Regina Abayev, JD, LMFT · Hermosa Beach, CA
"You can have control or you can have connection, but you cannot have both."
— Terry Real
Couples
Therapy
This is a practice for couples who want more. More intimacy, more closeness, more trust, more ease in the relationship that matters most.
A space to do serious work on what has been strained, what has been lost, and discover what may still be possible. Together, we look clearly at the patterns that keep you stuck and the choices that will shape what comes next.
I work with couples who are ready for honesty, accountability, and meaningful change. The work is direct, thoughtful, and grounded in a deep respect for the full complexity of human relationships.
Depth work.
Real change.
This is more than a place to talk about your week. It is a place to learn new ways of relating, heal from what broke the trust, and build something you can't wait to come home to. And for couples at a crossroads, a place to gain clarity on what is possible and what comes next.
That means looking honestly at yourself, your relational patterns, the way you approach intimacy, conflict, and closeness. Learning to be heard and to hear. To forgive and to ask for what you need. To let go of what has been keeping you stuck, and sometimes unlearning things that made sense once but no longer serve you or the person you love.
Held together with accountability, clinical depth, and a genuine commitment to understanding each person in the room.
I work with couples spanning every kind of relational complexity. Executives and their partners. Clinicians who know this work and trust this practice with their own relationships. Couples who have tried therapy before and never got past the surface. Couples who are ready to do something different.
Active, honest,
accountable
We all bring our unfinished history into our relationships. The way we learned to love, to fight, to need, to disappear. Most couples are not struggling with each other as much as they are struggling with everything they each carried in. Understanding that is where the real work begins.
I am direct, active, and fully present in sessions. I name what I see, help couples understand the patterns keeping them stuck and the defenses keeping them at a distance, and what it takes to move toward repair. My training in Emotionally Focused Therapy, the Gottman Method, Relational Life Therapy, and Accelerated Resolution Therapy means I am highly trained and skilled in working with couples to address emotional disconnection, attachment injuries, communication breakdown, behavioral patterns, addiction, and trauma, across every stage and complexity of a relationship. My advanced training in mediation and dispute resolution means I know how to get to the bottom of what is actually driving the conflict, not just the argument on the surface. And my doctoral coursework in clinical sexology means I am exceptionally prepared to navigate the most sensitive conversations, including those about desire, physical intimacy, and sexuality, that couples often struggle to have on their own.
I am passionate about this work because I believe two people can find their way back to each other, and sometimes find each other for the very first time.
— Regina Abayev, JD, LMFT
When clients complete their work, I ask what was helpful. The responses below are shared with permission.
Experience
that matters
I have worked with hundreds of couples across the full spectrum of relational complexity, from the quietly disconnected to those navigating betrayal, addiction, and high-conflict dynamics. My background as a structured finance attorney and my training as a mediator mean I know how to hold a room under pressure, build a process out of something that feels chaotic, and help people move toward decisions they can stand behind. I bring all of that into the clinical space.
My clinical training integrates Gottman Method, Emotionally Focused Therapy, and Relational Life Therapy, three frameworks that address the relationship at different levels and together create movement that one modality alone often cannot. My doctoral coursework in clinical sexology extends that scope to include desire, physical intimacy, and the full range of what shapes a couple's connection.
Areas couples
often need help with
This practice is affirming and welcoming to LGBTQ+ couples, queer relationships, and all relationship structures.
Questions couples
often ask
The most important thing to understand is that for things to change, both people have to be willing to do the work. Part of what happens in early sessions is getting clear on what that work actually looks like for each person, because it is different for everyone.
The work itself is depth work. That means we are not spending sessions rehashing who said what or tallying grievances. We are looking at the feelings, beliefs, pain points, and patterns underneath the behavior. The distance and disconnection you feel in your relationship almost always has roots that go deeper than the last argument, and we work together to understand what those roots are and where they come from.
The goal is for each person to leave with a clearer understanding of their own patterns, real tools and skills to do things differently, and the agency to make choices that move the relationship forward rather than keep it stuck.
The timeline depends almost entirely on what each person is willing to bring into the room.
When both people come in open, honest, and ready to look at themselves, the work can move quickly. Some couples make meaningful progress in a few months and we adjust from there. When the presenting issues are more complex, a betrayal, a long history of disconnection, or individual trauma that is showing up in the relationship, the work can and often will take longer.
Most couples start with weekly sessions for the first few months. I check in during sessions and we adjust frequency as the work progresses.
The one thing I ask is that couples come in with enough commitment to give the process a real chance. A few months of consistent work will tell you a great deal about what is possible.
Everything shared in therapy is strictly confidential. I do not share information with anyone outside the therapeutic relationship without your written consent.
There are a small number of exceptions required by California law. These include situations where there is a serious risk of harm to yourself or others, suspected abuse or neglect of a child, dependent adult, or elder, and in the rare event of a valid court order.
In couples work there is an additional layer to consider, which is what is confidential between partners. My approach is a no secrets policy. What that means in practice is that if something is shared with me individually that would significantly affect your partner's understanding of the relationship or their ability to make informed decisions within it, I will ask that it be brought into the couples work.
Couples bring secrets into therapy more often than people might expect. Past affairs, children a partner does not know about, financial commitments, contracts, other relationships. It can feel like the couples therapist is a safe place to disclose something that has not been shared with the other partner.
A couples therapist's duty is to the relationship, not to either individual. If something is shared with me outside of a couples session that is significant enough to affect the relationship or your partner's ability to make informed decisions, I will ask that it be brought into the work within the next few sessions.
Integrity is central to how I work. Secrets that live outside the therapy but inside the relationship limit how far the work can go and undermine the trust that makes it possible.
Be honest. Not the polished version of honest, actually honest. Do not come in as the best version of yourself. Do not show up with a list of grievances you are waiting to read out loud. The goal is not to win the session.
Notice what you are not saying. If you are going home after sessions and having the argument you were too afraid to have in the room, that is important information. Bring it in.
Try to understand where your partner is coming from, not just make sure you are understood. Both matter, and I will help you learn how to do both at the same time.
Take feedback. Stay open even when it is uncomfortable. Put in real effort between sessions, not just during them.
Weaponizing couples therapy is when one partner uses what happens in the room as a tool for control rather than connection. It can look like many things.
Bringing up something a partner shared in session later at home in a way that feels punishing or unsafe. Using what was disclosed in an emotionally vulnerable moment to win an argument or extract a reaction. Being hostile or cold on the drive home in a way that signals that openness has consequences.
When this happens, the other partner learns quickly that honesty is not safe here. And without honesty, nothing changes.
Sometimes one person does carry more responsibility for what happened. In cases of betrayal or substance abuse, that is real. But even then, the focus is on the relationship and how to move forward, not on building a case.
When one partner is stuck in a pattern of blame, the first question is not whether they are right or wrong. It is what that pattern is doing for them. Sometimes it is the only way someone has ever felt heard. Sometimes it is a defense against their own pain.
The goal is to understand the purpose of the behavior. Once we understand what it is protecting or trying to accomplish, we can find a better way to get there.
This is one of the most common dynamics in couples work. Usually one person wants to be there more than the other.
Resistance rarely means indifference. More often it comes from fear. Fear of being misunderstood, of being cast as the bad partner, of having the therapist side with the other person, of what might get said out loud that cannot be unsaid.
This is why establishing safety for both people from the very first session matters. I am not here to build a case against anyone. I am here to understand each person, what they are carrying, what they are afraid of, and what they need.
Yes. This is often exactly when people find their way here. A crisis can be a betrayal, a significant loss, a fight where things were said that cannot be unsaid, a decision made without the other person's knowledge or consent.
There are a few situations where couples work is not the right first step. If there is active violence or a credible threat of violence in the relationship, individual safety needs to be addressed first. The same is true when there is active suicidality or an addiction that has not yet been stabilized.
Yes, and individual sessions are part of how I begin the work with every couple. Before we dive into couples sessions, I meet with each person separately to get a full relational history, their childhood, their attachment history, their trauma history, and to understand who each person is outside of the relationship.
As the work progresses, I will sometimes suggest individual sessions if one person seems stuck or needs additional support to keep pace with the work.
If there is intimate partner violence or domestic violence in the relationship, couples therapy is not appropriate and I will not work with that couple in a couples format. Individual safety comes first and different support is needed.
If there is active suicidality or an addiction that has not yet been stabilized, those need to be addressed before couples work can begin.
In my view, a couples therapist should understand both people, not just the one who made the appointment. They should help couples understand what is driving the patterns between them and give them the tools to do something different, not just a space to repeat the same conversation. They should be active in the room, not passive.
My approach is direct and active. I work with curiosity, trying to understand who is hurting, why, and what is driving their behavior. When looking for a couples therapist, pay attention to whether you both feel understood, whether sessions produce something you can use, and whether you trust that the therapist is equally in the room for both of you.
Many couples who come here have tried therapy elsewhere. The most common thing people say is that their therapist was too passive. That sessions passed without anything shifting.
There are a lot of reasons therapy can stall. Someone may not have the insight to recognize their own patterns. Resentment may have built to the point where they do not believe change is possible. Something from their past may be getting triggered and nobody is addressing it. All of these things need to be addressed, which is what we do here.
If one or both of you are uncertain about the future of the relationship, couples therapy may not be the right starting point. The more appropriate process is discernment counseling.
Discernment counseling is not couples therapy. The goal is not to repair the relationship. It is to help each person get clear on what they want. There are three possible outcomes: staying in the relationship as it is, committing to couples therapy with both people fully in, or separating.
Yes. The first question is always whether the addictive or compulsive behavior needs to be stabilized before couples work begins. In cases of active substance abuse, that stabilization often needs to happen first. With compulsive behaviors, including compulsive sexual behavior, we can often work within the couples context while addressing the behavior directly.
The first session is about getting to know you as a couple. What you are struggling with, what you would like to change, how each of you understands the problem, what you have already tried, and what is working in the relationship alongside what is not.
All paperwork is completed in advance so we can use the full session for the work itself, whether we are meeting in person at the Hermosa Beach office or virtually.
Yes. This practice is welcoming to all couples regardless of gender identity, sexual orientation, or relationship structure.
A couples intensive is an extended session that allows us to go deeper and faster than weekly therapy allows. They work well for couples who are at a decision point and feel the pressure of it, couples whose situation has become urgent, and couples who travel or have schedules that make weekly sessions difficult.
To inquire, reach out at info@reginaabayev.com or visit the Couples Intensives page for more information.
This is a private pay practice. Sessions are not billed through insurance, which means your records stay private and there is no diagnosis required to begin work.
Couples sessions start at $350 for a 55-minute session and $500 for a 90-minute session. A superbill is provided upon request, which you can submit to your insurance for potential out-of-network reimbursement.
The work starts
when you do
Love is not a permanent state of enthusiasm. It is a conscious commitment that often gets buried under the weight of life. If you have reached a point where you love each other but can no longer reach each other, the work starts here.
Regina works with couples in person in Hermosa Beach and via telehealth throughout California.