You know you want things to be different between you, you’re just not sure how to get there.
Does this sound like you?
You keep having the same argument no matter how carefully you try to communicate, and it’s starting to feel like nothing ever really changes - even though you both want it to.
There’s been a rupture: infidelity, secrecy, out-of-control sexual behavior that shattered trust and left one of you hurting while the other feels overwhelmed with shame, defensiveness, or fear of making things worse.
The emotional closeness that once felt natural has faded, replaced by distance, resentment, or a sense that you’re living parallel lives instead of turning toward each other.
You still love each other, but you don’t feel in love anymore - and you’re scared to say that out loud because you don’t want to give up on something that matters this much.
Couples therapy is the help you need when you're scared you've lost your best friend. Therapy will help you feel like you're on the same team again.
How Emotionally Focused Therapy (EFT) Helps Couples Turn Toward Each Other Again
Couples Therapy in Bellevue, Washington
This Is Not Skills Training—It’s Emotional Change
Emotionally Focused Therapy isn’t about insight alone, and it’s not about learning better “communication skills” and hoping they magically work when emotions are high. EFT is experiential, emotional, and made for all attachment styles - because every person with a pulse has emotions, even if they express them differently.
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We Slow Things Down to Find What’s Really Driving the Conflict
In our work together, we slow things down enough to see the patterns that keep pulling you into endless arguments or painful silence. Instead of debating facts or re-hashing the past, we identify the cycle you get caught in - how one of you reaches, protests, or wants to talk it out while the other might turn away, need space to process, or feel criticized. This is your unique dance that unintentionally deepens your disconnection.
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Real Bonding Moments—Not Intellectual Conversations
Session by session, we create real bonding moments in the room. Not performative vulnerability. Not intellectual explanations. Actual emotional contact. Each of you will have the space to express the pain, fear, or grief underneath the anger. Some of my couples have described it as getting to the root of their struggles, not just grazing the surface.
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When There Has Been an Injury: A Clear, Proven Model.
There is no shaming here - and no pressure to forgive before you’re ready. EFT offers structure, safety, and a clear, proven framework. we have a model within our model (AIRM), that will help both of you. The partner who felt hurt or betrayed is given space to be seen and understood. The partner who turned away from the relationship is invited to share what was happening internally - without being reduced to “the bad partner.” The focus is not on assigning fault, but on making sense of the relationship patterns that pulled you apart.
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Repairing Infidelity and Attachment Injuries
With Care and Precision
EFT is especially effective for working through infidelity, sexual betrayal, and other attachment injuries because it does not rush repair. Together, we unpack the interactions that led to the injury (acknowledging that the person who caused the injury is 100% responsible for that injury), understand what happened within the context of your bond, and create new ways of reaching for each other. Repair happens at a pace that honors safety, accountability, and emotional truth - so any rebuilding that occurs is real, earned, and lasting.
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Over time, couples don’t just fight less—they feel safer, closer, and more able to be emotionally responsive in the
moments that matter most.
Discernment Counseling: When You’re Stuck Between
Staying and Leaving
Not every couple who reaches out is ready for full couples therapy. Many are caught in a painful in-between - connected, but unsure whether the relationship can or should continue. Discernment Counseling was designed for this exact moment.
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This is a structured, time-limited process (typically 1–5 sessions) that helps couples step out of crisis and into clarity. There is no expectation to fix the relationship or make a decision before you’re ready. Instead, we slow things down and take a careful look at how you arrived here, the patterns that have shaped your relationship, and what each of you would need to take responsibility for if the relationship were to move forward in a healthier way.
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Discernment Counseling is not about convincing anyone to stay or go. It’s about helping you make a thoughtful, grounded decision—one that’s informed by insight rather than fear, pressure, or exhaustion.
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If you feel stuck between trying again and letting go, Discernment Counseling offers a clear, contained path to help you decide what comes next.
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You can learn more about how this process works on my Discernment Counseling page.
Online Intensive Couples Therapy in Bellevue, Washinton and Across Washington
Couples therapy intensives offer a focused way to slow the spiral when emotions are escalating or when a relationship injury needs immediate, careful attention. An intensive provides extended time and continuity - so you’re not starting, stopping, or spending weeks just trying to get oriented. This can be especially helpful after a rupture, betrayal, or period of emotional distance, or when couples feel stuck and need forward movement.
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Intensives are not a cure-all, and they are not a one-and-done solution. They don’t replace the support of ongoing couples therapy. Instead, they create enough safety and clarity to stabilize the relationship, interrupt destructive cycles, and help emotion emerge naturally - without having to watch the clock.
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For many couples, an intensive becomes a bridge - helping you move into weekly or bi-weekly therapy with more insight, less reactivity, and a clearer sense of what needs attention. When done well, this concentrated work lays the groundwork for deeper, sustainable change over time.
Attachment Based Sex Therapy
Sex Therapy in Bellevue, Washington
In my work, couples therapy naturally includes sex therapy.
If we’re talking about attachment, safety, desire, and emotional closeness, then yes - we’re talking about sex.
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Sex is not separate from the relationship. It’s shaped by your nervous system, your attachment history, and the unspoken rules you’ve learned about wanting, being wanted, taking up space, or staying quiet to keep the peace. When sex becomes tense, avoidant, pressured, or confusing, it can evolve into its own relationship injury.
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Attachment-based sex therapy, grounded in Emotionally Focused Therapy (EFT), creates a non-shaming space to talk openly about desire discrepancies, performance anxiety, shutdown, mismatched needs, and the things you don’t know how to say at home without triggering distance or defensiveness.
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This work helps you reconnect with your internal world - what you long for, what hits the breaks on your desire, and what you need to hit the gas. Together, we start to map these out and I help you to share the beauty of you you - vulnerably with your partner.
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Through an EFT lens, sexual patterns are understood as attachment patterns — meaningful ways partners reach for closeness, reassurance, and connection, even when those reaches get tangled or misfire. Therapy helps you identify the cycle that keeps you stuck, make sense of each other’s experience, and create new ways of reaching.
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Attachment-based sex therapy also supports couples healing sexual and emotional disconnection after relational ruptures, including infidelity or other breaks in trust. Within the container of solid EFT couples therapy, this work focuses on rebuilding safety, sharing vulnerable emotional reaches, and strengthening the ability to repair when inevitable human mistakes happen.
If your relationship is hurting, it’s already leaking into the rest of your life.
It shows up in how you sleep.
How patient you are with your kids.
How present you feel at work.
How alone you feel even when you’re not technically alone.
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If you’re exhausted from trying to hold it together, terrified of drifting further apart, or quietly wondering whether this relationship can survive - this is your sign to stop carrying it alone.
FAQs about Couples Therapy in Bellevue, Washington
How do we know if we actually need couples therapy - or if this is just a rough patch?
You need couples therapy when relationship pain keeps repeating and starts affecting your emotional health, sleep, work, parenting, or sense of safety with each other. If the same arguments resurface, trust has been damaged, or emotional or sexual distance is growing, couples therapy helps you interrupt these patterns and create real change. When our brains loop on something, it’s usually because there’s unresolved hurt—waiting for it to fix itself rarely works.
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Does couples therapy work if one of us is more emotional than the other?
Yes. Emotionally Focused Therapy is designed for all emotional styles. You don’t have to be “good with feelings” to benefit. EFT helps quieter partners find language for what’s happening internally and helps more expressive partners really feel their emotions rather than just use words. Each of you will learn to come closer to your inner world. This work doesn’t just support your relationship—it helps you make better decisions, parent with more intention, and gain clarity within yourself.
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Will you take sides or decide who’s right?
No. This isn’t about picking a winner or identifying the “bad guy.” Relationships are built over years of interactions - interactions that often fall into familiar patterns. Couples therapy focuses on the patterns between you: how you get stuck, how you protect yourselves, and how disconnection keeps happening even when neither of you wants it to.
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Can couples therapy help after infidelity or sexual betrayal?
Yes - and structure matters. EFT provides a clear, non-shaming model for working through infidelity, secrecy, and other attachment injuries. Repair is possible when there’s safety, accountability, and space for both partners to be understood - not rushed forgiveness.
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Is sex therapy part of couples therapy?
Absolutely. Sex problems are relationship problems. Desire differences, avoidance, pressure, and disconnection in the bedroom are signals - not failures. Couples therapy addresses emotional safety, attachment, and intimacy so sex can become a fun romp again.
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What if one of us isn’t sure we want to stay in the relationship?
When partners are in different places about the future, Discernment Counseling offers a structured, time-limited way to gain clarity. It’s not about fixing the relationship or convincing anyone to stay - it’s about slowing down, understanding how your relationship got to where it is, and making a thoughtful decision about next steps rather than a crisis-driven one.
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How is Emotionally Focused Therapy different from traditional couples counseling?
EFT is experiential, not intellectual. It’s not about tips, scripts, or “better communication.” If you wanted tips you could just ask Dr. Google. EFT focuses on emotional bonding, attachment needs, and real moments of connection in session - because insight alone doesn’t change a relationship.
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What if couples therapy hasn’t worked for us before?
Many couples come in having already “tried therapy.” EFT often works where other approaches didn’t because it goes underneath behavior and conflict to the emotional bond itself - where lasting change actually happens.
Things for Couples to Do in Bellevue, WA to Reconnect
Reconnecting doesn’t always have to be heavy or serious. Sometimes the best way to rebuild connection is through laughter, shared experiences, and playful adventures. Bellevue is full of spots where couples can enjoy time together and remember what it feels like to be on the same team.
For couples who love nature, take a peaceful walk through the Bellevue Botanical Garden or rent kayaks and explore the waters at Meydenbauer Bay Park for a shared outdoor adventure.
If you’re looking for something more energetic, enjoy bowling or arcade-style games together at Lucky Strike Bellevue, or explore interactive exhibits at the Bellevue Arts Museum.
Downtown Bellevue is also perfect for grabbing a casual bite or dessert while reconnecting, with plenty of restaurants and coffee shops to choose from.
Shared fun matters—it lowers stress, softens defenses, and makes emotional connection easier. These playful experiences, combined with the work you do in couples therapy, help you remember why you’re together and make turning toward each other feel natural again.
Driving Directions to Bellevue, WA
Bellevue, Washington is located just east of Seattle.
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From Seattle, take I-90 East across Lake Washington into Bellevue.
From Redmond or Kirkland, take I-405 South toward Bellevue.
From Renton or the South Sound, take I-405 North toward Bellevue.
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Bellevue is easily accessible from major highways and surrounding Eastside communities.