When couples have conflict in between sessions, I want them to bring these interactions back to couples counseling. When successful couples have conflict, they can later talk about the conflict and figure out what each of their roles were in creating conflict—it takes two to fight.

The goal of couples counseling is to help prevent fights from occurring or to get a conversation back on track once a couple begins to escalate—which requires more advanced skills. But if a fight results, it’s important for couples to be able to learn from their experience. This requires each partner’s willingness to examine how they contributed to the conflict.