Couples Therapy
Located in Lee's Summit, serving couples across the Kansas City area.
Nobody warns you that the hardest years of your relationship might be the ones spent trying to start a family, or the ones right after it began.
You're not fighting because you stopped loving each other. You're fighting because you're depleted, you're keeping score without meaning to, and you're both grieving something you can't quite name while running on four hours of sleep.
I'm a couples therapist in Lee's Summit, and I specialize in the years of building a family: planning for children, trying to conceive, struggling with infertility, pregnancy, life after a baby, and after a loss. As a Licensed Professional Counselor in Missouri and a Licensed Clinical Professional Counselor in Kansas, I see couples on both sides of the state line, in person or virtually anywhere in either state.
Couples Therapy When You're Planning a Family
Deciding whether and when to have children is one of the biggest decisions a couple makes, and it's common not to be in the same place. One of you may feel ready now while the other needs more time, or you may each picture a different kind of family.
Couples therapy gives you space to talk about it without either of you feeling pushed. We look at what's behind each of your answers, not just the answers themselves, because that's usually where the real conversation is.
Infertility rarely lands on two people the same way. One wants to research every option and talk it through nightly; the other copes by not talking about it at all. Both are legitimate, and each one can read as not caring to the person doing the opposite.
Decisions pile up faster than agreement does — how many rounds, how much money, when to stop, whether to change course. If you're not ready to stop at the same time, that becomes its own challenge, and it often causes conflict and tension.
Physical intimacy can begin to not feel intimate at all. Sex that's been on a schedule for years can lead to a sense of disconnect, not to mention the physical limitations that are put on couples while they're undergoing treatment.
More on individual support is on the Infertility counseling page.
Couples Therapy During Pregnancy
Pregnancy can bring a couple closer and still leave a lot unsaid. One of you is living it in your body every day, and the other may be excited, worried or unsure where they fit. You're both preparing for a change that's hard to picture until it happens.
If you're pregnant after infertility or a loss, it may not feel safe to be excited yet, and the two of you may not be in the same place about that. You can be hopeful and scared at the same time.
What we work on:
What parenthood will look like for each of you, before the baby arrives
Expectations about roles, work and support after the birth
The anxiety that can come with pregnancy after infertility or loss
Staying connected while your bodies, routines and priorities change
Couples Therapy After a Baby
The arrival of a child reorganizes a relationship whether or not you were ready for it. Sleep is short, the invisible work multiplies, and most conversations shrink to handoffs. Couples therapy after a baby helps you share the load, talk about more than logistics, and feel like partners again.
More is in the Postpartum couples therapy page.
Couples Therapy After Pregnancy or Infant Loss
Grief can pull a couple together or push them apart, and it is often not a predictable or linear experience. One of you may need to talk about your baby constantly, the other may feel the only way to function is to compartmentalize and avoid, and each can experience the other as doing it wrong.
Neither of you is grieving incorrectly. What helps is understanding what the other one is actually experiencing internally, rather than what it looks like, or what we're assuming is happening, from the outside.
More on individual support is in the miscarriage therapy page.
Communication That Isn't Just Logistics
Most couples who come in are communicating constantly, but the kind of communication that leads to a sense of connectedness is missing. The calendar gets discussed; nothing else does.
Part of this work is practical — how to bring up something hard without it becoming an argument, how to listen when you're feeling defensive, and how to repair afterwards, which matters more than avoiding the argument in the first place.
It also helps to have phrases you can actually use in the moment. Something like "I'm not able to have this conversation well right now — can we come back to it after bedtime?" Or, when you're the one being asked for something, "I want to hear this, and I need ten minutes first." Two people using plain sentences like these get further than two people trying to be perfectly reasonable at midnight.
The Mental Load and the Fair Play Method
If the fight in your house is really about who is holding everything in their head, that's the mental load, and it responds better to a system than to another conversation about trying harder or asking for the creation of another list.
I'm a Certified Facilitator of the Fair Play Method, which redesigns how domestic responsibilities are divided so the invisible work becomes visible, is seen as more valuable, and is more easily shared. It's a practical system rather than therapy, and it can run alongside couples work or stand on its own.
More about the Fair Play Method
How I Work With Couples
I'm Level 1 and 2 trained in Internal Family Systems and Level 1 trained in the Gottman Method. IFS is useful with couples because so much of what happens in a fight isn't the whole person — it's one protective part of them meeting one protective part of you. Once both partners can understand the protective parts, the same argument stops being replicated.
I work with couples of all genders, sexualities and relationship structures, including LGBTQ+ couples, couples conceiving through assisted reproductive technology, and foster and adoptive parents.
All are welcome here.
Couples Therapy Through Infertility
Session length, fee and format
Couples therapy: 50 minutes · $165
Fair Play facilitation: couples $175 · individuals $150 · workshops $100 per person or couple
Format: in person in Lee's Summit, or virtually on a HIPAA-compliant platform anywhere in Missouri or Kansas
Payment: HSA, FSA, most major credit cards, debit cards, cash and check
Reduced fee: therapy scholarships are available — please ask
Training in Couples Work
Katie Kirkenmeier, MA, LPC, LCPC, ATR, PMH-C
Gottman Method Level 1 trained
Level 1 and 2 trained in Internal Family Systems through the IFS Institute
Certified Facilitator of the Fair Play Method through the Fair Play Institute
Certified in Perinatal Mental Health (PMH-C)
Foundations in Paternal Perinatal Mental Health — six-hour advanced training
Member of the Mental Health Professionals Group of the American Society for Reproductive Medicine
Licensed Professional Counselor in Missouri and Licensed Clinical Professional Counselor in Kansas
Questions About Couples Therapy
-
Most couples wait years before coming in, so "we should have done this sooner" is the norm rather than a bad sign. What matters more is whether you both want it to work.
-
Start on your own. Individual work changes the dynamic more than people expect, and partners are sometimes more willing to participate as time goes on and they witness their partner having a positive experience.
-
That's my specialty and where I can help most, but I also work with couples on communication, conflict and connection more generally.
-
Yes, absolutely.
-
No. Fair Play is a practical system for redividing domestic labor. Couples therapy is clinical work. Some couples do one, some do both — we can figure out which you need on the consultation call.
-
Yes. If you both live in Missouri or Kansas, we can meet on a secure, HIPAA-compliant video platform anywhere in either state.
Schedule Couples Therapy in Lee's Summit or Virtually
Book a free 15-minute consultation, send me a message or text 816-875-0078.
I reply within two business days.
You don't have to be in crisis to come in. Wanting to like each other again is reason enough.