Naomi Montgomery, MA, LMFT — couples therapist in Eden Prairie

People assume a couples therapist is a referee: hear both sides, pick a winner, hand down a verdict. That’s not what happens in my office. I don’t take sides. I take the relationship’s side.

When you and your partner sit down with me, my client isn’t you, and it isn’t them. It’s the thing you two built together and are trying to save. That changes everything about how the work goes. Each of you will get called forward. Neither of you will get ganged up on. Most couples tell me the biggest surprise of therapy is that they both felt understood, in the same room, in the same hour.

The pattern is the problem

Most couples don’t have a hundred problems. They have one pattern that shows up a hundred ways. The dishes, the in-laws, the phone at dinner, the sex you’re not having: different topics, same loop. One of you pushes to get a response. The other pulls back to keep the peace. The pushing makes the pulling worse, and the pulling makes the pushing louder, and after enough years the loop runs itself.

My job is to help you see the loop, name what’s actually underneath it, and change it. The pattern is the problem. Not you, and not your partner.

Who I work with

Couples who love each other but can’t talk about anything harder than logistics. Couples rebuilding trust after an affair. Couples stuck in power struggles over parenting, money, or whose family gets the holidays. And couples who don’t fight at all anymore, which is usually the quieter emergency. Silence is a louder alarm than shouting.

Couples also come to me because they want a therapist who understands the world they actually live in. If you’ve ever spent the first three sessions explaining your family, your culture, or your community before you could get to the real problem, you won’t have to do that here.

I see couples in person in Eden Prairie and online across Minnesota.

How I work

My couples work is attachment-focused, and I’m experienced with Emotionally Focused Therapy (EFT), the most thoroughly researched approach to couples work. Its premise runs through everything I do: underneath most couple conflict is a question each partner is asking the other. Are you there for me? Do I matter to you? When the answer feels uncertain, people protest or protect, and the loop starts. When the answer becomes yes again, the arguments that felt impossible get small.

I’m warm, and I’m direct. I’ll slow you down when the conversation matters and tell you plainly what I see happening between you. You won’t leave sessions wondering what the point was.

A note on insurance

I’m often asked why couples therapy here is private pay. The honest answer: insurance wasn’t built for couples. Using it for couples work generally requires putting a mental health diagnosis on one partner’s record, and it limits how many sessions you get and what we’re allowed to focus on. Here, your relationship is the patient. We work on what actually brought you in, for as long as it takes and no longer. Private pay also means I can usually see new couples within a week or two.

Outside the office

Live music, both playing and listening. Travel, and trying the things most people won’t: skydiving, zip-lining, running with the bulls (yes, you read that right).