Where most couples start
Two people, one room, no bridge
You are both in the house and both alone in it. Each of you has rehearsed your side so many times that the other person already knows it by heart and has stopped listening.
The first session
A third person arrives, and nobody is on trial
Your counsellor does not ask who is right. They ask what happens just before the fight starts, and what each of you is protecting in that moment. That is usually the first time either of you has heard it said out loud.
The pattern gets named
You see the loop you are both stuck in
Most couples are caught in a cycle neither of them chose. Seen from outside, it stops looking like a character flaw and starts looking like a shape you can step out of together.
Between sessions
One thing to practise, not ten
You leave with one or two concrete changes to try at home. Small, doable, and reviewed together next time. Change that survives a bad Tuesday is worth more than a breakthrough that does not.
The marriage you wanted
Close again, with the words back
Not a marriage without arguments. A marriage where an argument does not cost you a week. That is the honest version of a happy marriage, and it is reachable.