Couples Therapy Daniel Dashnaw Couples Therapy Daniel Dashnaw

Post-Therapy Plateaus: How Couples Maintain Progress After the Breakthrough


“We did the work. We cried. We repaired. Now what?”

For many couples, therapy ends not in collapse or triumph—but in a strange, quiet plateau.

They leave the therapist’s office with a set of tools, a few shared phrases (“is this a protest behavior?”), and maybe even a laminated communication card.

But in the months that follow, the intimacy starts to dull like a kitchen knife used without sharpening. The rituals fade. The conflict patterns sneak back like raccoons through a back fence.

Welcome to the post-therapy plateau.

This under-discussed stretch of time—after therapy ends but before change is fully lived-in—is becoming a serious topic of inquiry among relationship researchers and clinicians.

And the best minds in the field are starting to ask: How do couples keep growing when the therapist isn’t in the room anymore?

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Couples Therapy Daniel Dashnaw Couples Therapy Daniel Dashnaw

Love Languages Are a Useful Lie (And Why We Still Use Them)

Once upon a time, a kind Southern Baptist marriage counselor gave us a miracle. It had 5 parts, it came with a quiz, and it fit on a fridge magnet.

We called it The Five Love Languages.

You know the types.

  • Words of affirmation.

  • Acts of service.

  • Receiving gifts.

  • Quality time.

  • Physical touch.

Chapman’s premise was simple: if we can just speak each other’s “language,” we’ll finally feel loved.

And like many simple ideas, it went absolutely feral in the wild.

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