What Is Marriage Coaching, and How Does It Work?

Marriage coaching is a structured conversation with someone trained to help you and your spouse see what is straining the marriage. You choose one place to start, and you take one small step this week. It follows a set process, from a first conversation through weekly practice. Coaching works for couples who are safe with each other and ready to work on the relationship.

How a Coaching Conversation Runs

A coach starts by listening for what is loudest right now, the fight that keeps repeating or the thing that made you look for help. Then she listens for the older pattern underneath, the one that usually set off the loud argument. Most couples come in ready to talk about the surface fight. Part of a coach’s job is to slow that down and see what the fight is really about.

Most couples carry their strain in one of six areas: emotional connection, physical touch, money, shared faith, friendship and fun, and sex. Alisa DiLorenzo built her coaching around those six pillars, and you can read more about any one of them, starting with emotional intimacy.

Once she hears where the strain sits, she names it out loud in plain language, so you both hear it as a problem you are carrying together. From there you pick one place to start, and she gives you one clear, small action to try before the next conversation.

What a First Session Is Like

Alisa walks through it here, from the two reminder emails before your first session to what happens in the sessions after it.

Read the transcript

I want to answer a question that I know a lot of folks have, and that is, what happens in a coaching session? And I’m actually gonna back you up a couple of steps to the point that you’ve scheduled your coaching session and walk you through what that looks like, not just with the first session, but with subsequent sessions as well.

Once you have scheduled your first session, I want you to know that you’re gonna receive two emails from me leading up to that. One’s gonna come out about a day before just reminding you that your session is the next day, and then one’ll come out an hour before. The reason for those two emails is I know you lead full lives just like I do, and having those reminders, even if it’s on your calendar, just helps you to be prepared.

In that very first session, I’m going to invite you to share with me what exactly the circumstances are that brought the two of you in for coaching, what was going on in your marriage, what the marriage journey has been like. I wanna hear from both of you, if at all possible, because that gives me both perspectives.

Having been married for three decades now, I know that there’s always his perspective and her perspective, and then there is a shared perspective in the middle. At the end of that first session, there will be a couple of action items, and that is something that actually will carry on throughout your work with me.

Within 24 to 48 hours after a session, you’re going to receive an email from me that is going to discuss the action items that we talked about, and if you opt for it, have a link to the recording of your session. That link to the recording is completely optional. It is not something that you have to ask or request.

It is something that I do make available if you would like that information, um, to see the recording, to see the steps and strategies that we discussed. Now, after that first session, and you’ve got those action items that come, we’ll start the subsequent sessions talking about the actions that were discussed and assigned in the previous session.

And the reason for this is that something that I’ve learned in all of my years of marriage and working with couples for the last 14, 15 years is this: nothing changes in a marriage until the actions change. We can’t wait for our feelings to change to start taking action. We have to take action first so that we can get our feelings on board with the actions that we’re taking.

So, I will start our que- our… So I will start our next session with a question asking about those action items. Where did you have wins in your marriage? What has gone well, and what has been a challenge? And we will continue to work toward the progress, the goals that you set in that first session. It doesn’t matter which pillar of intimacy or pillars of intimacy you’re looking to work on, we’re going to take that same format as we move you and your spouse towards your goals.

Can’t wait to see you in that first session.

Alisa opens by telling you both that her role is to help you see what is happening in the marriage. She also keeps the conversation safe for both of you. She asks each of you to describe, briefly, what brought you here.

If the conversation starts to slide into blame or one of you shuts down, she slows it down and brings it back to safety before going further. She tells you what she is hearing, in plain words. She names the area of the marriage that seems to be carrying the most weight right now. That might be emotional distance, a money fight that is really about trust, or a friendship the two of you have not had time for lately.

You and your spouse choose one focus together. The session ends with one small, specific thing to practice this week, small enough that you can both follow through on it.

What You Do Between Sessions

Each session closes with a specific action and a follow-up email spelling it out, so you know exactly what to try before you talk again. The next session starts with that step, so you talk about what you tried, what got in the way, and what changed.

Marriage coaching builds this way, one small practiced step at a time, week after week. A single conversation rarely changes a pattern that took years to form. A couple who keeps showing up and tries the next small thing gives that pattern a real chance to change.

How This Is Different From Talking to a Friend or Your Pastor

A friend can listen and sympathize. Your pastor can pray with you and offer counsel from scripture. Both matter, and a coach adds something different. She brings a specific process for finding which part of the marriage is under strain, and a clear path from that first conversation to a concrete next step.

A coach also keeps the conversation contained. Sessions have a clear focus and a clear end point each week, so the conversation does not sprawl into every complaint either of you has ever had. A coach is not a therapist, and coaching does not treat mental illness, addiction, or trauma. Coaching and counseling can run side by side when a couple needs both, and a good coach will tell you when that is the case.

Who Marriage Coaching Is For

Coaching fits a couple who is safe with each other and ready to work on the marriage. Common situations include:

• Communication that keeps breaking down into the same fight
• Feeling like roommates who share a house and a calendar
• Drifting apart under the weight of work, kids, and a full schedule
• Money tension that comes from stress or mismatched habits, with no hidden accounts or secrecy involved
• Early distance in the bedroom that hasn’t turned into anything else

If any of that sounds like your marriage, coaching is a reasonable next step. Episode 882, “The Silent Treatment,” shows one version of the pattern a coach would help you name and work through.

Who Needs Something Else First, or Alongside Coaching

Some situations call for more than a coach can offer. Your marriage might include repeated conflict that never resolves, a struggle with pornography, one spouse who has been withdrawn for a long time, or signs of anxiety or depression. Coaching can still help, but a licensed counselor or therapist should be part of the picture too. Say so on the application, and Alisa can talk with you about how the two can work together.

You may be afraid of your spouse, or there may be abuse, control, or coercion in your home. You or your spouse may be having thoughts of suicide. In any of those cases, marriage coaching is the wrong first call. If you are afraid at home, the National Domestic Violence Hotline is 1-800-799-7233, and if either of you is thinking about suicide, call or text 988. Coaching is for couples who are safe with each other. A coach cannot handle a safety crisis, and no good coach will try.

What to Expect If You Apply

The marriage coaching page walks through three steps for working with Alisa:

1. Meet your coach. Alisa gets to know you and your situation before any strategy begins.
2. Fill out the application. The questions help both of you and Alisa see what brought you to this point and what you have already tried.
3. Have your first coaching session. Alisa reviews your answers and starts the kind of conversation described above, built around your marriage.

Your Next Step for Today

If you can see your marriage somewhere above, and you and your spouse are safe with each other, the next step is small. Read through the marriage coaching page together tonight. Apply when you are both ready to start.