Relationship Counselling in Cardiff (Individual Sessions)

Individual Support, Not Couples Counselling

I work with individuals, not couples. These sessions are a space for you: to talk honestly about a relationship, understand your own feelings and patterns, and decide what you want, without your partner or family in the room.

If you and your partner are looking for joint sessions, Relate offers couples counselling across Wales.

What Relationship Difficulties Can Feel Like

Relationships can bring out our deepest hopes and our deepest fears. When things go wrong, it can affect everything else. Perhaps some of this sounds familiar:

• The same arguments keep happening, and nothing seems to change
• You feel lonely even when you're together
• You're not sure whether to stay or go, and the uncertainty is exhausting
• You keep ending up in relationships that hurt you
• Trust has been broken, and you don't know how to move forward
• You feel caught between your own needs and what others expect of you

Whatever is happening, you deserve a space where you can think it through without judgement and without anyone taking sides.

Relationship Problems

Communication breaking down, growing apart, constant tension, or feeling unseen by someone you love: relationship problems take many forms. Sometimes it's hard to tell whether the difficulty lies in the relationship, in old patterns you both bring, or in pressures from outside.

Individual counselling helps you step back, understand what's happening for you, and get clearer about what you want and need.

After an Affair or Betrayal

Discovering an affair, or another serious betrayal of trust, can turn your world upside down. You might feel shock, rage, grief, humiliation, or a painful mix of all of them, along with questions you can't stop asking.

If you were the one who had the affair, you may be carrying guilt, confusion or a sense of having lost yourself. Counselling is a confidential place to explore all of this, whichever side you're on, and whatever you decide to do next.

Separation and Divorce

Even when separating is the right decision, it brings loss: of a partner, a shared future, a home, routines, sometimes friendships or your place in a family. If children are involved, you may be holding their feelings as well as your own.

Counselling offers support through the emotional side of separation and divorce, so you can grieve what's ending and begin to build what comes next. I don't give legal or financial advice, so a solicitor or mediation service can help with those parts.

Family Issues and Family Conflict

Difficulties with parents, siblings, adult children or in-laws can be some of the hardest to talk about, because family ties are hard to step away from. You might be dealing with long-running conflict, estrangement, caring responsibilities, or the feeling that you've never quite been understood.

Counselling can help you make sense of family patterns, find your own voice within them, and decide where your boundaries lie.

Abandonment and Attachment Issues

Some people find closeness itself difficult. You might fear being left, feel anxious when someone pulls away, find it hard to trust, or keep people at a distance so you can't get hurt. These patterns often begin in early relationships, and repeat in adult ones.

A consistent, reliable counselling relationship can be a safe place to notice these patterns and experience something different.

Some people have been given a diagnosis relating to attachment, such as an attachment disorder. If that's part of your story, you're welcome to talk about it in counselling, and your GP can tell you about more specialist support if it might help.

Emotional Abuse

Emotional abuse can be hard to recognise, especially from the inside. It might look like constant criticism, controlling where you go or who you see, monitoring your phone or money, making you doubt your own memory, or leaving you feeling like you're always walking on eggshells.

If any of this feels familiar, you're not imagining it, and it isn't your fault. Counselling can help you make sense of what has happened and rebuild your sense of yourself, whether you're still in the relationship or have left.

How Relationship Difficulties Can Show Up in Your Life

Culture and faith can shape relationships in ways that aren't always understood. I work with real sensitivity to both, so you won't need to explain your background from scratch. Read more about culturally and faith-sensitive counselling.

How Person-Centred Counselling Can Help

I won't take sides, judge your choices, or tell you what to do. Instead, I offer a calm, confidential space where you can be completely honest, including about the things you can't say to the people involved.

In that space, people often begin to:

• get clearer about what they feel and what they want
• notice patterns that keep repeating across relationships
• trust their own judgement again
• find the words for conversations they need to have

Counselling isn't a quick fix, and I can't promise outcomes, but many people find it helps them move forward with more clarity and less self-blame.

Working With Me

I'm Asma Shariff, a BACP-registered counsellor. I've worked with clients aged 17 to 70, from diverse cultural, religious and socio-economic backgrounds, including people going through relationship breakdown. Alongside private practice, I counsel at CCAWS, a Cardiff mental health charity, supporting people with a wide range of mild-to-moderate mental health concerns.

I work within the BACP Ethical Framework, attend regular clinical supervision, and hold professional indemnity insurance. More about me.

Your First Session

Book an initial consultation →

Frequently Asked Questions

Do you offer couples counselling?

No. I work one-to-one only. Individual counselling can help you understand your part in a relationship, what you need, and how to move forward, whether or not your partner takes part. If you're both looking for joint sessions, Relate offers couples counselling across Wales.

Can individual counselling help if my partner won't come?

Yes. You can only change your side of a relationship, and individual counselling focuses on exactly that: how you feel, what you want, and the choices open to you. Many people find that changes in how they show up affect the whole relationship.

Will you tell me whether to stay or leave?

No. That decision is yours. My role is to help you think clearly and hear what you really feel, so that whatever you decide, it's your own choice.

Is what I say about my partner or family confidential?

Yes. What you share stays between us, within the limits explained in the counselling agreement, such as where someone may be at risk of serious harm. I won't contact your partner or family.

Can I come to counselling while going through a divorce?

Yes. Counselling can support you emotionally through separation and divorce. I don't give legal or financial advice, so you may also want to speak to a solicitor or a mediation service for those parts.

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