Couple sitting with a therapist in a warm-toned room, holding hands during a counselling session

When Relationships Feel Hard: How Couples Counselling Can Help

You love each other, but lately, it feels like you’re on different wavelengths.

You’re having the same argument again. Or maybe not even arguing at all just feeling stuck in silence, tension, or distance. The closeness you used to feel now seems out of reach, and even the simple moments feel complicated. You may find yourself wondering:

Is it supposed to be this hard?

The truth is, even the most committed relationships can reach points of disconnection, resentment, or confusion. At Tidal Trauma Centre, our couples counselling services in Surrey and online across British Columbia are here to support you through those difficult moments, not by fixing you, but by helping you understand each other more clearly, and respond with more care, honesty, and choice.

Why Relationships Feel Harder Than They “Should”

Relationships aren’t failing when they feel hard. They’re revealing where your nervous systems, and needs are colliding.

Work stress, parenting, trauma, grief, mental health challenges, identity shifts, and a million small life demands can erode the patterns that once helped you feel close. Even healthy love doesn’t automatically come with the skills needed to communicate well, repair after rupture, or stay emotionally connected during hard times.

The problem isn’t that you’re broken. It’s that no one ever taught you how to do this part together.

What Couples Counselling Offers

Couples therapy gives you a calm, neutral place to pause. To name what’s happening underneath the surface. To interrupt reactive cycles and move toward the kind of connection you both want, one rooted in honesty, empathy, and repair.

At Tidal Trauma Centre, we offer relationally attuned, trauma-informed, and evidence-based couples therapy. We work with couples of all backgrounds, orientations, and relationship structures whether you’re dating, married, co-parenting, or somewhere in between.

Our approach includes a combination of joint and individual sessions depending on your needs. And we’re here to hold both care and accountability as you navigate this work.

Evidence-Based Approaches We Integrate

Emotionally Focused Therapy (EFT) helps you identify the deeper attachment needs and emotional cycles underneath your conflicts. It’s about slowing down the reactivity, expressing what’s really going on, and learning how to reach for each other with more safety and trust.

Gottman Method Couples Therapy uses decades of research to support couples in strengthening emotional bonds, improving communication, and managing conflict. It emphasizes practical tools like repair attempts, turning toward one another, and building a culture of appreciation.

EMDR-Informed Relationship Work is most commonly used for individual trauma therapy, it can also help address stuck emotional patterns between partners, especially when past experiences are shaping current reactions. EMDR can support:

Processing of unresolved personal trauma that interferes with emotional availability
Understanding and softening triggers between partners
Rebuilding trust after betrayal
Increasing empathy and attunement
Interrupting defensive or self-protective cycles

All of our couples counsellors are trauma-informed, and many are trained in EMDR, allowing us to integrate this tool if it supports your process.

Common Themes in Couples Counselling

Every couple’s story is different. But many of the patterns we work with are deeply familiar. If any of these sound like you, couples therapy may help:

Communication Challenges

You’re talking, but not hearing each other. We help you slow things down, understand what’s being said underneath the words, and create space for honest conversations.

Unresolved Conflict

Some arguments never seem to end. Others never get spoken. Therapy helps you explore conflict as a doorway to deeper clarity and trust, not just something to avoid.

Emotional or Physical Distance

Whether it’s physical intimacy that’s changed, or emotional closeness that feels out of reach, we help couples safely reconnect and rediscover each other with curiosity and consent.

Repair After Betrayal

Infidelity, secrecy, or broken trust don’t have to mean the end, but they do require deep and difficult work. We guide couples through this process with transparency, dignity, and structure.

Identity & Life Transitions

Parenthood, burnout, grief, menopause, identity changes, these shifts affect more than the individual. Couples therapy makes space for what’s evolving between you, not just within you.

Ready to Reconnect?

Whether you're feeling distant, on edge, or simply unsure how to move forward, couples counselling can be a turning point. Our therapists are here to support you, not with quick fixes, but with steady, skilled guidance toward clarity and connection.

Fill out a New Client Form to be matched with a couples counsellor or book a free consult or appointment directly.

That’s more common than you’d think. Sometimes one partner starts alone. Other times, a single joint consult helps clarify whether therapy feels safe and worthwhile. We’re happy to talk with you about options, even if you’re not on the same page yet.
Yes, but it depends on what you’re both willing to work toward. Our therapists are experienced in supporting couples through crisis, including separation or reconciliation. We don’t push outcomes. We help you get clear on what you both need.
Absolutely. We work with all types of partnerships, including queer, polyamorous, open, and blended family structures. We hold space for cultural, neurodivergent, and gender diversity with curiosity, not assumption.

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Disclaimer: The content on this website is for informational purposes only and does not constitute medical, psychological, or mental health advice. It is not a substitute for professional care. Always consult a qualified healthcare provider for diagnosis and treatment.

When Relationships Feel Hard: How Couples Counselling Can Help