Couples Therapy
Couples therapy for the conversations you keep having — and the ones you keep avoiding.
You may love each other and still feel like every attempt to connect becomes a fight, a defense, or a retreat.
Couples therapy is not a courtroom. It is a place to slow the cycle down and understand what each of you is reaching for underneath it.
Meet your therapist
Hi, I'm Robert.
Most weeks I sit with two people who keep having the same argument in different clothes.
I'm Robert Russell, AMFT — an Associate Marriage and Family Therapist in Murfreesboro and the founder of Kind Therapy. My training is relational: distress usually lives in the patterns between people, not inside one person who is broken.
Sessions are conversations, paced by you. No script to follow, no version of yourself to perform. We start with what is actually happening, and go from there.
Robert Russell, AMFT — pre-licensed Marriage & Family Therapist, practicing under the supervision of Dr. Sara Hopkins, LMFT (TN license #928).
In person in Murfreesboro and online across Tennessee · Endorsed by 13 fellow clinicians on Psychology Today
01 — Recognition
What brings couples in
Most couples do not need a stranger to tell them they are struggling. They need somewhere the struggle can be understood.
- The same argument about money, sex, parenting or time together.
- One partner asking for change while the other feels perpetually criticized.
- Silence after conflict that lasts longer than either person intended.
- Affection and curiosity giving way to management.
- A betrayal, transition or loss that changed the shape of the relationship.
- Wanting help before resentment becomes the only language left.
A hard season does not tell the whole story of a relationship.
02 — Perspective
Both people are usually protecting something
The person who pursues may be protecting against being forgotten. The person who withdraws may be protecting against failure or escalation. Those protections can collide until each person sees only the other's reaction.
Therapy turns toward the pattern so the relationship can become the place where both people are more accurately seen.
03 — What it costs
When the cycle becomes the relationship
Repeated disconnection can affect more than the two minutes when the argument is happening.
- The home atmosphere: everyone monitoring the next mood shift.
- Intimacy: wanting closeness and bracing for disappointment at the same time.
- Parenting: disagreeing about the children because it is safer than naming the deeper hurt.
- Hope: wondering whether trying again will simply create another failed conversation.
04 — The work
What couples therapy actually looks like
Sessions are structured conversations, not a space to build a case against your partner.
- Map the cycle so it becomes something you can face together.
- Slow down the moments when each person loses access to the other.
- Practice expressing needs without accusation and receiving them without defense.
- Make room for repair, including the parts that cannot be rushed.
05 — Why Robert
Who you would be working with
Robert Russell is an Associate Marriage & Family Therapist (AMFT) in Murfreesboro, pre-licensed and practicing under the supervision of Dr. Sara Hopkins, LMFT (TN license #928). He completed graduate training in marriage and family therapy at Trevecca Nazarene University after more than fifteen years in pastoral counseling and helping work.
His training is relational. Distress is usually understood as living in the patterns between people rather than inside one person who is broken. Sessions are conversations — paced by you, without a script you are expected to follow.
06 — Approach
How the work is done
Couples work is primarily relational: the relationship itself becomes the place where new responses are practiced.
Attachment-based therapy
Looks at what closeness, dependence and safety have meant for you, and how those early lessons still shape the present.
Emotionally Focused Therapy (EFT)
Maps the cycle between you and the people closest to you so the conflict stops being about who is right.
Parts-informed work
Separates the protective parts — the critic, the fixer, the one who goes quiet — from the person underneath them.
Practical relational understanding
Language and responses you can actually use in the moment, not only insight about why something happens.
07 — Logistics
Fees, length and location
- $150 per 50-minute session
- In person in Murfreesboro at River Tree Center, 212 Heritage Park Drive
- Online across Tennessee
- Free 15-minute consultation before you commit to anything
08 — Common questions
Questions people ask first
- Do we have to be in crisis?
- No. Couples often come because they want to change a pattern before it becomes a crisis.
- What if my partner will not come?
- You can start alone. Individual work can clarify your part in the cycle and what you want to do next.
- Will you tell us who is right?
- No. The goal is not to referee. It is to understand the cycle and make room for responsibility, safety and connection.
- Can couples therapy help after infidelity?
- It can provide a place to understand the rupture and decide what repair or clarity would require. It does not promise a particular outcome.
- How long does it take?
- There is no fixed program. The length depends on the pattern, your goals and what changes over time.
09 — Read more
Related Kind Therapy guides
If you would rather read before you talk to anyone, these guides go deeper into the patterns above.
- Couples CommunicationThe cycle beneath the argument and how it can change.
- Relationship DisconnectionWhat distance can mean in a relationship.
- Infidelity and BetrayalUnderstanding the rupture and the questions after it.
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10 — Next step
Start with a private conversation
A free 15-minute call is a chance to describe what is going on and ask whether therapy seems worth trying. No commitment, no intake paperwork, no pressure.
Kind Therapy · Murfreesboro, Tennessee and online across Tennessee. If you are experiencing a mental health emergency, call or text 988, or dial 911.