Most couples who come to therapy don’t have a shortage of conversations. They have a shortage of conversations that work.

What I see consistently in my work as a couples therapist is that communication breakdown rarely looks like two people refusing to talk. More often, it looks like two people trying very hard to be heard — and consistently failing to feel understood.

Over time, couples develop what researchers at The Gottman Institute call negative sentiment override: a state in which past hurts and frustrations color how partners interpret each other’s words and intentions, even when those words are neutral or even kind. A simple question like “Did you call the plumber?” gets heard as criticism. A gentle suggestion becomes an attack. Both partners are genuinely trying — and yet every conversation seems to end the same way.

This is not a character flaw. It is a pattern. And patterns can be changed.

In couples therapy using the Gottman Method, one of the first areas of focus is helping couples identify the specific ways their communication has gone off track — the Four Horsemen that predict relationship decline (criticism, contempt, defensiveness, and stonewalling) — and replacing those patterns with tools for softer start-ups, repair attempts, and genuine dialogue.

The goal is not to eliminate conflict. Conflict is a healthy and necessary part of any close relationship. The goal is to make conflict productive — something that brings you closer rather than driving you further apart.

Of all the patterns I see in couples therapy, emotional disconnection may be the most quietly devastating — precisely because it rarely announces itself.

It does not arrive with a dramatic fight or a clear turning point. It builds slowly, over months or years, as small bids for connection go unnoticed. A hand reached for and not taken. A worry mentioned in passing and not followed up on. A moment of tenderness that felt too risky to express.

Dr. Sue Johnson, the developer of Emotionally Focused Therapy (EFT), describes this as an attachment injury — the cumulative effect of moments in which one or both partners began to feel emotionally unsafe reaching toward the other. Over time, both partners pull back. The relationship begins to feel more like a functional partnership than an intimate bond.

What makes this pattern particularly difficult is that it can coexist with a great deal of genuine love. Partners who are emotionally disconnected often describe still caring deeply for each other. What has been lost is not the feeling — it is the expression of it. The reaching. The risk.

In EFT-informed couples therapy, we work to identify the underlying emotions that have been buried beneath the surface conflict or distance — fear, longing, grief, the desire to matter — and create the conditions in which both partners can begin to reach toward each other again with some degree of safety.

This is slow, careful work. But it is some of the most meaningful work I do.

Resentment is what happens when hurt goes unaddressed long enough.

It is rarely the result of one large event. More often, it accumulates quietly — a series of moments in which one partner felt dismissed, unseen, overburdened, or taken for granted, and chose (or felt unable) to say so. Over time, those unspoken grievances calcify into something harder: a running mental tally, a reflexive brace for disappointment, a protective pulling-away that can look, from the outside, like coldness or indifference.

In my work with couples in Westlake Village and throughout California, I find that resentment is often the presenting issue but rarely the root one. Beneath the resentment, there is almost always a story of unmet needs — connection, appreciation, fairness, safety — that never found language.

One of the most important things couples therapy can offer is a structured space to excavate that story. Not to relitigate old grievances, but to understand what they meant — what they said about each partner’s needs, fears, and deep longings in the relationship. When both partners can hear that story with curiosity rather than defensiveness, something often shifts.

Resentment does not require a villain. It requires understanding. And understanding, in a safe therapeutic space, is something that is genuinely possible — even for couples who have been carrying this weight for years.

Insight alone is rarely enough. Changing deeply ingrained relationship patterns requires practice, repetition, and the support of a skilled therapist — especially in the moments when old habits pull hardest.

Effective couples therapy is not about refereeing arguments. It is a structured, evidence-based process with three clear goals:

• Identifying the dynamics keeping a couple stuck
• Understanding the emotional needs beneath those dynamics
• Building new ways of relating that are more secure, more connected, and more resilient

This is the work Marina Edelman, LMFT does every day — and it is work she believes in deeply.

Love is rarely the problem.

The couples Marina sees in her Westlake Village therapy practice are not struggling because they stopped caring. They are struggling because they are human — caught in patterns of communication, disconnection, and unspoken hurt that, without the right support, have a way of quietly winning.

The good news: these patterns are not permanent. They are learned. And what is learned can be unlearned — with the right tools, the right space, and the right guide.

If you and your partner are loving each other but not quite reaching each other, couples therapy may be the most important investment you make in your relationship this year.

Marina Edelman, LMFT is a couples therapist serving Westlake Village, Thousand Oaks, and clients throughout California — in person and via telehealth.

To learn more or schedule a consultation: Book an Appointment | 818-851-1293

Marina Edelman is a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist and the founder of TrueMe® Counseling, a couples and relationship therapy practice serving clients in Westlake Village, Thousand Oaks, and throughout California.

Marina specializes in couples therapy, affair recovery, and relationship repair, drawing on a carefully integrated set of evidence-based approaches:

• Gottman Method — Research-based tools for reducing conflict and building friendship and intimacy
• Emotionally Focused Therapy (EFT) — Healing attachment injuries and rebuilding emotional safety
• Attachment-Based Therapy — Understanding how early relational patterns shape adult love
• Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) — Identifying and shifting the thought patterns that fuel disconnection
• AEDP — Processing deep emotional wounds with compassion and precision

Her counseling is best suited for couples and individuals seeking structured, research-backed support for relationship repair, affair recovery, anxiety, communication challenges, and premarital or marriage counseling — in person or via telehealth across California.

These therapists see clients in Culver City, and Westlake Village Office as well as virtually all throughout California.