Written by Joseph • September 4, 2015
“Society desperately needs to see healthy gay couples functioning in successful relationships.” Back in the 90’s, I worked at Linden Oaks Hospital, a psychiatric clinic in Naperville, Illinois in their outpatient department providing counseling to all ages and populations.We did a lot of work with couples and used a handout with our clients that taught […]
Back in the 90’s, I worked at Linden Oaks Hospital, a psychiatric clinic in Naperville, Illinois in their outpatient department providing counseling to all ages and populations.We did a lot of work with couples and used a handout with our clients that taught them about attitudes and ingredients for having healthy intimate relationships.
I still use that handout in my clinical work as it is a great resource in helping couples assess their own relationship functioning, as well as to use it as a guide for developing goals to work on. Linden Oaks is credited for this content, which is outlined below. The word ‘relationships’ is being used instead of ‘marriages’, as was specified in the handout.
While written for a heterosexual audience, we can certainly adapt this information to our gay partnerships as the following content illustrates issues that are universal to all relationship styles. Hopefully you will find it useful as it applies to evaluating your own relationship for maximizing its success.
Top 10 Reasons Relationships Fail
10. “We’ve just grown apart…”
9. “We’re just not in love anymore…”
8. “He’ll never change…”
7. “I don’t have any emotions/feelings left…”
6. “All we do is fight…”
5. “There’s just too much resentment built up…”
4. “We can’t work out problems with children…”
3. “There’s no intimacy or ‘fire’…”
2. “I just can’t trust him…”
1. “We just don’t communicate…”
Tips For Lasting Love
• Ability to solve problems
• Active listening
• Ability to express and validate feelings and needs
• Personal responsibility
• Love and romance
• Friendship
• Forgiveness
• Having solid self-esteem and comfort with being gay
• Both men being at the same level of “outness”; and the more “out”, the better to allow for more openness, relaxation, and honesty in all environments
• Having a support system of people who honor, value, and validate the men’s relationship as a gay couple
• Each man having his own individual identity, as well as commitment to a relationship identity to allow for more balance and vitality
• Having a clear agreement about monogamy vs. non-monogamy in one’s relationship and having an understanding of what that means and looks like and abiding by that faithfully
• Recognition that relationships take effort and work
• Having a shared vision for the future as a couple
• And most importantly, as in all relationships, communication is key! Productive conflict resolution is critical! Honesty is a must! The ability to be flexible is also important.
Society desperately needs to see healthy gay couples functioning in successful relationships. Could you be a role model as gay partners if you choose? If so, let us all share the wealth and wisdom with each other as a community, to learn from each other on what it takes! Cheers to your relationship success!
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