Emotionally Focused Couples therapy for marriages where one partner is deconstructing or has left the faith
Couples Therapy for Faith Deconstruction and Faith Transitions in Bellevue
Faith Was the Foundation of Your Marriage and Your Whole Life on the Eastside
Your faith wasn't just something you did on Sundays. On the Eastside, it was the connective tissue for your whole life: your small group in Kirkland, the couples you vacation with from church, the school your kids attend in Redmond, the families you spend holidays with. You chose each other partly because you believed the same things, and for years that shared belief made every major decision feel obvious.
Now one of you doesn't believe anymore, or your beliefs have shifted in a direction your partner can't follow, and the ground underneath your marriage feels unstable.
It would be simpler if this were just about Sunday mornings. But on the Eastside, leaving the faith or changing your beliefs can mean losing your entire social network. The families from your Sammamish small group are also your kids' playdate friends. The men's group or women’s Bible study is where your closest friendships live. The couples you'd normally turn to for support are the same people who would be alarmed by what's happening in your marriage.
So you're dealing with a fundamental shift in your relationship while also calculating what it would cost socially to be honest about it. And every week there's another decision — the church fundraiser, the missions trip your family signed up for, whether to keep tithing — that turns into an argument or an awkward silence.
You can learn more about how I approach couples therapy when faith is part of the equation, including what makes this work different from standard couples counseling, on my couples therapy for faith deconstruction page.
Why this is so painful for both of you
If you're the one who stayed in the faith:
You feel like you’re watching your marriage become something you didn’t agree to. You went to church together, you prayed together, you built a life around shared values. Now your spouse is questioning all of it, and you’re scared. You're sitting alone in the pew at your Bellevue church fielding questions about where your partner is. You're worried about your kids and how this will impact them.
If you're the one who left or is leaving:
You feel isolated in your own home. You can't share what you're going through without your partner hearing it as a betrayal, or as an attack on everything they still believe. You feel guilty because you know you're causing pain, but you can't go back to believing something that no longer feels true. The friends you'd normally lean on are all inside the community you're pulling away from.
Both of you are grieving:
Both of you are grieving the marriage you thought you'd have. Both of you are scared the other can't accept who you are. And the pressure from your extended family, your church community, and the social world you've built together makes it feel impossible to slow down and actually talk about it.
How Couples Therapy Helps When Faith Has Divided You
I use Emotionally Focused Therapy (EFT) as the foundation, combined with somatic and trauma-informed approaches. The work focuses on helping you stay deeply connected while holding different beliefs, a skill you never needed when you agreed about everything.
We slow down the moments when your partner's different belief starts to feel like a personal rejection. When one of you says "I don't think I believe this anymore" and the other hears "I'm leaving you," we work with what's actually happening underneath: the fear of losing each other, the grief of a shared life that's changing shape, the fear that you can't both be yourselves and still be married.
This means you can talk about what's changing for you without your partner shutting down. You can express sadness about losing the spiritual partnership you had without your spouse feeling blamed.
How Your Relationship Changes
You're driving home from a dinner in Woodinville with friends from church, and instead of the tense silence that usually fills the car, one of you says "that was hard for me" and the other says "tell me about it." You actually talk. Nobody gets defensive. You pull into your driveway in Kirkland and sit in the car for twenty more minutes finishing the conversation, and it doesn't end with someone sleeping in the guest room.
Your partner goes to church Sunday morning and you stay home with the kids. When they get back, you ask how it was, and they tell you about the sermon without it feeling like a test. You mention the book you've been reading about faith transitions over lunch, and your partner listens without their jaw tightening.
You sit down together to decide whether your son stays in the church youth group in Issaquah, and for the first time, you hear each other's fears instead of just each other's positions. You find an answer that works for both of you, even though it's not what either of you would have chosen on your own. You feel like partners instead of adversaries.
Your in-laws in Sammamish bring up the baptism again, and instead of one of you caving and the other seething quietly, you navigate it as a team. You decide together what to say. On the drive home, you're on the same side.
Who is this for?
This works for couples where one or both partners are going through a faith transition, deconstruction, or shift in religious identity, and the relationship is feeling the strain. You built your marriage on shared beliefs and now those beliefs have diverged. The tension may be showing up in fights about church, parenting, money, extended family, holidays, or your sexual relationship.
This works best when both of you want to stay in the relationship even though you're scared about whether it will work, and when both of you are willing to learn how to be different instead of needing the other person to change back.
This won’t work well if one partner is using faith changes as a reason to leave the relationship, if there's spiritual abuse or control happening, or if one person is completely unwilling to respect the other's right to hold different beliefs.
Telehealth Couples Therapy in Bellevue and the Eastside
I see couples throughout Bellevue and the Eastside in my office in Bothell on Mondays. Online sessions are available on Tuesdays and Wednesdays between 8am and 6pm.
For couples coming out of conservative religious communities, telehealth offers something an office can’t: privacy. There’s no waiting room, no parking lot, no chance of running into someone from your former congregation. You do the work from home, on your own terms.
In-person sessions are available at my Bothell office through summer 2026.
Serving Bellevue and Eastside Couples via Telehealth
Including Kirkland, Redmond, Sammamish, Issaquah, Bothell, Woodinville, Mercer Island, Newcastle, and surrounding areas.
Questions?
FAQs About Couples Therapy for Faith Changes
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Couples sessions are $350 for 50 minutes. I don't accept insurance directly. For couples work, I use a relational diagnosis code that most insurance plans won't cover even out of network, so sessions typically come out of pocket. If you have an HSA or FSA account, those funds can usually be used. I recommend checking with your plan administrator first to confirm.
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No. I don’t have an agenda for what you believe or where your faith lands. The deconstructing partner sometimes worries I'll pathologize their questions or try to bring them back to faith. The believing partner sometimes worries I'll side with the deconstructing one. Neither of those is how I work. My job is to help you stay connected to each other through this, not to decide who is right about God, faith, or religion. Both of your experiences are real, both of your fears are valid, and I hold space for both without steering either of you toward a particular conclusion.
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Most couples in this situation have already been to a pastor, a church counselor, or a general therapist who didn't fully understand the dynamics at play. Pastoral counseling often has an implicit goal of bringing the questioning partner back to faith. General couples therapy may address communication but miss the grief, identity loss, and nervous system responses that make faith transitions so destabilizing for a marriage. I specialize in this intersection — EFT for the relationship, somatic and trauma-informed work for what's happening in your bodies when these conversations go sideways, and a deep understanding of what deconstruction actually does to a couple. You don't have to explain what purity culture is or why leaving church feels like losing your entire world.
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That's a real possibility, and I won't pretend otherwise. The goal of this work is to help you see each other clearly enough to make a real decision about your future. Most couples I work with find that when they can actually hear each other’s fears instead of just each other’s positions, the gap between them is smaller than it seemed during the fights. But if you go through this process and decide you’ve genuinely grown in different directions, you’ll make that decision from a place of understanding rather than reactivity.
About Ingrid Johnston, LMFT, MDFT
EFT couples therapist in Bellevue
I’ve been working with individuals and couples since 2014, with specialized training in trauma, somatic therapy, and faith transitions. I hold a Master of Science in Marriage and Family Therapy and advanced certification in Medical Family Therapy and Collaborative Medicine from Seattle Pacific University.
My approach integrates EMDR, somatic therapy, and Emotion-Focused Therapy (EFT), evidence-based modalities specifically effective for religious trauma and complex PTSD. I’ve completed over 100 hours of specialized training in trauma treatment and body-based healing.
Beyond my clinical training, my work is informed by my own lived experience. I grew up immersed in traditional Christian faith. I’ve navigated my own path through chronic pain, somatic healing, and decades of mindfulness and meditation practices. I understand what it's like to rebuild trust in your body and intuition after being taught they couldn’t be trusted.
I’m a member of the American Association for Marriage and Family Therapy (AAMFT) and the Washington Association for Marriage and Family Therapy (WAMFT).
Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist: Washington State License #LF61033631
Get In Touch
Contact Ingrid
Please complete the form, and I will be in touch within 48 business hours.
Office and mailing address:
19803 North Creek Parkway, Suite 205
Bothell, WA 98011
In-person in Bothell & online across Washington