Shiftheads - When to Seek Help with your Relationship

There's a six-year gap between when relationship problems start and when most couples finally ask for help. Dr. Laurie Betito has spent a career on the other side of that gap, and she wants to close it.

Dr. Laurie is a Montreal-based clinical psychologist and relationship expert, and this conversation goes after the reasons people wait: the fear of what therapy might uncover, the stigma of needing help, the comfort of having adapted to unhappiness so completely that it no longer feels like unhappiness. She names the specific patterns worth paying attention to, the recurring fight that never resolves, the intimacy that quietly disappears, the partner who stops bringing things up at all, and explains why therapy works best when both people are still in, not when one is already gone. The conversation also covers why men tend to resist the most and benefit the most, and what it looks like to use therapy as prevention rather than rescue.

You don't wait until all your teeth fall out before seeing a dentist.

Topics: couples therapy Canada, when to get relationship help, men and therapy, relationship warning signs, preventative counselling

GUEST: Dr. Laurie Betito | drlaurie.com

Originally aired on 2026-06-26