Article printed from GAY MEN'S COUNSELING: http://www.GayMensCounselling.com
HTML version available at: http://www.GayMensCounselling.com/couples.html

To Print: Click here or select File/ Print from your browser menu.

Couples Counseling

1. Keeping Hope Alive

James Joly, our counselor, was featured on the television program Plugged In. The topic was Saving Our Relationships: Gay & Lesbian Couples Counseling. Below is an extended version of the interview:

What do couples seek when they approach you for counseling?

Counselor: Couples are almost always looking for better ways to manage conflict. For some, the relationship isn't yet at the breaking point, but the guys are struggling with ongoing arguments and resentments. They're looking for help to enjoy each other again.

For others—probably the majority—the relationship is in deep trouble. For these men, counseling is seen as a final kick at the can, a way to deal with entrenched conflict that has contaminated what the guys originally liked about each other.

How does counseling help gay couples?

Counselor: To begin with, I think that simply making an appointment with a counselor is helpful because it signals that the men haven't quite given up on each other. Some hope, and usually a great deal of love, remain. My job is to help them recognize their underlying desire to stay together and to try to strengthen it.

What are other ways that counseling helps?

Counselor: Counseling offers many advantages. For example, couples almost always behave better in my office than they do in their own home. At home when there is conflict, they tend to attack or withdraw. But when conflict emerges in a counseling session—as it almost always does—I encourage them to express themselves fully and to listen to each other more carefully. Problems get thoroughly examined, which contributes to better solutions.

In addition, I can serve as a mirror for a couple, pointing out blind spots, reflecting submerged feelings and describing their situation in new ways. By seeing themselves from a different angle, men can often come up with new answers to old problems. Otherwise, they tend to get locked into worn out approaches that don't work.

2. Listening and Taking Responsibility

Can counseling provide a couple with better tools to manage conflict?

Counselor: Definitely. For example, when a man has learned to listen better so that his partner feels understood, he finds that his partner is much more willing to listen to him.

Men can also learn to communicate in ways that encourage mutuality rather than defensiveness. Instead of blaming his partner, a man can focus on himself and learn to behave in a less demanding or aggressive way.

Men can also notice how they push their partners into objectionable behavior.

For example, when a man wishes to avoid something, he may try to distract his partner by provoking him. If the partner asks an inconvenient question, for example, the man might stonewall, knowing this drives his partner crazy. The frustrated partner then tries even harder to force a reply, perhaps by escalating into an attack. But the attack may paradoxically serve the purposes of the first man. No longer does the first man have to deal with the original question. Now he can complain of the "injury" he has suffered because of the attack.

Of course, a man who repeatedly tries to force his partner into unwelcome responses, such as answering third-degree questions, also has a problem. He needs to ask himself: "Am I getting what I want by forcing the issue? Is my partner likely to answer if I attack him?" Clearly it's his responsibility to be less demanding.

We influence each other all the time. One psychologist has called it a dance: one leads, the other follows. Then the music changes and the roles reverse.

By recognizing these processes, we can learn to be more responsible for ourselves and less critical of our partners. Sometimes this even has the effect of influencing our partners to act more responsibly too.

Is counseling single people different from counseling a couple?

Counselor: The short answer is that single guys are looking to develop the skills to find Mr. Right. But couples are worried that they're on the verge of becoming single again. So for almost everyone the goal is similar: to find and nurture a loving partnership.

In terms of process, a major difference is that singles counseling focuses on what has happened outside the consultation room. Singles describe interactions with significant others, but the counselor doesn't have an opportunity to witness events or to compare the client's version with what actually occurred.

With couples, relationship dynamics are on view right in the office. So a counselor focuses much more on what is happening here and now. This provides a more vivid understanding of the clients' situation, which helps a lot in tailoring effective interventions.

3. Balancing Love and Achievement

Do gay couples face different relationship challenges than lesbians?

Counselor: In some ways, yes. Men and women are socialized differently in our culture and this has had an impact on gay and lesbian relationships.

In broad terms, North American men—gay or straight—are encouraged to focus on autonomy rather than intimacy. Meanwhile, women are trained to define themselves in terms of relationship but not independence.

As a result, research shows that lesbians are better than gay men in initiating and sustaining romantic relationships. They report more likelihood to be in relationships and to stay in them longer. On the other hand, they have more trouble than gays in maintaining a separate identity in relationships.

Men are more likely to struggle with disengagement—with poor communication and neglect of the relationship in the pursuit of outside achievement. Women often grapple with enmeshment—with fusing into each other and losing a sense of themselves as separate individuals with goals and aspirations outside the relationship.

But these are only general patterns. Many gay men are quite skilled at balancing intimacy and autonomy and so are many lesbians.

What are some of the relationship issues facing gay men?

The three most common problems are sex, money and household chores. But these are often symptoms of more complicated underlying issues.

For example, sexual difficulties are often linked to hidden resentments, communication breakdown, internalized homophobia or the avoidance of vulnerability. Conflicts about money are associated with mistrust or with competition for status and power. With household management conflict, you often see a struggle for control—maybe one or both of the guys is trying to have everything his own way.

In some ways, the trick is to get a clear view of the vulnerability—in both ourselves and our partners—that almost always hides behind aggravating behavior. When we recognize our vulnerability, we sometimes find the generosity we need to give up some of our demands.

Can counseling always save a relationship?

Unfortunately, not always. But even in a worst case scenario, counseling can help in the negative sense that one or both of the men can clarify for themselves that the relationship no longer works and that they wish to leave. On the other hand, many men conclude that, for all their storms and stresses, they can't imagine life without each other.

Copyright © 1999 - 2008 Gay Men's Counseling.  All rights reserved.