This comes up constantly, and I want to give you an honest answer rather than a diplomatic one: you cannot make someone go to therapy. You can't logic them into it, guilt them into it, or love them into it. If your partner has decided they don't want to go, that decision is theirs to make.
What you can do is everything else.
Go yourself
Individual therapy when you're in a struggling relationship is one of the most underrated moves there is. It's not about working on yourself so your partner doesn't have to change. It's about having a place to process what you're experiencing, get clarity on what you need, and figure out what you're actually dealing with — separate from your partner's willingness to participate.
People who are in difficult or emotionally harmful relationships often spend enormous amounts of energy trying to get their partner to see what they see or acknowledge what they acknowledge. Individual therapy gives you somewhere to put that energy that actually moves you forward.
Understand why they're resistant
Resistance to therapy comes from a lot of different places. Some people have genuine bad experiences with therapists and don't trust the process. Some people grew up in environments where asking for help was a sign of weakness. Some people are afraid of what they might have to look at. And some people — particularly in narcissistic or controlling dynamics — refuse therapy because they know it would require accountability they're not willing to give.
The reason matters, because it tells you something about the path forward. A partner who is scared of vulnerability is different from a partner who is protecting themselves from consequence.
Name what you need, not what they should do
There's a difference between "I need you to go to couples therapy" and "I need our relationship to change, and therapy is one way I think that could happen." The first is a demand with one solution attached. The second opens a door. Sometimes a partner who refuses "therapy" will agree to something they call a different thing — a consultation, a check-in, a single session to see what it's like.
And sometimes they won't. If your partner has made it clear that they will never engage with any kind of professional support, and the relationship isn't working without it, that's information you need to sit with. It doesn't tell you what to do. But it tells you something real about what's available to you within this relationship.
The honest bottom line
Go to therapy yourself. Get clear on what you're experiencing, what you need, and what you're willing to live with. Make your decisions from that place — not from the hope that your partner will eventually come around.
Sometimes they do. And sometimes having a partner who is clearly doing their own work, who is clearly changing, is enough to move a resistant partner toward trying. But build for yourself first. That's not giving up on the relationship. That's taking it seriously.