Best Denver Marriage Counselor and Sex Therapist: How to Choose the Right One
Finding the right Denver marriage counselor shouldn’t be harder than your marriage!
Looking for a Denver Marriage Counselor or Sex Therapist? I’d Love to Help
You might be doing all the “right” things, juggling work, family, social commitments, maybe even squeezing in date nights when you can but still feeling disconnected from your partner. Maybe communication feels like walking on eggshells. Maybe the intimacy you used to share feels distant.
Finding the right therapist can be especially complicated when the problems in your relationship involve both emotional and sexual connection. Not every couples therapist has specialized training in sexuality, and not every sex therapist specializes in working with couples.
I’m Marina Stanton, a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist, AASECT Certified Sex Therapist, and Gottman Method Level 3 Trained therapist. I offer in-person relationship counseling and sex therapy in Centennial, Colorado, serving the Denver metro area, as well as online therapy throughout Colorado.
Why Marriage Counseling in Denver Can Make a Difference
Couples rarely come to therapy because of one isolated problem. Communication, conflict, resentment, sex, stress, family history, and individual differences can all start affecting each other.
Good marriage counseling helps you understand not only what you’re fighting about, but what happens between you when things get hard and what each of you brings into those moments. From there, we can figure out what actually needs to change.
What to Look for in a Denver Marriage Counselor
1. The Right Fit (For Both of You)
Starting couples therapy is a big deal, and the fit with your therapist matters. Both of you need to feel like your therapist understands what’s happening, can work fairly with both partners, and is willing to step in when conversations start going sideways.
I sometimes compare finding an individual therapist to dating. It’s about chemistry and trust. But finding a couples therapist? That’s more like finding couple friends. You both have to like them. You both have to feel like this is someone who gets you and your relationship.
That doesn’t mean your therapist should always agree with you or make therapy comfortable. Sometimes good couples therapy means being challenged. But neither partner should consistently feel like the therapist has joined the other person’s team.
2. Specialized Experience with Couples
Marriage counseling isn’t the same as individual therapy with an extra person in the room. Working with two people who love each other, affect each other, and may have very different experiences of the same relationship requires specialized training.
When you’re looking for a Denver couples therapist, look for someone who works extensively with couples and has advanced training in couples therapy. A couples therapist needs to be able to track what’s happening between partners while also understanding the two individuals inside the relationship.
My practice is focused almost exclusively on couples. I love this work, including the complicated parts. I’m interested in why two people who genuinely care about each other can keep ending up in conversations neither of them intended to have, and what will actually help them do something different.
3. Specialized Training and Ongoing Education
Couples therapy is a specialty, and there are several established approaches to doing it well. When choosing a therapist, look at the training they’ve pursued beyond graduate school and whether that training fits the kind of help you’re looking for.
I’m Gottman Method Level 3 Trained and also draw heavily from the Developmental Model of Couples Therapy. Gottman gives us practical tools for managing conflict, strengthening friendship and intimacy, repairing after hurt, and building trust. The Developmental Model helps us pay attention to individual differences and how each partner grows and changes within the relationship.
I’m also an AASECT Certified Sex Therapist and hold a Certificate in Sexual Health from the University of Michigan. That additional training matters when sexual concerns are part of the relationship problem. We can work directly with differences in desire, pleasure, arousal or orgasm concerns, painful sex, sexual anxiety or shame, differences around pornography use, sexual expectations, and difficulty talking about sex.
Emotional and sexual concerns often affect each other, but I don’t assume that improving communication will automatically fix your sex life, or that every sexual problem is really a relationship problem.
If You're Looking for a Denver Marriage Counselor, Let’s Talk
If you’re looking for a therapist who specializes in both couples therapy and sex therapy, I’d be happy to talk with you about what’s bringing you in and whether my approach might be a good fit for your relationship.
I offer in-person relationship counseling and sex therapy in Centennial, serving the Denver metro area, as well as online therapy throughout Colorado.
A free 15-minute consultation gives both of you a chance to meet me, ask questions, and get a sense of what working together would be like.
Ready to get started? Schedule your free 15-minute consultation.