COUPLES THERAPY FOR PARENTS
When Your Child Is Struggling,
Your Relationship Deserves Support, Too.
Specialized couples therapy for couples raising children
with complex emotional, behavioral, and mental-health needs.
You love your child. You want the best for them. You've spent countless hours advocating, researching, attending appointments, meeting with schools, and trying to understand what they need. But somewhere along the way, your relationship may have begun to feel the strain.
Perhaps you and your partner disagree about how to respond to your child's behavior. Maybe one of you feels responsible for managing everything while the other feels criticized, misunderstood, or pushed away. Or perhaps you're both simply exhausted, and nearly every conversation has become about your child. You may still love each other deeply, but lately, it feels as though you've lost sight of the relationship you once had. You don't have to wait until your relationship is in crisis to begin taking care of it.
I provide specialized online couples therapy for parents throughout Massachusetts who want to strengthen their relationship while navigating the challenges of raising a child who is struggling.
When Parenting Stress Becomes Relationship Stress
Raising a child with emotional, behavioral, developmental, or mental health challenges can place significant demands on a relationship. What may begin as a shared concern for your child can gradually turn into disagreements about how to help them. One parent may believe the child needs more structure and accountability, while the other worries that additional expectations will only increase their distress. One partner may become responsible for appointments, school communication, treatment decisions, and managing difficult behaviors, while the other feels unsure how to help or increasingly excluded.
Over time, these patterns can create resentment, loneliness, and emotional distance.
You may find yourselves experiencing:
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Frequent disagreements about parenting approaches, discipline, or expectations.
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Conflict surrounding school decisions, treatment recommendations, or medication.
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Unequal caregiving responsibilities and the invisible mental load of parenting.
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Feeling criticized, blamed, or unsupported by your partner.
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Difficulty communicating without conversations escalating into conflict.
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Less time for affection, intimacy, friendship, or meaningful connection.
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Worry about your child's future and how your family will navigate ongoing challenges.
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Feeling more like co-managers of your household than romantic partners.
These experiences do not necessarily mean that either of you is parenting incorrectly or that your relationship is failing. They may reflect the ways each of you has learned to respond to stress, uncertainty, and the responsibility of caring for your child.
Couples therapy can help you understand those patterns and begin finding a different way of navigating them together.
Your Child May Have a Treatment Team. Who Is Supporting Your Relationship?
Many families navigating complex emotional, behavioral, or developmental challenges already have a network of professionals supporting their child. You may be working with a therapist, psychiatrist, neuropsychologist, school team, behavioral specialist, educational consultant, or other providers. These professionals play an important role in helping you understand and respond to your child's needs.
But even with a strong support system in place, the relationship between you and your partner can become overlooked.
You may have support for understanding your child's diagnosis, developing behavioral strategies, or navigating educational decisions. But where do the two of you go to talk about what all of this has been like for your relationship? Where can you address the resentment that has developed, the parenting disagreements that keep repeating, or the emotional distance that has grown between you? Where can you begin reconnecting as partners, rather than focusing exclusively on your roles as parents?
That's where my work comes in.
I provide couples therapy specifically focused on the relationship between the adults navigating these challenges. Our work is not about replacing your child's treatment or telling you how to parent. It's about helping the two of you feel more connected, understood, and supported as you navigate the demands of family life together.
You Don't Have to Parent Identically
to Feel Like a Team.
You and your partner may have different perspectives on what your child needs. One of you may prioritize structure, consistency, and independence. The other may place greater emphasis on emotional safety, flexibility, or accommodation. Often, both partners are trying to protect or help their child, even when their approaches look very different.
Couples therapy offers an opportunity to understand the concerns beneath those differences and develop a stronger sense of partnership. Together, we can work toward:
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Understanding your relationship patterns
Recognizing how parenting stress contributes to recurring conflict, withdrawal, criticism, or emotional disconnection.
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Navigating differences in parenting approaches
Learning to understand each other's perspectives and make difficult parenting decisions without becoming adversaries.
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Addressing caregiver stress and resentment
Exploring how caregiving responsibilities, emotional labor, and family demands have affected each partner.
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Strengthening communication and emotional connection
Creating space for each partner to feel heard, understood, and supported.
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Reconnecting beyond your roles as parents
Making room for friendship, affection, intimacy, and the relationship you share outside of parenting.
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Navigating future challenges together
Developing a stronger foundation for approaching stressful situations, difficult decisions, and family transitions as partners.
Your child's challenges may continue to require attention and care. Your relationship can receive attention and care alongside them.
Specialized Support for Parents Navigating Complex Family Challenges
I work with couples whose relationships have been affected by the demands of raising children and adolescents experiencing concerns such as:
ADHD and executive functioning challenges
Autism and neurodivergence
Behavioral challenges
Learning differencesTreatment and medication decisions
Social and developmental challenges
Ongoing mental health concerns
You do not need to have a particular diagnosis or a clear understanding of everything your child is experiencing to benefit from this work.
What matters is that the challenges your family is navigating have begun affecting your relationship, and you want to find a way forward together.
Online sessions
$250 per 55-minute session
Monthly superbill provided for possible insurance reimbursement
Anxiety and depression
Emotional dysregulation
School refusal and school-related distress
Parent-child conflict
Therapeutic or educational placement