What it means to take sides, in a loving way
Most people assume a couples therapist should never take sides. It is one of the few things almost everyone believes they know about therapy: the therapist stays neutral, treats both partners equally, and never tells one of you that you are wrong.
I work differently, and the difference is deliberate. When the situation calls for it, I will take a side. Not to assign blame, and not because I have stopped caring about one partner, but because there are moments when staying neutral is the least helpful and least honest thing a therapist can do.
This idea makes some people uncomfortable when they first hear it, so it is worth explaining carefully, because done properly it is one of the most useful things I bring to the work.
When neutrality fails a couple
Imagine a couple where one partner regularly speaks to the other with contempt: the eye-rolling, the put-downs, the steady drip of disrespect. The other has slowly shrunk under it, and now barely speaks up at all.
A strictly neutral therapist treats this as a shared dynamic. Both partners are invited to reflect, both are gently encouraged to communicate better, and the therapist is careful never to suggest that one person's behaviour is more of a problem than the other's. But it is more of a problem. Contempt is corrosive, and treating it as half of a mutual pattern quietly fails the partner on the receiving end. It also fails the partner showing the contempt, because nobody is being honest enough to tell them what it is costing them.
Taking a side, here, means naming it. Saying, clearly and without cruelty, that the contempt has to stop, and meaning it. That is not an attack. It is the truth, told by someone who is on the side of the relationship and, in that moment, on the side of the partner who has been quietly absorbing harm.
The crucial qualifier: in a loving way
The phrase that matters is "in a loving way", and it is doing real work. Taking a side is not about shaming anyone. It depends on the person being challenged understanding, throughout, that you are fundamentally on their side, that you believe they are capable of better, which is precisely why you are bothering to tell them the truth.
So we improvise, usually badly. We stonewall and wait for it to blow over. We apologise too quickly, just to end the discomfort, without anything actually changing. We keep score. We let the small unrepaired ruptures accumulate, one on top of another, until the distance between us is made of years of moments we never went back to fix. This is what I mean when I say that if nobody helps you see the pattern, the pattern simply continues.
Real warmth and real honesty are not opposites.
Terry Real, whose method I work from, talks about joining someone through the truth. The deepest form of respect you can show someone is to treat them as capable of change, and then tell them the thing that, deep down, they may already know and need to hear from someone they trust.
I have watched this land many times. The partner who is challenged, kindly and clearly, on something they have been doing for years, more often than not feels relief rather than attack. Finally, someone has said the real thing.
Why this works when neutral approaches stall
Being told the truth by someone who is clearly on your side is not the same as being criticised by someone who is against you. We can all feel the difference, even when the words are similar. This is why a directive approach often reaches couples that neutral therapy has not. It does require trust, which is why it is never the first thing that happens. The honesty is earned. From that foundation, directness becomes not only tolerable but genuinely freeing.
This is the heart of how I work, and you can read more about it on my couples page. If you have been longing for someone to simply tell you the truth about what is happening in your relationship, kindly and skilfully, that is exactly what this work offers.
