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 Seattle
Conversations About Faith Used to Unite You
You used to sit together on Sunday mornings. You chose this person partly because you believed the same things about God, about how to live, about what mattered most. Your faith was the foundation, and for years it held everything else up: your community, your friendships, your parenting decisions, even your weekly schedule.
Now one of you doesn’t believe anymore, or believes something different, and everything that felt automatic has become a negotiation: Do the kids still go to church? Do you say grace before dinner? Do you go to the small group in Wallingford where everyone knows you as a couple? Do you attend the Easter service at your partner's family's church in Shoreline and pretend nothing has changed?
You've tried talking about it, but the conversations go badly. One of you shuts down, the other pushes harder, and you end up further apart than before. Or you've stopped bringing it up entirely because you both know how it ends.
Seattle makes this lonelier than it should be. Most of the people in your life don't come from a religious background, and they don't understand why this is so devastating. "Just stop going to church" sounds simple to someone who never built their entire identity, marriage, and social world inside one. Your coworkers in South Lake Union or Capitol Hill can't relate to the grief of losing a faith community that was your family’s whole support system.
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:
This was part of the deal when you got married. You sit alone at church now, you're the only one taking the kids to Sunday school, and you're fielding questions from your community about where your spouse has been. You're terrified that if they could change this fundamentally, they might leave the marriage too.
If you're the one who left or is leaving:
You feel trapped. You can't talk about what you're reading or thinking or discovering without your partner getting hurt or angry. You feel guilty because you know this wasn't the agreement, but you also can't pretend to believe something you don't. Your faith community in Ballard or Queen Anne pulled away when you started questioning, and now your spouse feels like a stranger too.
Both of you are grieving:
The believing partner is grieving the marriage they thought they'd have, the shared spiritual life, the partner who believed the same things. The deconstructing partner is grieving their former self, their certainty, their community.
How Couples Therapy Helps When Faith Has Divided You
I use Emotionally Focused Therapy (EFT) as the foundation, integrated with somatic and trauma-informed approaches. The work focuses on learning how to stay deeply connected while holding different beliefs.
We slow down the moments when difference starts to feel like rejection. When your partner mentions a podcast about doubt and your chest tightens and you want to leave the room, we work with what's underneath that reaction: the terror that you're losing them, the fear that different beliefs mean the end of your marriage. When your partner expresses sadness about going to church alone and you immediately feel attacked, we get underneath that too.
This means you can disagree about what to teach your kids without someone always having to give in. You can talk about the book you're reading without your partner panicking. You can grieve what you've each lost — the shared spiritual life, the certainty, the community — together instead of alone.
How Your Relationship Changes
You bring up the article about faith transitions over dinner in your Fremont kitchen, and your partner asks a question instead of going silent. You feel the conversation getting tense and one of you says "I'm getting scared right now" instead of escalating, and the other actually hears it.
Your partner mentions they're going to church Sunday morning, and you say “I hope it's a good service” and mean it, without the undercurrent of guilt or resentment that used to taint every Sunday. You sit down to talk about whether your daughter keeps going to youth group, and you're able to hear each other's fears about it without someone's position automatically winning.
You go to your in-laws' house in Lynnwood for Christmas and navigate the prayer before dinner without the silent standoff that ruined last year. Your mother-in-law makes a comment about your family not being in church, and instead of turning on each other in the car on the way home, you process it together.
You stop sleeping on opposite sides of the bed after the conversations about faith. You discover that being different doesn't have to mean being disconnected, that you can hold different beliefs in the same house, in the same marriage, without it feeling like a countdown to divorce.
Telehealth Couples Therapy in Seattle and Surrounding Areas
I see couples throughout the Seattle area via telehealth. 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 Seattle and King County Couples via Telehealth
Including Shoreline, Burien, Renton, West Seattle, Tukwila, SeaTac, and all of King County.
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 suffering because of it. You built your marriage on shared beliefs and now those beliefs have diverged. You may be fighting about church, kids, money, holidays, extended family, sexuality, or all of the above.
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.
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 Seattle
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