WHEN TRUST IS BROKEN, RELATIONSHIPS NEED MORE THAN COMMUNICATION SKILLS

“We keep having the same fight over and over.”

“Trust has been broken and I don’t know if it can be rebuilt.”

“We love each other, but something between us feels broken.”

“We’re starting to wonder if our relationship can survive.”

Arguing

Break Free From the Same Painful Cycles.

Many couples find themselves repeating the same arguments over and over: criticism, defensiveness, shutdown, and resentment slowly eroding connection.

Couples counseling helps partners understand the deeper emotional patterns driving these conflicts so they can interrupt destructive cycles and rebuild understanding, safety, and closeness. Learn more.

BETRAYAL & BrOKEN TRUST

Healing After Betrayal or Infidelity 

The discovery of an affair, emotional betrayal, or secrecy can shake the very foundation of a relationship, leaving partners overwhelmed by anger, fear, and uncertainty.

Therapy provides a structured process for understanding what led to the rupture, rebuilding trust, and determining whether and how the relationship can move forward with honesty and renewed commitment. Learn more.

Relationships AT A CROSSROADS

When You’re Not Sure If the Relationship Can Continue

Some couples come to therapy unsure whether their relationship can survive. They may feel deeply hurt, emotionally exhausted, or uncertain about what the future should look like.

Discernment-informed counseling helps couples slow down the decision-making process, understand what has brought them to this point, and determine whether the next step is repair, separation, or a different kind of relationship moving forward. Learn more.

Many couples come to counseling feeling discouraged or unsure whether their relationship can survive. Even relationships that feel deeply stuck or damaged can often move toward greater understanding, repair, and clarity with the right support.

Couples Counseling  

You and your partner have probably already tried to work on your relationship without professional help and have most likely found that it's hard to change deeply entrenched or destructive patterns by yourself.

Couples counseling provides you and your partner professional guidance and caring support as you experience a new way to address relationship issues while building a deeper emotional connection and understanding. Learn more.

Individual Counseling

Perhaps you want to gain clarity about your relationship on your own. Maybe you don't feel ready yet or aren't sure how to share your true feelings with your partner. Perhaps your partner isn't willing to participate in couples counseling. Or maybe you need to work through a stressful circumstance you are going through that is negatively affecting your relationship.

Individual counseling can help you understand yourself, gain clarity about your relationship, figure out how to handle complicated relationship issues and ultimately cultivate your own personal fulfillment and happiness. Learn more.
 

Trust & Repair Intensives

Sometimes couples reach a point where the situation in their relationship feels too urgent, painful, or complicated to wait weeks between therapy sessions. This is especially common after the discovery of an affair, during periods of escalating conflict, or when partners are beginning to question whether the relationship can survive.

Intensives offer couples the opportunity to step away from daily distractions and spend dedicated time across one or two days working through the most important issues in their relationship with focused guidance and support.

Learn more.

Carly Ketchum, MA, MA, LMFT

Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist & Adjunct Professor at Pepperdine University

Carly is a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist, Adjunct Professor at Pepperdine University Graduate School of Education and Psychology, and founder of Marriage Made Better™ Relationship Counseling. Carly has dedicated her career to studying the science of relationships and helping people develop and maintain deeply satisfying partnerships.

In addition to her clinical work, Carly teaches and mentors graduate-level therapists, helping shape the next generation of relationship counselors.

With warmth, curiosity, and a sense of humor, Carly translates decades of relationship research into practical insights that help couples and individuals better understand the patterns shaping their relationships. She works with clients to repair trust, strengthen emotional connection, and build relationships that are more resilient, secure, and deeply fulfilling.

Carly has spent over a decade working in private practice with couples navigating some of the most painful and complex challenges relationships can face, including betrayal, infidelity, chronic conflict, and emotional disconnection. Her work focuses on helping couples understand the deeper relational patterns that drive conflict, repair broken trust, and build relationships that are more honest, secure, and emotionally connected.

In addition to her clinical work, Carly continues to study how attachment, trust, and conflict patterns shape modern relationships. She integrates insights from relationship science, clinical experience, and years of working with couples to help partners better understand the dynamics that influence how they love, fight, repair, and reconnect.

Earlier in her career, Carly worked as a therapist at Laura’s House Counseling and Resource Center, a nonprofit domestic violence organization, where she supported survivors of domestic violence as they navigated the complex and often frightening process of escaping violent relationships, rebuilding their lives and entering new relationships. This early work profoundly shaped Carly’s understanding of how trauma affects trust, attachment, and the ability to feel safe in intimate relationships. These insights continue to inform her work today with couples rebuilding connection after betrayal and other relational ruptures.

Recognizing that many survivors needed support specifically focused on future relationships after escaping abuse, Carly created and launched a group therapy program called Dating After Abuse. The program was designed to help people process past trauma, rebuild their sense of safety and self-trust, and develop a deeper understanding of the relational patterns that shape their experiences in love. Participants learned how to approach relationships with greater clarity, confidence, and the capacity to create secure and fulfilling partnerships free of violence.

Carly is also a dynamic and engaging public speaker who has presented to a wide range of audiences on the complex dynamics of romantic relationships. Known for her approachable and refreshingly candid style, Carly brings relationship concepts to life by weaving together insights from relationship science, clinical experience, and real-world examples. Her presentations explore topics such as understanding conflict patterns in relationships, rebuilding trust after betrayal, navigating difficult conversations, and how self-esteem influences dating and relationship choices across the lifespan.

In addition to teaching at Pepperdine University, she has also been a regularly invited guest presenter at the University of California-Irvine’s Master of Science in Nursing program, where she teaches graduate students about understanding and effectively supporting survivors of domestic violence.

Carly is a Licensed Clinical Member of the California Association of Marriage and Family Therapists (CAMFT). She holds two master’s degrees from Pepperdine University, an MA in Psychology and an MA in Clinical Psychology with an emphasis in Marriage and Family Therapy and earned her bachelor’s degree from the University of Southern California.