The pattern, not the person
We map the cycle you both get caught in, so it stops being a question of who is at fault.
Services · 03
Couples & Relationship Counselling in Melbourne
Every couple has conflict. What shapes a relationship is what happens next.
Couples counselling, marriage counselling and couples therapy for Melbourne couples, in person or online. Counselling for relationship problems at any stage — before a wedding, mid-crisis, or while deciding whether to stay. No referral, no waitlist.
50-minute sessionsBoth partners onlineIndividual sessions available
$253 per 50-minute couples session, GST included. Full fees are on the packages and pricing page. Sessions run online by secure video across Australia and New Zealand, by telephone, or in person in Melbourne by arrangement.
In short
Couples counselling, also called marriage counselling or couples therapy, brings both partners into the room to work on the pattern between them rather than who is at fault. Sessions run 50 minutes at $253, GST included, in Melbourne or online, with individual sessions available alongside. No referral needed.
Couples counselling — also called marriage counselling or couples therapy — gives both partners a space where they can be heard without the conversation escalating. We map the pattern the two of you fall into — who pursues, who withdraws, what each of you is protecting — then build a different way through the same moment.
Sessions are balanced by design. Neither partner is put on trial, and neither is asked to hold the relationship together alone. Individual sessions can run alongside couples work where that helps.
Bring your relationship here if
- The same argument repeats with different words
- Trust has been damaged and you both want to repair it
- Conversation has gone quiet and polite
- Parenting, money or intimacy have become no-go areas
- One of you is deciding whether to stay
What we work on together
Repair skills
How to raise something hard, how to hear it, and how to come back after a rupture.
Emotional safety
Ground rules that make honesty possible without either partner feeling ambushed.
How the work unfolds
Emotionally focused workGottman-informedConflict repairIndividual sessions alongside
01
Both stories
The first session hears from each of you properly, without interruption or scorekeeping, and names what you each want from the work.
02
The cycle
We map the pattern you fall into — the trigger, the move, the counter-move — so the problem becomes the cycle rather than each other.
03
New moves
Rehearsed, in session, on real material: how to raise something hard, how to stay in the room, how to repair afterwards.
04
Making it stick
Weekly practices and a check-in ritual you can run without me, plus a plan for what to do when it goes badly.
The problem is almost never the dishwasher. It is what the dishwasher has come to mean.
Anne Evans · Counsellor & Psychotherapist
Common questions
Do you work with couples before marriage?+
Yes. Pre-marriage counselling covers money, family, children, expectations and conflict style before they become arguments. It is usually a short piece of work, four to six sessions, and couples often describe it as the most practical thing they did that year.
What if one of us wants to stay and the other does not?+
That is discernment counselling: short, structured work whose goal is a clear decision rather than repair. It is not couples counselling, and starting the wrong one wastes months.
Is this the same as marriage counselling or couples therapy?+
Yes. Couples counselling, marriage counselling, relationship counselling and couples therapy all describe the same work here: two partners in the room with one counsellor, working on the pattern between them. Married, de facto, engaged, dating or separating — the process is the same.
Will you take sides?+
No. I will be direct with both of you about behaviour that is damaging the relationship, which sometimes feels like taking sides in the moment. Over the course of the work it lands evenly.
Do you see us separately?+
Sometimes one individual session each, early on, to hear things that are hard to say in front of a partner. Anything said there stays confidential, which is agreed with both of you upfront.
What if one of us wants to separate?+
That is workable material. Counselling can help you decide honestly rather than by attrition, and can make a separation less damaging where that is the outcome — particularly with children involved.
More answers in the general FAQs, or ask Anne directly.
Practical guides for this work
Often works alongside
Relationship Counselling for Individuals
If your partner will not come, or the relationship has already ended.
Anger Management Counselling
Understand the trigger, learn the pause. Court-recognised four-session program available.
Infidelity & Affair Recovery
Couples work after an affair: contain the crisis, understand what it meant, then decide.
Ready to start couples counselling?
Book online in under a minute, or send a question first — Anne answers her own enquiries.