Couples therapy worksheets that actually get filled out.
Gottman-informed and clinically grounded — Four Horsemen with antidotes, Bids for Connection, Repair Attempts, Soft Startup Scripts, Fair Fighting Rules, I-Statements, and the Boundary Builder. Free, print-ready, designed for couples to take home and use.
Four Horsemen & Antidotes
Gottman — the four predictors of relationship breakdown, and the way back
Criticism, contempt, defensiveness, stonewalling — each one paired with the small move that softens it.
Bids for Connection
Gottman — the tiny moments that build (or erode) a relationship
Every interaction is a bid. Turn toward, turn away, or turn against — track the pattern in your relationships this week.
Repair Attempts
Gottman — small phrases to de-escalate mid-conflict
A menu of repair lines — humor, ownership, soft requests — that can pull a fight back from the edge.
Boundary Builder
Draft the actual sentence you'll say out loud
Identify the limit, the person, the why, and the exact words. Three drafts per page so the final version is rehearsed, not improvised.
Soft Startup Scripts
Gottman's gentle opening — drafted, not improvised
I feel ___ about ___ and I need ___. Three drafts per conversation, with the harsh-startup version next to it so the contrast lands.
Assertive Communication
Passive · aggressive · assertive — and the actual words
Compare the three styles in your own recent moments, then draft the assertive version out loud. The point isn't being nicer — it's being clear without bracing for war.
Fair Fighting Rules
Ten ground rules to make a hard conversation survivable
Stay on one topic, take 20-minute breaks, no character attacks, no kitchen-sinking. The pre-agreed contract that lets conflict produce repair instead of damage.
I-Statements
I feel ___ when ___ because ___ — drafted, not improvised
The classic non-blaming frame, with side-by-side you-statement vs. I-statement examples and three drafts of the one the client actually has to say this week.
Boundaries — A Plain Guide
What boundaries are, what they aren't, and the six kinds
Physical, emotional, time, material, intellectual, sexual — defined, with one recognizable example and one common violation each. Psychoeducation before the Boundary Builder.
Gottman Repair Checklist
The phrases that keep a fight from becoming the fight
From Gottman's research: repair attempts — not the absence of conflict — predict whether a relationship lasts. Five categories of phrases to circle, practice, and keep visible during conflict.
Attachment Styles Worksheet
Read your pattern under stress — and one earned-security practice
Plain-language descriptions of secure, anxious, avoidant, and disorganized attachment, a place to spot your own pattern with a recent example, and three concrete earned-security practices for the week.
Boundaries Worksheet
Name the cost, hold the limit, write the script
A plain-language boundaries worksheet. Names what the situation is costing, the limit you want to hold, what you'll do if it's crossed, and a script in your own words — plus pushback and how you'll stay steady.
Codependency Worksheet
Spot the pattern, name the fear, take one step back
An eight-item codependency checklist plus reflection: where it shows up most, what you fear will happen if you stop over-functioning, one thing to stop doing for them and one to do for yourself instead.
Communication Skills Worksheet
I-statements, listening, and a real script
The I-statement formula plus a rewrite of a real recent moment, a script of what to say and what to drop, and a structure for reflecting before responding.
Conflict Resolution Worksheet
From positions to needs to options both sides can hold
Distinguishes positions (what each side is asking for) from needs (what is actually underneath), surfaces overlap, generates three options that meet both sets of needs, and rehearses the opening line.
Genogram
Three generations of family on a single page
The standard Bowen-family-systems family map. Includes the symbol legend (marriage, divorce, cutoff, conflict, closeness, deceased), a three-generation template, and prompts to surface repeating patterns, triangles, and roles.
Infidelity Recovery Worksheet
Structure the first phase after disclosure so the couple can keep talking
For couples in the first phase after a disclosed affair. Not a decision worksheet — a structure for what each partner needs to say and hear, weekly triggers, transparency agreements, contact with the affair partner, and a structured check-in that keeps hard conversations bounded.
Love Maps Questionnaire
The internal map you hold of your partner's inner world — update it
Gottman's Love Maps — write your best guess about your partner's inner world (their stressors, dreams, fears, favorite ways to be comforted) then compare. Reveals where the map stopped being updated.
Rituals of Connection
Small daily rituals that add up to hours of connection a week
Design your relationship's rituals: the 6-second kiss, the 20-min reunion talk, the phone-free dinner, the weekly walk. Small and reliable beats big and rare.
Weekly State of the Union
A 30-minute weekly meeting — appreciations, admin, feelings, dreams
The weekly ritual: same time, phones down, 30 minutes. Runs appreciations, admin, anything that stung, dreams, and one request each. Prevents the 11pm kitchen fight.
Dreams Within Conflict
The dream underneath each gridlocked position
For gridlocked conflicts (69% of couples' problems are perpetual). Uncovers the dream underneath each position — where it comes from in personal history — and finds what can be honored on both sides.
Aftermath of a Fight
Gottman's 5-part debrief for after a fight has cooled
Feelings, realities, triggers, responsibility, constructive plan. Runs AFTER a fight has cooled — never during. Processes how each partner experienced it without relitigating content.
EFT Negative Cycle Map
Pursue-withdraw, attack-attack — name the cycle, externalize the enemy
Sue Johnson's EFT cycle mapping: name each partner's surface move, the fear underneath, and the longing at the bottom. The cycle becomes the enemy — not each other.
Attachment Injury Repair
Some ruptures are more than fights — they broke the assumption you'd be there
For ruptures that shattered assumed safety — affairs, medical crises where the partner didn't show, minimized emergencies. Structures the specific repair (not just apology) both partners need for trust to return.
Physical Affection Menu
Non-sexual touch, decoupled from initiation
Rate each type of non-sexual touch (hug, hand-hold, head on lap, foot rub, being held) 0-5. Reintroduces affection as its own language so touch stops meaning 'we're going to have sex.'
Sexual Desire Discrepancy
Higher-desire and lower-desire — mapping the pursue-withdraw cycle
Names the pattern without pathologizing either partner. Distinguishes spontaneous vs responsive desire, maps context conditions, and offers experiments — including scheduled intimacy and no-initiation windows.
Sexual Intimacy Check-In
Quarterly (or monthly) — because usually one partner knows for months first
Six-question structured check-in about sex — satisfaction, desired frequency, best recent experience, what's not being said, what to try, what to retire. Answered separately, then compared.
Mental Load & Chores Equity
Notice, Decide, Do, Remember — the invisible labor split
Splits every household domain across four columns: noticing it needs doing, planning, executing, and following up. Surfaces where 'we split chores 50/50' actually means one partner holds all the mental load.
Money Conversation Worksheet
Money is a values problem, not a math problem
Starts with money in family of origin, current setpoints, what money means (freedom, security, status, love), and what's been hidden. Practical structure follows once values are named.
Parenting Team Plan
Screen time, discipline, food, bedtime — aligned and where to differ
Aligns on the big four (screens, discipline, food, bedtime), sorts what needs a united front vs where you'll disagree openly, and defines what never happens in front of the kids.
In-Laws & Extended Family Boundaries
Each partner leads on their own family of origin
Turns the 'lead on your own family' principle into specific agreements: consulting before visits, holiday planning, no side-communication with in-laws about the marriage. Includes script for the next hard conversation.
Long-Distance Relationship Plan
Distance is survivable — ambiguity is not
Pins down visit cadence, communication rhythm, exclusivity terms, trust agreements, and the end-date for the distance. LDRs fail from ambiguity, not distance.
Recovery Couple Plan
One (or both) partners in recovery — the relationship map
Protects meetings, therapy, and sponsor time; plans slip response in advance; names what partner-in-recovery needs from partner-in-support (and vice versa); establishes never-agreements around policing.
Postpartum Couples
The predictable satisfaction drop — named so it stops being attributed to each other
Names sleep, hormones, role shifts, and invisible labor as the culprits, not the partner. Includes a postpartum mood screen for both partners with clear when-to-call-OB thresholds.
Nonmonogamy Check-In
Regular check-in for open, poly, and non-monogamous couples
Structured check-in on current agreements, agreements needing update, jealousy or scarcity, what's working, and safer-sex + communication practices with metamours.
Should I Stay or Go? Decision Worksheet
Ambivalence is data, not weakness — but the question needs movement
A decisional-balance worksheet for clients caught in relationship ambivalence: pros and cons of both staying and leaving, what would need to be true for staying to work, non-negotiables that have been violated, and the fear driving the ambivalence.
Co-Parenting Working Agreement
Not a court document — the operational agreement that protects the kids from the middle
Custody logistics, communication rules (channel, response window, never-in-front-of-kids), alignment on cross-household norms, and what can differ. Business-partnership framing for divorced parents.
Weekly State of Us
20 min. Four questions. In order.
Structured weekly check-in: appreciation, logistics, one concern with soft startup, one small ask.
Apology Anatomy
Why an apology doesn't land
Full apology has parts: acknowledgment, impact, no excuse, repair offer, and behavior change.
Forgiveness Decision
Four options after rupture
Distinguish forgive+reconcile, forgive-not-reconcile, don't-forgive-don't-reconcile, and not-yet.
Triangulation Map
Bowen triangles in your system
Map where two people manage anxiety by pulling in a third and the direct conversation that would untangle it.
Recurring Conflict Blueprint
Same conflict, different content
Map the sequence of a recurring conflict step by step and find the earliest point to interrupt.
Boundary Scripts Cheatsheet
Rehearse before you need them
Five common scenarios with word-for-word scripts — decline, end a call, decline a favor, name off-topics, leave early.
Boundary Guilt Hangover
Ride the guilt without undoing
What the guilt says, whose voice it borrows, what's actually true, and how the guilt fades hour by hour.
Boundaries at Work
Career vs burnout
Paid hours vs worked hours, yeses outside your job, and the one boundary to test this month.
Digital Boundaries
2020s emotional hygiene
Who has 24/7 access, which apps push into your day, and three concrete changes this week.
Forgiveness as a Decision
Not a feeling that arrives
Distinguish forgiveness from excusing, reconciliation, and pardoning — write the one-sentence decision.
Stress-Reducing Conversation
20 minutes, daily
The Gottman ritual — talk about stress outside the relationship, with clear speaker/listener rules and an empathy signal.
Dreams Within Conflict
69% of fights are perpetual
The recurring conflict, the surface position, the dream underneath, and non-negotiables vs areas of flex.
'No' Scripts for People-Pleasers
Short, warm, complete sentences
Warm, delayed, values, and broken-record versions of no — pick one to use this week.
Attachment Style Under Stress Reflection
Not a diagnosis — a learned strategy for handling closeness
Client marks which patterns fit under relational stress (anxious reach, avoidant pull, disorganized swing, earned-secure stay), names a recent example, surfaces the early message about closeness, and picks one small move toward earned-secure this week.
Boundary Script Builder — 6 Scenarios
Read them out loud — the words that feel impossible become normal by the third use
Six pre-written boundary scripts (declining, ending a call, unwanted advice, intrusive family questions, being interrupted, keeping a secret) with a 'my version' fill-in for each. Plus one to practice this week.
Communication Styles Worksheet
Passive · aggressive · passive-aggressive · assertive — where does each show up?
Names where each of the four communication styles appears in the client's week and with whom. Ends with rewriting one recent non-assertive sentence as its assertive version.
Love Languages Worksheet
The five currencies of care — yours, theirs, and where they don't overlap
Ranks the client's top two love languages and the partner's top two (asked, not guessed). Identifies the gap most likely to fuel 'you don't care' fights. Ends with one deposit to make and one to request.
Gottman Four Horsemen Worksheet
Criticism · Contempt · Defensiveness · Stonewalling — with each antidote
Each of the four horsemen with its Gottman-approved antidote, a fill-in for how it shows up in your fights, and your antidote in your own words. Ends with the one to practice this week.
Emotional Needs Worksheet
Legitimate, universal, specific — name them, don't earn them
Twelve common emotional needs (seen, heard, affection, time, appreciation, sexual connection, safety, trust, respect, autonomy, support, play). Client marks met / partial / starved, names where the starved need went unmet in history, and writes the specific request they'll make this week.
What couples worksheets do well
Couples work lives or dies on whether the work continues outside the room. These worksheets exist for that — concrete language to take home, a literal page to sit beside each other and fill out, a script to rehearse before the conversation actually happens. The library draws heavily on John and Julie Gottman's research (Four Horsemen, bids, repair, soft startup) and integrates EFT, IBCT, and standard communication-skills work.
A typical sequence
Start with the Four Horsemen psychoeducation — most couples can identify their two within minutes. Pair it with Bids for Connection homework to shift attention to the small everyday moments that build (or erode) the relationship. As the couple stabilizes, add Soft Startup Scripts and Repair Attempts — the first 90 seconds of a conversation predict the next 90 minutes, and pre-rehearsed repair lines pull fights back from the edge.
For couples in escalating cycles, draft and sign the Fair Fighting Rules as an actual agreement. Add the I-Statements and Assertive Communication worksheets for clients whose default mode is either flooding or freezing.
Free to print and send
Every couples worksheet here is free to download as a clean printable PDF and free to send via secure link from a TherapistAssist account. No watermarks, no per-couple limits. Designed for clinicians who want their take-home work to look like a real piece of clinical material.