When I had my in-person office, I was sitting across from a couple who were arguing with each other. They were new-ish to me so I was getting to know them, and them, me.
As a therapist for high conflict couples, I wanted to see how they argued. For me, I'm often able to spot what's going on with each arguer. I'm able to see the dynamics between people. Not always, but enough to see where their argument might be coming from, and to see how the recipient is hearing and experiencing the argument.
We all have arguments. That's never the question. It's never about that. It's about how we argue, how we fight.
With this couple, I had to jump in pretty quickly. She was telling me things, then her husband things, then me, and then she turned to her husband and called him a piece of shit.
I jumped in immediately, told them both to stop talking. Even now my voice carries, and sometimes couples need someone like me who can be just as loud, and I loudly said, "You don't call him out of his humanity! Neither one of you!" I then had them do a de-escalation technique, then we re-set.
I laid out the ground rules for their 50 minute hour, how they were to talk with each other. What was okay. What was not. In the above example, I was telling them, "no personal attacks."
They had "normalized" this type of communication and it was my job to point it out, and to offer alternative communication styles and techniques. That is one of my goals for a couple coming to see me.
As a couples therapist my first goal is setting an emotional "neutral zone" where each person can feel at least neutral (ideally safe), when I'm the therapist.
My next goal is to make sure each person has similar goals for the therapy.
And the third goal is what I mentioned above. I try to give "common language" so that when the couple is out of the therapy room, they can start using the common language in real life.
Underneath all the arguing is pain. I help couples navigate that pain, by using communication skills, stress reduction techniques, by helping each other see each other again. But you each have to be open to it, not just saying that you're open to it.
How I work with couples is that, in the room (even tele-therapy), I may focus on one of you more than the other for a while. Then I might focus on the other person more. I do make sure you're both seen.
In working this way, I've found that one of the partners actually learns something that they thought they'd known about their partner but actually didn't.
If I'm not clear, I'm saying that I work with deeper issues that may be unresolved in one of the partners, and I work with the pragmatic, of helping you both map out a game plan for how the hell we're going to get through the next day.
If one of the partners has an issue... a challenge, that may need individual therapy rather than conjoint therapy, I'll lay that out right away. So keeping it simple, I work on the profound (deeper issues) and the pragmatic in the relationship.
In my example above, I described a heterosexual couple. I want to be clear that I see all types of couples. All of them. Same-sex couples, queer couples, and consensually non-monogamous relationships are welcome here - and always have been.
Sometimes only one partner is ready. If that's you, individual therapy about your relationship is still work worth doing. It may not change your relationship, but it might still be able to help you. And it's work I do.