We often talk about what needs to happen in couple therapy, but far less about the situations where continuing is no longer in the couple’s best interest. One of the clearest reasons to end therapy is when one partner cannot stay regulated enough to follow the process. If sessions repeatedly move outside the window of tolerance, the interaction goes into runaway. The same defensive patterns take over, the same survival responses activate, and the work becomes a weekly reenactment of what we are trying to shift. Nothing can shift if the nervous system cannot tolerate the process and structure of therapy itself.

Another reason is misalignment in intent. Sometimes one partner arrives genuinely ready to work on the relationship while the other enters with the expectation that therapy will focus on changing their partner. They adopt the position of a second therapist in the room, withholding their own participation until the other changes first, and often trying to direct the process toward their preferred narrative. This is a structural dead end. Couple work only progresses when both partners shift in parallel; conditional engagement collapses the process before it begins.

A third reason is coercion. It is more common than people realise for one partner to be pressured into therapy out of fear, appeasement, or obligation. When someone is in the room unwillingly, their system is not available for change. What follows is performance, compliance, or quiet resistance rather than engagement. If this dynamic remains unchanged, the process becomes untenable; therapy cannot function as an ultimatum or as a space where one person is forced to participate against their own intention.

A fourth reason emerges when one partner has already left the relationship in all but logistics. Sometimes therapy is approached as a final gesture, a way of showing they “tried,” when the internal decision to leave has already been made. Once someone has emotionally stepped out, or speaks of separation as an inevitability, there is no longer enough engagement or involvement for the process to accumulate momentum. Therapy cannot build movement when one partner is no longer available to participate in the work.