The Important Question I ask of Gay Couples in Counselling

The First Session

When meeting a gay male couple for the first time in counselling, there is an important question I ask of the couple.

As a relationship counsellor, with over 26 years in practice, I began to specialise in therapies for lesbian, gay and mixed-sexuality couples around 17 years ago.

During our initial mutual-assessment session, I recognised a common struggle amongst gay male partners. In order for us to discuss whether the struggle was something this couple experienced, I developed an important question for the couple. The question was:

“What makes this relationship distinctly yours…?”

(Disappointed? Expected something shocking or surprising from the blogpost title? Let me explain my rationale…)

While it looks like a straightforward question, it is also a deceptively difficult one to answer if either partner attempts to answer it alone. The question is deliberately constructed to:

(a) give the couple an example of what it may be like to work in counselling with a couples counsellor,

(b) provoke thoughtful conversation between the couple (as it’s a question that they may answer much better if they collaborate with their answer), and

(c) reveal how the partners work through how to answer a question – such as this – together (i.e. giving us some insight into how their relationship framework is constructed).

For some male couples, this may be the first time that they have been invited to think about their partnership: “how do we define this relationship as being ours exclusively, as being distinct from any other gay male couple relationship?”.

Plus, variations of this question may include:

“What do you do to help others recognise that this relationship is distinctly yours?” or

“How does your partner help identify this relationship as being distinct from all others in his/her life?” if we’re going for a circular approach to the question).

So what’s actually going on with this question?

A Therapist’s Question with a Purpose

The purpose of my question is to invite a gay couple to test and stretch their relationship’s co-operative thinking and communication processes. These will be skills that we will use during couple counselling.

A question such as this (systemic therapists call this circular questioning”) is answered more successfully when the couple communicate with each other, rather than each partner answering individually.

The question: defining what aspects of this couple’s relationship distinguish it from anyone else’s may be a significant task for the couple. One portion of an answer might include ‘Does this couple’s relationship have distinct boundaries that separate it from others (for example, does this relationship permit either partner to engage in sex with someone outside of the relationship, and has this process been agreed upon)?’ Do the couple agree upon and respect boundaries they have previously put in place?

I’m also observing how the partners communicate. Does each partner know how the other thinks in regard to aspects about their relationship? Does each partner hold similar, or different, answers to the question from their partner – and are they OK with the similarities or differences? Are they surprised with their partner’s responses?

Before British Law Recognised our Relationships

Gay couples have not had a society-wide recognised union or ritual (e.g. civil partnerships or marriages) until relatively recently (around 2004). Historically, gay couples recognised a strong compulsion to hide their relationship from the public. Gay couples may have had to repress demonstration of their feelings to their partner in public (unlike heterosexual couples, who were free to display theirs).

Today’s British LGBT/QIA+ couples can display their partnerships in public (at least to some extent, bearing in mind personal safety is still an issue in areas of the country), but years of our repressed behaviour do not suddenly vanish when a law in changed; a couple can still struggle with how their natural feelings may still be need to be censored at some level.

As gay couples, we had to create our own form of recognisable unions – behaviours or rules that communicated, “This is our relationship,!” – which was communicated to and recognised by our families, friends, work colleagues, etc.

Just as importantly, these self-defined unions would have to be displayed and recognised to other potentially interested sexual partners (i.e. when a gay couple socialised in an environment where others may not recognise the union or who wish to ignore its existence, such as in a gay nightclub when attempting to flirt or hook up with one partner of the couple). Such couples would need to communicate on many levels: “our relationship exists, and thou shalt not come between us.”

Perhaps just as importantly, is the couple’s union something that the couple themselves recognise as being distinct from everyone else’s?

If the couple are having trouble recognising or respecting the boundaries of their own relationship, this may be an important factor of the relationship’s conflicts – and maybe at the core of why the couple have come into counselling.

Couple Therapy with Gay Men

David E. Greenan and Gil Tunnell, from their book “Couple Therapy with Gay Men“ (2002 – The Guilford Family Therapy), put it like this:

“If procreation & monogamy do not establish what is and is not a couple relationship, then the gay couple must establish another set of rules…”
(emphasis added)

In my experience as an LGBT/QIA+ couple counsellor, taking such an approach to relationship distinctiveness can apply helpfully to all queer relationships.

When a gay couple meet for couple counselling, one of the things I try to learn, as their counsellor, is: how has this couple decided that they’re a couple… and have they decided that they may, or may not, choose to exclude others from their relationship (recognising polyamory, open relationships, affairs etc.).

Reflecting on my Question in the early 2020s

As civil partnerships and equal marriage have been introduced into the UK, I’ve been considering if my original question to gay couples may still hold value.

If the couple is married, for example, does the marriage certificate establish on their behalf that this is a distinct couple relationship?

Yet, couples coming into counselling continue to teach me that even formal unions are not always an automatic distinction for their relationship… and sometimes such formal unions can be a distraction from what’s really going on in the relationship.

• The Story the Couple Tell: “We’re married, hence committed to each other.”
• The Story the Couple Live: “We’re married, but I don’t know where he goes every Thursday night.”

Theoretical Approach to Couple Counselling

Regardless of the sexuality or gender of the couple, in systemic / psychodynamic couple counselling the counsellor’s initial role is to be educated by the couple:

As the couple teach the counsellor, they too are learning what happens in their relationship’s “system”.

Through the counselling process, the couple can begin to review how they might recognise what leads towards their conflicts and then, together, may begin to introduce inspired ideas on how they might alter their behaviour (e.g. “instead of me shouting at you, I might say that I’m going to step outside for five minutes and then come back to talk together”).

Gay Couple Counselling is not just Couple Counselling

Incorporating knowledge of the more distinct aspects and needs of gay couples can greatly assist the gay couple to feel that their relationship is recognised by the couple counsellor, respected by the counsellor, and that their distinct (if “distinct” is definable) relationship will be assisted through the couple counselling process.

In the end, perhaps my question still holds a place of importance during the opening sessions when a gay couple comes into counselling.