Male gay couple
AsI think back on the past 24 years of providing couples counseling for gay male relationships, I sometimes get asked what the differences are that I see (in general) in gay male relationships that are (again, in general), different from straight relationships.
I offer these thoughts to both single and coupled gay men, based on my perspective of what I’ve seen through the years. My experiences and observations as a gay men’s specialist psychotherapist might differ from other gay men, and even other gay male therapists, and we always have to be mindful of not indulging in unfair assumptions, stereotypes, or even prejudices. But since making a relationship work (which I define, in part, as the relationship’s level of satisfaction for each partner and in its overall longevity and subjective “quality” for each partner) is at least in part based on a skills-building process, skills that I believe are required for a gay male relationship to both endure (quantity) and thrive (quality). These are the issues that come up repeatedly in couples counseling sessions:
1. Money– Gay m
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The following information is summarised from the published work ofDr. David P. McWhirter, MD and Dr. Andrew M. Mattison, MSW, PhD(professional & personal partners, sadly now both deceased).
Growth in Gay Male Couple Relationships
Over a 5-year period ( to ), David P. McWhirter, MD and Andrew M. Mattison MSW, PhD interviewed gay male couples (in the California, San Diego County area) in depth about their significant / intimate couple relationship. The couples interviewed were not in therapy and had been living together as male to male partners anywhere from 1 to more than 37 years. The verb time in a relationship was years, with median being slightly over 5 years.
The study documents how these relationships between two men have developed and include been sustained.
From the interview data, McWhirter and Mattison identified: Six Developmental Stages Of Relationship between gay male couples (with the first four stages occurring within the first 10 years of the couple&#;s relationship).
These developmental stages of gay couples were originally prese
Source: image: Betzy Arosemena for Unsplash
Male relationships can run into challenges from the start, because two men coexisting as men don’t have a lot of historical role models. Working out how to be together isn’t intuitive. Some men have internalized homophobic images of masculinity, and hold had to be hyper-masculine in order to get by. Others aren’t comfortable with any expressions of perceived femininity in themselves…or in their partners, because of how they see these traits reflecting back on them.
If you’re like most gay men, you probably grew up feeling somehow “different.” Because you grew up feeling disenfranchised and/or flawed, you may have completely disowned the masculine energy inside yourself, and encountering it in a partner can be disconcerting.
A lack of role models
Most gay couples aren’t exactly surrounded by beneficial community resources. The communities in which you live and labor may not know the nuances of gay couples’ lives. It’s also probable that you’ve been careful in terms of the breadth and depth of the information you’ve shared with y