If you or your children are not safe, get help now. Visit a nearby emergency service, hospital, or police station immediately.
Crisis numbers
- the United States of America: The line listed below is a gender-based-violence line.
- National Domestic Violence Hotline, funded under the Family Violence Prevention and Services Act: Tel: 1-800-799-7233
- the United Kingdom: The line listed below is a gender-based-violence line.
- Men's Advice Line, for men experiencing domestic abuse: Tel: 0808 8010327. Weekdays, 10am to 5pm.
- India: The lines listed below are gender-based-violence lines.
- South Africa: The lines listed below are gender-based-violence lines.
- GBV Command Centre: Tel: 0800 428 428 | Text: 31531 (SMS for people with disabilities). 24 hours.
- LifeLine Gender Violence Helpline: Tel: 0800-150-150 | WhatsApp: +27800150150. 24 hours.
- TEARS Foundation helpline, for people affected by rape or abuse: Tel: 08000 83277. 24 hours.
- the Philippines: The line listed below is a gender-based-violence line.
- Aleng Pulis Hotline, police help for women and children facing abuse: Tel: 0920-907-1717 (Smart) | Tel: 0966-725-5961 (Globe)
- Australia: The lines listed below are relationship and gender-based-violence lines.
- 1800RESPECT, for domestic, family and sexual violence: Tel: 1800 737 732 | Text: 0458 737 732. 24 hours.
- Family Relationship Advice Line: Tel: 1800 050 321. Weekdays 8am to 8pm, Saturday 10am to 4pm, local time; closed Sundays and national public holidays.
- Germany: The lines listed below are gender-based-violence lines.
- Hilfetelefon Gewalt gegen Frauen, for women facing violence and those supporting them: Tel: 116 016. 24 hours.
- Hilfe-Telefon Sexueller Missbrauch, sexual abuse helpline: Tel: 0800 22 55 530. Monday, Wednesday and Friday 9am to 2pm; Tuesday and Thursday 3pm to 8pm. Closed on national public holidays and on 24 and 31 December.
- the United Arab Emirates: The line listed below is a gender-based-violence line.
- Dubai Foundation for Women and Children helpline, for domestic violence and child abuse: Tel: 800111. 24 hours.
- Saudi Arabia: The line listed below is a gender-based-violence line.
- Domestic Violence Reporting Center: Tel: 1919
- Türkiye:
- ALO 183, the ministry's 24-hour support line: Tel: 183 (within Türkiye) | SMS: 183
- Spain: The line listed below is a gender-based-violence line.
- 016, for any violence against women: Tel: 016 | WhatsApp: 600 000 016 (messages only) | Text: 900 116 016 (Text phone). 24 hours.
- New Zealand: The lines listed below are gender-based-violence lines.
- Shine family violence helpline: Tel: 0508 744 633. 24 hours.
- Shakti Crisis Line, for migrant and refugee women facing violence: Tel: 0800 742 584. 24 hours.
- Sweden: The lines listed below are gender-based-violence lines.
- Kvinnofridslinjen, support for anyone facing violence: Tel: 116 016 | Tel: 020-50 50 50 (Call (old number)). 24 hours.
- Stödlinjen för män, for boys and men facing violence or abuse: Tel: 020-80 80 80. 24 hours. People close to them may also call.
- Stödlinjen för transpersoner, for trans and non-binary people facing violence: Tel: 020-55 00 00. 24 hours. People close to them may also call.
- Switzerland: The line listed below is a gender-based-violence line.
- Opferhilfe, support for victims of violence: Tel: 142. 24 hours.
- Croatia: The lines listed below are gender-based-violence lines.
- Iraq: The line listed below is a family and gender-based-violence line.
- The 119 hotline for violence and family crisis, Kurdistan Region: Tel: 119
- Nigeria: The line listed below is a gender-based-violence line.
- National Agency for the Prohibition of Trafficking in Persons (NAPTIP): Tel: 07030000203
- Kenya: The line listed below is a gender-based-violence line.
- Gender Violence Recovery Centre toll-free helpline: Tel: 0800720565. 24 hours.
- Sri Lanka: The line listed below is a gender-based-violence line.
- Women In Need 24h Hotline: Tel: 077 567 6555. 24 hours. For women and girls facing violence.
- Malaysia: The lines listed below are gender-based-violence lines.
- Talian Kasih 15999, help with abuse and child neglect: Tel: 15999 | WhatsApp: 019 26 15999. 24 hours.
- WAO Hotline and TINA text line: Tel: +603 3000 8858 | Text: +6018 988 8058 (TINA, SMS) | WhatsApp: +6018 988 8058 (TINA, WhatsApp). For women facing abuse, and friends or family supporting them. Phone weekdays 9am–5pm, weekends 8am–4pm; TINA texts 24 hours.
- Zimbabwe: The lines listed below are gender-based-violence lines.
- Musasa, for women and girls facing violence: Tel: 08080074, Econet. | Tel: 08010074, NetOne. | Tel: 0731080074, Telecel.
- Adult Rape Clinic, for survivors of sexual violence: Tel: 08080472; 24 hours, free from Econet. | Tel: 0775 672 770; works on all networks. Its cost is not published. | Tel: +263 775 672 770
- Bangladesh: The lines listed below are gender-based-violence lines.
- National Helpline 109, violence against women and children: Tel: 109
- Bangladesh Mahila Parishad, help line for victims of violence: Tel: 01717 363 647 | Tel: 01727209271
- Lebanon: The lines listed below are relationship and gender-based-violence lines.
- ABAAD Emergency Safe Line, for anyone facing violence: Tel: +961 81 78 81 78. 24 hours.
- Al Dar Women and Girls Safe Shelter, Safe Line: Tel: +961 76 06 06 02. 24 hours. For women and girls facing violence, and their children.
- KAFA support line for women and children victims of violence: Tel: 03-018019. 24 hours. For women and children who are victims of violence.
- Internal Security Forces domestic violence line: Tel: 1745. A police line to report domestic violence.
- ABAAD Men Centre helpline, family and relationship support for men: Tel: +961 71 28 38 20. Weekdays, 9am to 5pm.
- Vietnam: The lines listed below are gender-based-violence lines.
- Tổng đài 111, national child protection hotline: Tel: 111. 24 hours. For children, parents and carers; anyone can report harm to a child.
- Tổng đài 117, national domestic violence hotline: Tel: 117. 24 hours.
- CSAGA counselling hotline: Tel: 024 3333 55 99. For women and girls facing gender-based violence; also domestic violence and LGBTQ issues.
- Botswana: The lines listed below are gender-based-violence lines.
- Cyprus: The lines listed below are gender-based-violence lines.
- Portugal: The line listed below is a gender-based-violence line.
- Domestic violence information line 800 202 148 and SMS 3060: Tel: 800 202 148 | Text: 3060. 24 hours.
- Oman: The line listed below is a gender-based-violence line.
- Child Protection Line 1100: Tel: 1100. A line to report child abuse.
- Uganda: The line listed below is a gender-based-violence line.
- Sauti 116, for children and survivors of violence: Tel: 116
- Namibia: The line listed below is a gender-based-violence line.
- LifeLine/ChildLine Namibia 106 Gender-Based Violence HelpLine: Tel: 106 | Text: 081 398 5510. 8am to 8pm.
- Singapore: The line listed below is a gender-based-violence line.
- National Anti-Violence and Sexual Harassment Helpline (NAVH): Tel: 1800-777-0000
How to find the right marriage counsellor
The practitioners here work with couples and have appointments open. Read the profiles for someone who names marriages and long relationships, rather than couples work in general. Check they can see you both at an hour that exists in your week. If you have children, look for someone who works with parents too.
Read the exact title on the profile, then check that title on the register the practitioner is listed with.
Before you contact a marriage counsellor
Marriage counselling is talking therapy for two people who have built a life together and cannot get through something in it. The subject is the marriage, which is a longer thing than the argument that brought you: years of habits, agreements neither of you remembers making, and the way you have each learnt to handle the other.
People come after an affair, after years of drifting, when one of them is thinking about leaving, when the children have gone or arrived, when illness or money or a parent's care has changed everything, or when the fighting has become the relationship. Some come to decide whether to stay. That is a legitimate reason and a counsellor should be able to hold it without steering you.
Expect the counsellor to ask about the history and not only the crisis, and expect that to feel slow if you arrived wanting the fighting to stop this week. Both of you attend. Sessions are often longer than individual therapy and further apart, so that what is agreed has time to be lived.
One partner is usually more willing than the other. That is the ordinary starting position, not a sign it will fail, and a counsellor will work with the reluctant partner's reluctance rather than around it.
Couples sessions require safety. If what is happening at home is frightening rather than difficult, the NO MORE Global Directory lists domestic and sexual violence helplines and specialist support services country by country. The NO MORE Foundation built it with the United Nations and the World Bank.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is different about counselling a marriage?
The length of the bond changes the work. You are not only a couple. You share a household, a history, arrangements other people depend on, and often the parenting of children.
None of that untangles quickly. A counsellor who works with marriages treats it as the material, not the background.
The first session is the two of you saying what has gone wrong. After that the counsellor works on the pattern you fall into. You get things to try at home, where the marriage actually happens.
We keep having the same argument. Does that mean it is over?
No.
Gottman and Silver divide marital conflict into two kinds. There is what can be settled, and what will be part of your lives in some form for good 1. The second kind is the larger share, and it is normal rather than a sign of a bad marriage. The trouble starts when a couple treats a permanent difference as something to be won.
So the aim is not to resolve everything. It is to get the recurring arguments to a conversation you can both survive and come back to. That is learnable, and it is much of the work.
Four habits are worth recognising in your own arguments: criticism, defensiveness, contempt and stonewalling.
What about the children?
Bring them up in the first session, even though the appointment is for the two of you.
What reaches children is not the disagreement. It is being inside it: hearing it, being asked to take a side, carrying messages. Expect to be asked what they have seen.
If you separate, the parenting continues. Agreeing in the room how you will talk to each other as parents leaves your children better placed. That holds whichever way the marriage goes.
We are not sure whether to stay. Can we bring that?
Yes, and say it plainly in the first session.
It is common for one of you to be further out of the marriage than the other. Often that is the thing neither has said aloud.
The work is not automatically aimed at keeping you together. It is aimed at the two of you deciding with your eyes open rather than by exhaustion.
Ask how a counsellor works when one partner is unsure about staying. One who works with marriages will have a clear answer.
After an affair the work is slower, and it has an order. The hurt partner says what it did to them, more than once, before anybody explains how it came about. Ask whether a counsellor works with affairs, because not all do.
If you are frightened of your partner rather than unhappy with them, say so before any joint session is arranged. Ask to be seen alone first. The support numbers at the top of this page are for that.
What if my husband or wife will not come?
Find out what the refusal is about. Usually it is a fear of being blamed in front of a stranger. Sometimes it is a belief that talking changes nothing. Sometimes it is a sense that needing help means the marriage has already failed.
Two things tend to work: a handful of sessions with a decision at the end rather than an open commitment, and choosing the practitioner together. If the answer is still no, book for yourself. A counsellor may see partners separately where one of you sees no problem. When one person changes their part of a pattern, the pattern shifts.
How long does it take, and what will it feel like?
Most couples begin weekly and move to longer gaps as things steady. A recent difficulty takes less time than twenty years of the same argument.
Expect it to feel worse before better. Things get said that have been avoided for years. The week after one of those is often the hardest. That is the work running normally.
Choosing between the people on this list
Training in couples work specifically, first. The labels on profiles are emotionally focused therapy and integrative or behavioural couple therapy. Carr's review of the evidence finds they reach broadly similar results with distressed couples 2. Weigh the person above the label.
Then ask what they do when a session boils over, and how they avoid ending up on one side. After the first session each of you should feel heard. If one of you did not, say so in the second.
Practicalities: online, and what it costs
Many work online and the profile says so. You will both need somewhere private, which in a house with children is harder than it sounds. If your rows escalate fast, being in the room is usually better.
Fees are on each profile, and couple sessions often run longer than individual ones. Ask for the fee and the length in the same message. Ask whether a lower fee is available. Relationship charities, community services and university training clinics see couples for less in many places, and we have written on what therapy costs and how to budget for it.
Where a health scheme pays, some will only do so if one of you carries a diagnosis. Ask before you start.
Where can I find a marriage counsellor?
Find relationship support in your country. Click a country to expand.
Australia
Canada
- Couples therapy in Toronto
- Couples therapy in Vancouver
- Couples therapy in Montreal
- Couples therapy in Ottawa
- Couples therapy in Calgary
- Couples therapy in Edmonton
- Couples therapy in Vaughan
- Couples therapy in Mississauga
- Couples therapy in Brampton
- Couples therapy in Markham
- Couples therapy in Hamilton
- Couples therapy in Kitchener
- Couples therapy in Waterloo
- Couples therapy in Burlington
- Couples therapy in London
- Couples therapy in Newmarket
- Couples therapy in Oakville
- Couples therapy in Victoria
India
- Couples therapy in India
- Couples therapy in Mumbai
- Couples therapy in Bangalore
- Couples therapy in Delhi
- Couples therapy in New Delhi
- Couples therapy in Chennai
- Couples therapy in Kolkata
- Couples therapy in Pune
- Couples therapy in Bengaluru
- Couples therapy in Noida
- Couples therapy in Gurgaon
- Couples therapy in Hyderabad
- Couples therapy in Gurugram
- Couples therapy in Jaipur
- Couples therapy in Ahmedabad
- Couples therapy in Dehradun
- Couples therapy in Guwahati
- Couples therapy in Lucknow
- Couples therapy in Jalandhar
- Couples therapy in Vadodara
Kenya
Lebanon
Netherlands
Philippines
Portugal
South Africa
- Marriage counselling in Cape Town
- Marriage counselling in Johannesburg
- Marriage counselling in Pretoria
- Marriage counselling in Sandton
- Marriage counselling in Durban
- Marriage counselling in Randburg
- Marriage counselling in Roodepoort
- Marriage counselling in Stellenbosch
- Marriage counselling in Benoni
- Marriage counselling in Bloemfontein
- Marriage counselling in Centurion
- Marriage counselling in Somerset West
- Marriage counselling in Pietermaritzburg
- Marriage counselling in George
- Marriage counselling in Alberton
- Marriage counselling in Germiston
United Kingdom
United States
- Couples therapy in New York
- Couples therapy in Los Angeles
- Couples therapy in Houston
- Couples therapy in San Francisco
- Couples therapy in Chicago
- Couples therapy in San Diego
- Couples therapy in Oakland
- Couples therapy in Denver
- Couples therapy in Austin
- Couples therapy in New York City
- Couples therapy in Philadelphia
- Couples therapy in Brooklyn
- Couples therapy in Burbank
- Couples therapy in Washington
- Couples therapy in Phoenix
- Couples therapy in Pasadena
- Couples therapy in Santa Monica
- Couples therapy in Seattle
- Couples therapy in Berkeley
- Couples therapy in Long Beach
- Couples therapy in Raleigh
- Couples therapy in Tampa
Related pages
References
[1] Gottman, J. M., & Silver, N. (2015). The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work, revised ed., ch. 8, The Two Kinds of Marital Conflict, pp. 145-152.
Real choice. Authentic, independent, clinician-led care.
TherapyRoute is a clinician-led directory that champions independent practitioners who answer to you and their professional ethics. We don't take commissions, sell your data, or assign therapists by algorithm. You browse, compare, and choose.
Vincenzo (Enzo) Sinisi, Clinical Psychologist (HPCSA), Psychoanalyst (IPA/SAPA), Group Analyst (IGA)
TherapyRoute is not for emergencies and does not provide medical advice. All of our content is informational and cannot replace professional healthcare. In an emergency, contact a local emergency service. For immediate support, consider a local helpline.
