Couple psychotherapy
Maria Baliakou, BA, MSc European Certified Psychotherapist
If your relationship feels strained, distant, or stuck in conflict, you’re not alone. Couples therapy can help you reconnect, communicate better, and move forward together.
Cross-cultural relationships require more than love — they require mutual understanding.
Many couples in expat or intercultural settings experience unique relational challenges. Even with deep affection, differences in cultural background, communication styles, and values can create misunderstandings that gradually erode intimacy.
Being in a relationship is hard. Being in a relationship abroad is even harder.
Without your usual support network, all the pressure falls on your partner. And when you’re both carrying so much — different backgrounds, unspoken needs, maybe even different languages — it’s easy to lose your way.
Left unaddressed, these conflicts can escalate, leading to emotional distance, chronic tension, or repeated cycles of miscommunication.
You may find yourselves caught in the same arguments, feeling unheard or emotionally unsafe. Living abroad can further intensify this pressure — as your partner often becomes your primary support system, unresolved issues may feel amplified.
Couples therapy offers a structured, safe environment to rebuild connection and address complex relational dynamics.
Through a systemic and culturally informed lens, I help couples:
- Identify and break unproductive communication patterns
- Understand how cultural context shapes expectations and behaviors
- Strengthen emotional safety and re-establish trust
- Co-create more adaptive ways of relating, even across cultural divides
Very often, what creates emotional distance isn't the "big issues," but the small, daily misunderstandings — of thoughts, needs, and desires.
When these misattunements pile up, they create a cycle of disconnection that feels hard to escape. But the good news is: this cycle can be broken. And when it is, the possibility for a fulfilling, connected relationship opens up again.
But this doesn’t happen automatically — it takes guidance, reflection, and a willingness to learn.
I don’t just offer emotional support; I help couples gain the tools, insight, and emotional “education” they may never have received — so they can build a relationship based on real connection, not assumptions.
Relationship difficulties are not a sign of failure — they're often a signal that something needs attention.
Schedule an initial consultation to explore how couples therapy can help you reconnect and grow, together.
