Helping You Strengthen Your Connection
Every relationship has its ups and downs. Life stressors, communication breakdowns and conflict patterns, and changes in circumstances such as marriage, parenthood, career transitions, or relocation can put strain on even the strongest partnerships. At Fresh Breath Therapy, we provide couples counseling and marriage therapy in Cary, Raleigh, Greensboro, Fayetteville, and Wilmington NC, and we believe relationship counseling is not about "fixing" one person — it's about helping two people work together toward a healthier, more fulfilling relationship through improved communication skills, conflict resolution strategies, and deeper emotional intimacy.
Our goal as licensed marriage and family therapists is to create a safe and nonjudgmental space where both partners in couples therapy sessions feel heard, understood, validated, and supported. Whether you're navigating conflict and communication problems, recovering from a breach of trust such as infidelity or emotional affairs, adjusting to major life transitions like becoming new parents or blending families, dealing with intimacy issues or sexual concerns, or simply wanting to deepen your emotional bond and strengthen your relationship connection through premarital counseling or relationship enrichment—we're here to help.
Benefits of Couples Counseling
- Improve communication and understanding between partners through active listening skills
- Resolve conflicts constructively using healthy conflict resolution techniques
- Rebuild trust and intimacy after infidelity, betrayal, or emotional disconnection
- Navigate life transitions together including marriage, parenthood, career changes, empty nest
- Strengthen emotional connection, physical intimacy, and romantic bond
- Create shared goals for the future and align on values, finances, parenting
Our approach to couples therapy and marriage counseling is tailored to your relationship's unique needs, drawing on evidence-based methods such as Emotionally Focused Therapy (EFT), Gottman Method couples therapy, and the Imago relationship approach to help you and your partner build practical tools and relationship skills for lasting change.
We take a collaborative approach to relationship counseling, drawing on evidence-based strategies and proven therapeutic techniques tailored to your unique needs and relationship goals. Couples counseling sessions are focused on building tools you can use outside of therapy to create lasting change in your communication patterns, emotional responsiveness, conflict management, and overall relationship satisfaction.
Why We Do Not Accept Insurance for Couples Counseling
We choose to keep couples counseling and marriage therapy private-pay only to ensure your therapy remains truly balanced, unbiased, and focused on your relationship as a whole unit.
Insurance companies require therapy to have an identified patient and a mental health diagnosis for billing purposes. This means one partner would have to be labeled as "the patient," and sessions would need to be documented as treatment for that person's mental health condition — even if your concerns are relational issues, communication problems, or relationship dynamics, not clinical mental health disorders.
We believe this requirement can create unnecessary bias, power imbalances, and shift the focus away from the relationship itself as the client. By working outside of insurance for couples therapy and marriage counseling, we can provide unbiased, relationship-centered support that keeps your goals — not insurance rules or diagnostic requirements — at the heart of the process and therapeutic work.
Our rate starts at $150 for each 60 minute couples counseling appointment and additional time can be added!