By the time most couples begin looking for a therapist, they’ve already spent months—or years—trying to make things better on their own. You may understand the pattern between you but still feel powerless to stop it. One of you may be ready to begin therapy while the other is uncertain whether it will help.

You may have tried couples therapy before. Many of the couples I work with have. Perhaps the therapist was supportive, but the sessions never got beneath the arguments you were having that week. Maybe one of you felt blamed while the other felt that important behavior wasn’t being addressed. You may have learned communication tools that made sense in the office but disappeared as soon as the conflict became emotionally charged.

A disappointing experience with therapy can make reaching out again feel like a risk. You don’t want to spend more time carefully discussing the problem without creating meaningful change.

You need a couples therapist who can understand both of your perspectives, recognize the pattern taking over your relationship, and help you do something different.

I’m Mark Cagle, a Licensed Professional Counselor Supervisor in Texas, a Licensed Mental Health Counselor in Florida, and a Certified Relational Life Therapist. Couples therapy is the center of my practice.

My style is engaged, practical, and direct. I pay close attention to what happens between you during the session rather than only listening to a recap of the week’s arguments. I may slow down an interaction, identify what each of you is doing, or ask you to consider the impact of behavior that has become normalized within the relationship.

I’m not neutral or unbiased. I call a spade a spade. I take sides in order to restore balance. There are no “good guys” or “bad guys,” but there is definitely bad behavior.

Taking sides doesn’t mean deciding that one partner is the problem. It means recognizing that both perspectives are not always equally relational and that both partners may not hold equal responsibility in every interaction. At times, one of you may need support while the other needs to be challenged. In another moment, those roles may reverse.

My responsibility is to both of you and to the health of the relationship. I won’t ignore harmful behavior for the sake of appearing neutral, and I won’t use shame as a tool for change.

Accountability is an important part of my work, but accountability and condemnation are not the same thing. Most people don’t become better partners because they’ve been shamed into changing. Lasting change is more likely when you can understand what you’re doing, take responsibility for its impact, and learn a healthier way of responding.

This also means that I won’t reduce either of you to the worst thing you’ve done in the relationship. People protect themselves in ways that make sense given their histories, even when those strategies create pain in the present. Understanding where a behavior comes from matters, but it doesn’t excuse the damage it causes.

Couples therapy should create room for both compassion and accountability.

My work draws primarily from Relational Life Therapy (RLT), an active approach to couples therapy that helps people identify the strategies they use to protect themselves and the relational patterns those strategies create.

Most couples already know they should listen better, communicate more clearly, and avoid becoming defensive. Knowing what to do usually isn’t the central problem. The challenge is accessing those skills when you feel criticized, dismissed, controlled, overwhelmed, or afraid of losing the relationship.

In therapy, we look beneath the subject of the latest disagreement and identify what repeatedly happens between you. We can then work on changing that pattern in the room, where you have an opportunity to practice responding differently instead of only talking about what went wrong.

The goal isn’t to eliminate disagreement. It’s to help you approach difficult moments with greater honesty, respect, accountability, and connection.

I’m also self-identified AuDHD. Understanding myself through that lens has deepened my awareness of how differences in attention, sensory needs, emotional regulation, communication, and processing can affect a relationship.

That perspective informs my work without leading me to interpret every relationship problem as a diagnosis. Neurodivergence looks different for every person, and your experience may be quite different from mine. I also don’t use neurodivergence to excuse behavior that harms a partner.

Instead, we work to understand the differences between you, identify what each partner needs, and develop ways of relating that are both neurodivergence-informed and accountable.

For couples seeking specialized support related to autism, ADHD, AuDHD, or other neurotype differences, I also offer services through Neurodiverse Couples Counseling.

Couples therapy is a specialized area of practice. My professional background includes:

• Licensed Professional Counselor Supervisor in Texas, license #71799
• Licensed Mental Health Counselor in Florida, license #25352
• Certified Relational Life Therapist
• AANE Certified Neurodiverse Couples Therapist
• Certified RLT Essential Skills Bootcamp Facilitator
• Training in discernment counseling, collaborative divorce, and Emotionally Focused Couples Therapy
• Master of Arts in Professional Counseling from Amberton University
• Bachelor of Arts in Psychology from Texas Tech University

I also supervise Texas LPC Associates and help other therapists develop their clinical skills. Teaching and supervising clinicians keeps me engaged with an important question in my own work: What makes therapy genuinely useful rather than merely supportive?

We may be a good fit if you want a therapist who will:

• Engage with both of you rather than passively observe
• Tell you honestly what he sees happening between you
• Offer compassion without avoiding difficult conversations
• Look beneath individual disagreements to the larger pattern
• Respect neurotype differences without using them to excuse harmful behavior
• Help you pursue meaningful repair or greater clarity about what comes next

You don’t have to know whether your relationship can be repaired before reaching out. Some couples begin therapy knowing they want to rebuild. Others are uncertain whether repair is possible. We can begin with an honest conversation about where you are and what kind of support would be most helpful.

A free 30-minute consultation gives us an opportunity to discuss what’s happening and determine whether couples counseling, discernment counseling, or another form of support is the right place to begin.