-level approach could not reach.
One person was not engaged
Couples therapy in which one partner is physically present but psychologically withholding does not work. This is not a flaw in the therapy. It is a constraint that therapy cannot overcome unilaterally. If one partner came to previous therapy primarily to demonstrate to the other that therapy would not work, that outcome was set before the first session.
What different looks like
Different means a therapist who is specifically trained in couples work, whose approach addresses the level at which the problem is operating, and with both partners genuinely willing to engage. That is a specific set of conditions, and when they are present, the outcome is different from sessions that lacked them.
Whatever the reason has been, it is worth checking whether it still holds.
3. We Are Not Bad Enough for Therapy
The research on this is unambiguous: couples who start therapy earlier have significantly better outcomes than couples who start at the point of crisis. The average couple waits six years after the onset of significant problems before seeking help. By that point, the patterns are entrenched, the contempt has accumulated, and the emotional bank account has been overdrawn for long enough that goodwill is genuinely depleted.
Couples therapy is not a last resort. It is not a sign that a relationship is failing. It is maintenance for a relationship that matters, started early enough that there is still momentum to work with. A couple who comes in because they keep having the same argument is a much easier case than a couple who comes in after years of that argument have done their cumulative damage.
There is no threshold of suffering required to justify starting. The question is not whether things are bad enough. It is whether the relationship is worth investing in. If it is, earlier is better than later by a significant margin.
4. My Partner Won't Come to Therapy
This is one of the most genuinely difficult situations in couples work, and it deserves a direct answer rather than a platitude.
If your partner is not willing to come, individual therapy is worth starting. Not as a strategy to eventually get them in the room, though that sometimes happens, but because the relationship dynamic involves both people and you can work on your side of it regardless of whether they work on theirs. Understanding your own patterns, your own contribution to the dynamic, your own needs and the ways you have communicated or not communicated them, is useful work with or without your partner present.
What tends not to work: presenting couples therapy as an ultimatum, framing it as something the partner needs rather than something the relationship needs, or scheduling a session and informing the partner afterward. These approaches harden resistance rather than reducing it.
What tends to work better: naming the specific thing you are trying to address rather than the institution of therapy. Not "we need couples therapy" but "I want to work on how we handle conflict and I would like your help doing that." The free consult exists partly for this situation. Many reluctant partners find a single low-stakes conversation with a therapist enough to move from no to maybe.
5. We Cannot Afford Couples Therapy
Sessions at Sagebrush Counseling are $200. This is a real amount of money and it is worth taking seriously. It is also worth doing the full calculation.
The average cost of a divorce in the United States, when contested, runs into tens of thousands of dollars in legal fees alone. Mediation, separate housing, duplicate household costs, the financial reorganization of two lives that were built as one. The figure varies significantly, but it is never small.
Beyond the legal costs: the psychological cost of divorce for children is documented and significant. The disruption to schooling, routine, and the stability of their primary relationships is not free, even if it does not appear on a legal invoice.
The $200 session is not cheap. But it is cheap relative to the alternative it prevents, when the alternative is the dissolution of a family. Framing it as an expense rather than an investment is worth examining.
HSA and FSA accounts cover therapy costs. A superbill can be provided for out-of-network reimbursement if your insurance plan includes it. See the FAQs for more on cost and payment.
6. It Is Too Late for Us
The research on this is more encouraging than most couples in this position expect. Studies on couples entering therapy with high levels of hopelessness consistently show that hopelessness at intake is not a reliable predictor of outcome. Couples who felt it was too late, and who came anyway, often did not confirm what they came in expecting.
What the hopeless-feeling couple usually has is not an irreparable relationship. It has an exhausted one. The contempt, the withdrawal, the parallel lives that have developed, these are signs of a relationship that has been starved of attention and investment for a long time. They are also things that change with sustained, skilled work.
There are genuine situations where a relationship is over and therapy is primarily about ending it well. A skilled therapist can hold both possibilities without predetermining the outcome. Coming in feeling it is too late does not commit you to staying. It commits you to getting a clearer picture, which is worth having either way.
7. We Do Not Want Anyone to Know We Are in Therapy
Online therapy removes almost every point of exposure that in-person therapy carries. There is no car in a therapist's parking lot. No shared waiting room where you might encounter someone you know. No receptionist who knows your name. No referral from a doctor that enters a medical record in a system accessible to others.
The session is HIPAA-compliant, encrypted, and conducted through a dedicated telehealth platform. It does not show up in any shared calendar system unless you put it there. The only people who know you are in therapy are the ones you choose to tell.
For couples in smaller communities across New Hampshire, Maine, Montana, and Texas, where everyone knows everyone and the therapist's office is on Main Street, this is not a small thing. Online therapy was not primarily designed for privacy, but it provides it as a byproduct in a way that in-person therapy cannot match.
"The couples who do the best are not the ones who never struggle. They are the ones who get help before the struggle becomes the whole story."
For more on what online couples therapy looks like at Sagebrush Counseling, see the online couples therapy page, the practical guide to getting started, and the FAQs. For couples considering premarital work, see premarital counseling. Sessions available for couples in New Hampshire, Maine, Montana, and Texas.
If one of those seven reasons has been yours, it is worth revisiting.
Free 15-minute consult. No paperwork before you speak to anyone. Serving couples in NH, ME, MT, and TX.
LCMHC · LCPC · LPC · NH · ME · MT · TX · No waitlistThis post is for informational purposes only. Sagebrush Counseling provides online therapy for individuals and couples in New Hampshire, Maine, Montana, and Texas. For more: about us · FAQs · how online therapy works · services. For appointments: sagebrushcounseling.com/contact.
