Why Couples Choose Relate
Most approaches focus on communication, but when trust and connection are missing, that’s not enough. The Relate Method; clinically called Presence Oriented Relationship Therapy (PORT) helps you rebuild both, so you can understand your relationship and actually change it
Used to support couples and train therapists across New Zealand and Australia.
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You are not alone...
Maybe conversations turn into the same argument.
Maybe things feel distant, or tense, or harder than they used to be.
Or maybe you just know (quietly, in the back of your mind) that something could be better.
If you’ve ever thought:
- “We’ve talked about doing this for a while…”
- “We should probably get support before things get worse…”
- “I just want things to feel clearer again…”
You don’t have to figure this out on your own.
Why Traditional Approaches Often Fall Short
Many couples are told to “communicate better.” But if you’ve tried that and still feel stuck, you’re not alone. Because when trust is damaged and connection is lost no matter how hard you try.
What most couples are told:
- Communicate better
- Listen more
- Resolve conflict calmly
Why it often doesn’t work:
- Trust has been impacted
- Connection has broken down
- The underlying issues aren’t being addressed
The Relate Method™
The Relate Method (PORT) focuses on the parts of a relationship that actually drive change: trust, connection, and how partners respond to each other over time.
Many couples are encouraged to focus on communication: how to talk, how to listen, how to resolve conflict. And while those things matter, they don’t fully explain why relationships feel stuck or why change can be so difficult.
Through research and experience, we’ve found that what drives a relationship sits deeper: within patterns of trust, safety, and connection that aren’t always immediately visible.
The Relate Method helps you understand and work with these underlying dynamics, so that change isn’t just temporary, but lasting.
Why Relationships Fail (and What Actually Works) explores this in more depth, helping you understand what to expect, how change actually happens, and how connection is rebuilt over time.
Why a Different Approach to Couples Therapy Is Needed
Many couples try therapy and come away feeling like it didn’t really help or that they’re back where they started.
In this conversation, we explore why that happens and how a more specialised approach to trust, connection, and relationship dynamics began to take shape.
Want to understand where your relationship sits in this cycle?
Rebuilding Trust (Even After Betrayal)
Trust is the single most important factor in how safe and connected a relationship feels.
When it’s broken through betrayal, disconnection, or repeated hurt many couples don’t know how to rebuild it.
At Relate, we use a structured approach to restoring trust, based on how trust actually works in the brain and in relationships.
This means trust isn’t left to chance it’s rebuilt step by step.
How We Help You Move Forward
What This Looks Like in Practice
The Relate Method shifts the focus to what actually drives change: trust, connection, and how partners respond to each other over time.
As a result, support tends to feel more structured and easier to work through. Conversations become clearer, and progress feels more purposeful.
Without this, therapy can often feel like:
- going in circles
- repeating the same conversations
- trying to figure things out as you go
Why Specialist Training Matters
Couples work requires specific training in how relationships function and change.
At Relate, all therapists are trained in the Relate Method, so support is consistent, focused, and grounded in how trust and connection are rebuilt.
A More Structured Experience
It’s normal to feel unsure about starting therapy, especially if you don’t know what to expect.
The Relate Method is designed to make the process clearer from the beginning.
Sessions follow a structure, so:
- you don’t have to carry the process
- you don’t have to guess what to talk about
- you don’t have to hope it eventually clicks
Instead, we help you:
- understand what’s actually happening
- recognise patterns that keep repeating
- work on change in practical, manageable ways
So things start to feel clearer and change becomes possible.
Support Around the Process
You’re also not expected to figure this out on your own.
A dedicated practice manager helps guide the process connecting you with the right therapist, supporting you through booking, and connecting you with other resources if needed.
For many people, this starts with a 30-minute consultation.
This is a focused session designed to help you understand what’s going on, what kind of support might help, and what the next step could look like.
Because it’s a guided session with a trained professional, it’s a paid consultation ($90), rather than a brief intake call.
So instead of guessing where to start, you begin with clarity.
Why people choose Relate
There are a lot of therapy options out there.
Here’s what makes this approach different and why it works.
Why work with a relationship specialist?
It is a little known fact that virtually no therapy training programme in the world offers specific training in working with couples.
There are 3 reasons:
- Working with couples is more complex
- Couples tend to fight more which is harder for young therapists
- Specialist training has not been widely available in much of the world
However relationship issues are what brings about 40% of clients to therapy.
What this means is that counsellors tend to have develop skills on the job – like asking your plumber to build an extension to your house. The results are not typically good. Christiansen’s research indicated a 50-55% success rate with untrained therapists which is similar to couples trying to solve issues on their own.
The last 40 years has seen the emergence of multiple credible approaches to relationship and marriage therapy with trained clinicians having success rates over 75%. Yet the vast majority of couples therapy is still delivered by undertrained therapists.
At Relate we require our clinicians to be trained in not just 1 but 2 models of couples therapy and to have over 200 hours of couple’s therapy experience before acceptance on the team. Many of our team are trained in more approaches (Our Director Steven is currently trained in 6 approaches and working through his 7th).
This has 3 benefits for you as a client.
Faster: We don’t spend a lot of time figuring it out as we go – we know what to focus on and what is relevant.
Effective: You are not paying for therapy that doesn’t work – this doesn’t mean that every couple stays together – it does mean we give you access to the tools to succeed.
Cheaper: Although sometimes our rates might be slightly higher we are often cheaper by virtue of being faster and more effective. Also given the often catastrophic costs of relationship failure not getting the right help can cost far more than money.
Why train in 2 or more models?
Most models fit particular styles and it’s common for about 20% of couples to not really resonate with a particular style – by training in 2 or more approaches we increase our ability to succeed with more couples.
Solution Oriented and Practical
When problems are real tangible and urgent you need more than a ‘talkfest’. When problems are linked to powerful emotions you need more than a ‘fixit’.
Couples therapy is about supporting you to rapidly change challenging situations in ways that produce good outcomes rather than fighting and staying stuck.
It involves pairing emotion and logic with cooperation and action.
When this is done well relationship and marriage counselling produces rapid results that are relatively easy to maintain (definitely easier than going back into the stuck pattern) and they leave you feeling good even if it’s hard or uncomfortable at the start.
Even very difficult challenges like resolving afffairs should ultimately leave a couple more connected, more loving, more hopeful.
For this reason good couples therapy is:
- Fast – so much faster than individual therapy
- Powerful – Couples often walk out of a first relationship therapy session feeling 100% better and knowing that they can improve even more
- Lasting – Good marriage counselling ensures that you learn not only how to change but how to maintain that change
- Infectious – Improving your connection tends to spill over into other areas of your life and your children, and your families and your friends. Parents stop fighting and kids stop have stomach and do better in schools, couples learn to problem solve faster and suddenly feel sexier and more playful, friends start asking, “What’s your secret?”. Work becomes easier and less stressful.
Research Based Couples Counselling
All of the Relate team has at least basic training in Gottman method therapy. This is because although some of the other specialist relationship approaches our team use e.g. EFT, Imago, PACT and HEART have done some research.
Gottman’s work is not only massive – it’s also predictive i.e. Gottman was able to predict divorce over the following 5 years in couples with over 90% accuracy after watching a 15 minute recording of them discussing a difficult issue (and he did this with over 500 couples).
For this reason it seemed critical to ensure that our team was equipped with this knowledge and experience. We have also found that being research based is useful for more skeptical and logical clients who might otherwise think of therapy as a wishy washy exercise in feelings and tree hugging.
This has been the impetus of creating Presence Oriented Relationship Therapy (PORT), the clinical framework behind the Relate Method. Relate offers training to professoinals and more information is available here.
Counselling in Multiple Languages
Our team is multi-lingual offering sessions in Polish, Korean, Mandarin, German and Hindi.
Common questions before starting
It’s completely normal to feel unsure before starting.
These are some of the most common questions people have.
How do I make relationship therapy work for me?
What you need from a therapist?
You need someone competent and trained in working with couples. Relationship therapy is specialised and being a good individual therapist does not mean that someone is qualified to work with couples. You need someone who will be clear about what they can, and can’t do, and is upfront about the costs, benefits and limitations of therapy.
What a therapist needs from you?
Desire and Commitment are the two key indicators of success in relationship counselling. The work is challenging, difficult and if embraced can be life-changing. Clients often come to relationship therapy secretly hoping the counsellor can wave a magic wand and make everything work instantly – that would be nice. A better analogy is getting a builder to come and look at the house you and your partner have constructed together and start giving you some guidelines and instructions on how to set things in order. It’s still hard work but there is the reassurance of knowing you are working with someone who has seen the process of restoring love in a marriage occur many times before. It is wise to recognise that it will cost in terms of time, money and (the most challenging piece) risking hurt by being vulnerable.
The good news . . .
Building a good relationship is not only possible it’s what we are created for. In fact many of our most painful experiences in love, are invitations to growth.
Welcome to the Journey
What if my partner doesn't want to go to couples counselling?
It is normal in a relationship that one person is more reluctant to attend counselling than the other. It is important to realise that you cannot force your partner to attend. Some things that may help are a direct request to attend for your sake, e.g. “I know you are not keen to attend counselling, or don’t think we need counselling I would really appreciate it if you would attend one session with me for my sake.” If there is a particular problem and they are resistant to counselling, ask them, “How do you think we could resolve this?” Agree to try their plan and ask them to support your plan of counselling as well. Get a couple of therapist profiles and ask them which person they would prefer to see. Guys in particular are much more likely to commit to one trial session to test out the therapist and frankly, I think its a pretty good approach. What is unlikely to work is getting mad and threatening them, saying, “You need to get help”, etc.
What is couples therapy actually like?
It’s not just talking in circles.
Sessions are guided so you can:
- understand what’s happening
- see patterns more clearly
- start responding differently
Most people notice a sense of clarity early on even if everything isn’t solved yet.
Practical, not just theoretical
When relationship problems are real, you need more than a “talkfest.”
And when emotions are involved, you need more than a quick fix.
Good couples therapy brings both together.
At Relate, we focus on:
- real-life communication
- practical changes you can apply immediately
- helping you move forward, not stay stuck
When this is done well, therapy becomes:
- fast → changes can happen quickly
- powerful → sessions often create immediate clarity
- lasting → you learn how to maintain progress
You don’t need to be certain to start
Most people don’t come to therapy with everything figured out.
They just know something isn’t working the way it used to.
You don’t have to have the right words.
You don’t have to be in crisis.
You don’t have to be sure this will work.
You just need a starting point.
You can always adjust as you go.