What Couples Therapy Taught Me About Family Therapy

Tuesday, March 4, 2025.

If you’ve ever been in couples therapy, you know the deal:

✅ You sit across from your partner.
✅ A therapist gently asks probing but insightful questions.
✅ One of you suddenly remembers an old wound from 2013 and brings it up.
✅ The other person sighs deeply and says, “Are we really bringing that up again?”
✅ Someone gets uncomfortable, deflects with a joke, and the therapist calmly redirects the conversation.

It’s hard, but when done well, couples therapy is magic.
People learn how to communicate, repair, and break toxic patterns.

📌 Now take that exact same dynamic… and add more people, generational baggage, and at least one person who thinks therapy is “bullsh*t.”

Welcome to family therapy.

Today, we’re diving into:
✅ Why family therapy is just couples therapy on steroids.
✅ The biggest fights that happen in families (and how to actually fix them).
✅ What every family can learn from healthy couples.
✅ Why repairing family relationships is harder—but worth it.

Let’s go.

Families Are Just Bigger, Messier Relationships

🚀 Biggest misconception about family therapy: “It’s about solving family problems.”

🚨 Reality? Family therapy isn’t about “fixing” anyone—it’s about improving the relationships between people.

📌 Translation? The same emotional wounds that cause marital resentment also cause family estrangement.

🔹 The couple fight: “You never listen to me.”
🔹 The family fight: “No one in this family listens to me.”

🔹 The couple fight: “You always make everything about you.”
🔹 The family fight: “Mom always makes everything about her.”

🔹 The couple fight: “You never take responsibility for what you say.”
🔹 The family fight: “This family acts like nothing ever happened.”

📌 What couples therapy taught me about family therapy?
The issues aren’t that different—it’s just that families have MORE people with different levels of emotional awareness.

The Five Biggest Family Fights (And What to Do Instead)

Every family has a greatest hits album of recurring conflicts that never fully get resolved.

Here’s what family therapy (and couples therapy) has taught me about the five biggest ones.

🚨 Family Fight #1: “Nobody Ever Talks About What Actually Happened”

Every family has a history of things that totally happened—but were never acknowledged.

🔹 The Big Fight from 2006 that we all pretend didn’t happen.
🔹 That one Thanksgiving where Aunt Lisa left in a huff and no one explained why.
🔹 The mysterious financial “loan” that no one talks about.

📌 What Couples Therapy Taught Me:
✅ You can’t repair what you won’t name.
✅ Ignoring problems doesn’t make them disappear—it just makes resentment go underground.

🚀 What to Do Instead:

• Call it what it is. ("We have some history that keeps coming up, and I think we need to address it.")

• Let people tell their version.

• Accept that you won’t all remember it the same way—but you can still work on it.

🚨 Family Fight #2: “Who’s the Favorite?” (aka, The Sibling Resentment Special)

If you’ve ever been in a family, you’ve heard:

❌ "Mom always liked you better."
❌ "I had to work for everything—you just got handed stuff."
❌ "I was always the responsible one, and no one appreciated it."

📌 What Couples Therapy Taught Me:
✅ Fair doesn’t mean equal.
✅ People experience the same family completely differently.

🚀 What to Do Instead:

• Acknowledge that your experiences were different—even if they were unintentional.

• Talk about the impact, not just the facts.

🚨 Family Fight #3: “Why Do I Always Have to Be the One to Keep This Family Together?”

Every family has The Emotional Caretaker.

• The one who remembers birthdays.

• The one who plans family reunions.

• The one who smooths over conflicts so everyone keeps showing up to Christmas.

📌 What Couples Therapy Taught Me:
✅ This is emotional labor—and it’s exhausting.
✅ Resentment builds when care isn’t reciprocated.

🚀 What to Do Instead:

• Say out loud what’s happening. “I love this family, but I don’t want to be the only one putting in effort.”

• Ask for shared responsibility.

• Let go of controlling the outcome.

🚨 Family Fight #4: “Why Does No One Respect My Boundaries?”

If you’ve ever said:

❌ "Please don’t talk about my weight."
❌ "I’m not discussing politics at dinner."
❌ "I don’t want unsolicited parenting advice."

…and your family ignored it, congratulations—you know boundary disrespect in action.

📌 What Couples Therapy Taught Me:
✅ You can’t control whether people respect your boundary—you can only control what happens when they don’t.

🚀 What to Do Instead:

• Follow through on your boundaries. ("If you keep bringing this up, I’m leaving the conversation.")

• Don’t over-explain. Boundaries aren’t debates—they’re decisions.

🚨 Family Fight #5: “I Love Them, But I Can’t Do This Anymore” (aka, The Estrangement Dilemma)

Sometimes, family therapy reveals what couples therapy sometimes does too:

🚨 Not all relationships are meant to be saved.

📌 What Couples Therapy Taught Me:
✅ You don’t owe anyone unlimited access to you.
✅ Some relationships improve. Some don’t.

🚀 What to Do Instead:

• Decide your threshold. (What’s tolerable vs. what’s damaging?)

• Try repair first, but know when to walk away.

📌 Bottom line? Some family fights can be healed. Others can’t. You get to decide what’s best for your mental health.

Final Thought: Family Therapy is Just Couples Therapy with More People & More Chaos

✅ Families and couples have the same core issues—just bigger.
✅ Resolution is about communication, not “winning.”
✅ Sometimes, the best thing you can do is stop fighting the same fight—and start having a different conversation.

And if no one has told you this before?

📌 You’re allowed to change how you engage with your family.

Be Well, Stay Kind, and Godspeed.