By Dr. Dace Tapley, DBH, MBA-E, MBA-M, LPC · Editorial · 8 min read
Most couples therapy fails not because the couple is broken, but because the work is the wrong size.
I see a steady stream of couples who arrive in my office after one or two previous attempts at therapy elsewhere. Often the prior work was competent. The therapist was warm. The sessions were thoughtful. And nothing changed.
The reason, usually, is that the work was sized for crisis stabilization when the actual problem was structural — or sized for structural work when what the couple needed first was simply to stop fighting in front of the kids.
Good couples work begins by asking a question most couples have never been asked: what is actually happening between the two of you, and what kind of work would meet it?
In my experience, the work that helps couples genuinely change tends to fall into one of three sizes.
The first size is operational. The couple loves each other. The friendship is intact. They are simply terrible at fighting and have built up a backlog of unfinished arguments. The work here is concrete: how to say hard things, how to hear them, how to repair after a rupture, how to make space for difference. This work is real, but it is not deep, and it can be completed.
The second size is structural. The couple has fallen into a recurring dynamic — pursuer and distancer, fixer and avoider, critic and stonewaller — and the pattern has become more powerful than either partner. The work here is to see the pattern clearly, identify the protective function it serves for each partner, and slowly replace it with something that does not cost the relationship.
The third size is foundational. Something significant has been broken — an affair, a financial betrayal, a long deception, a sustained period of one partner’s addiction — and the question is no longer how to communicate better. The question is whether and how trust can be rebuilt at all. This is the deepest work, and it cannot be hurried.
Before booking couples therapy, it is worth asking: do we need someone to teach us how to fight cleanly, someone to help us see the pattern we keep falling into, or someone to help us decide whether the marriage can continue at all? The answer determines everything else.
Couples therapy fails when the work is mis-sized. A couple in size-three crisis cannot benefit from communication exercises. A couple in size-one friction does not need to relitigate their childhoods. A skilled couples clinician matches the work to the actual problem and does not pretend to do otherwise.
It also fails when one partner is not actually willing to do the work, when the therapist takes sides, or when the therapist is afraid to name the hard thing in the room. Avoiding any of those failures is mostly a function of doing the assessment phase carefully — which is why I begin every couples engagement with a thorough joint intake and, often, a brief individual conversation with each partner before any actual work begins.
If you and your partner are considering therapy — in Phoenix, Scottsdale, Paradise Valley, or anywhere across the Valley — the most useful thing you can do before booking is to talk honestly about what size of problem you actually have. Couples who answer that question clearly tend to find help quickly. Couples who avoid the question often spend a year in the wrong-sized work.
Dr. Dace Tapley, DBH, MBA-E, MBA-M, LPC, is a Doctor of Behavioral Health, US Army veteran, and licensed counselor in private practice in Phoenix, Arizona. He works with executives, founders, physicians, and other high-performing clients across Metro Phoenix — Scottsdale, Paradise Valley, Arcadia, the East Valley, and the West Valley.
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