50 Comments Received So Far… »

1. Coming out to your parents and introducing your new boyfriend. How do you do this?Comment by Not out yet — April 7, 2008 @ 1:31 pm
2. Is it cheating when your boyfriend flirts and chats with other guys online? How do I make that work with him?Comment by AG — April 9, 2008 @ 10:56 am
3. How do I stop judging my boyfriend and appreciate him?
   How do I deal w my attraction to other people?   (more…)

So, we’ve been talking about something, and we wanted your feedback. Over the last year, my staff and I have been working on an enormous project.

We’ve been taking all of the:
- facts and information we’ve learned over the last 3 years about what makes successful gay couples work…
- all of the research,
- all of the lessons we’ve learned first hand from years of gay couple counseling, and…
- the relationship teachings from the most reputed relationship expert in the world, John Gottman…

And we wanted to put it together in one place so that you could have access everything that makes relationships work long-term.

As you can read on our blog, couples are in a lot of pain. They’re frustrated mainly about lack of communication, mistrust, and recurring arguments.

So we want to help couples get out of this pain, and we’d like you to tell us the ideal format you’d like to receive this information.

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Thanks for voting on our poll. If you’d like to see the results, and get the first opportunity to get your hands on the project we’re putting together, just enter your email here:
http://www.gaycouplesinstitute.org/video.htm

Money is tight for everyone right now, and lately the Gay Couples Relationship Clinic in SF has seen an increase in couples coming in for help with financial problems. In response to this, we’re creating a free online web seminar showing gay couples how to deal with conflict stemming from financial worries. More on that later, though.

So how do couples get through this rough time? I think the most important thing couples do initially is recognize that you’re stressed out about your mortgage or the economy, and not necessarily about your partner. I saw one couple this week who prefaced any ranting about money with, “Look, I just need to vent for a minute, it’s not you I’m mad at.” Realizing he’s not the *target* of the rant, then his partner could listen empathetically, not trying to fix things right away.

Too often we try to jump in, giving our partner solutions to their problems, when what they really need is space to think things through aloud. The coming free web seminar will discuss how to incorporate this kind of “ranting session” into your everyday schedule. We’ll also show you some rules to put around the ranting so that no one gets blamed, or gets defensive.

If you’re interested in the free seminar about handling money disputes, just watch your email for registration….

Let us know how else the Gay Couples Institute can help your relationship.

Wishing you success,

Salvatore Garanzini, MFT

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Some gay couples never argue, whereas some couples argue a lot. Are some kinds of arguments considered worse than others? Check out this article I wrote about arguments in the Labor Day issue of SF Gloss Magazine and get some of your questions answered!

http://www.gaycouplesinstitute.org/GCI.Gloss.Article.2.pdf

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Obviously when you marry you never think you might be sitting in a divorce attorney’s office dividing your assets. Who would want to think such things?

But it can happen. So now that gay couples can marry in some states, how can gay couples take on the responsibility of trying to stay together?

I found a few good gay pre-marital suggestions from hunting around through the research.

1. Ideally, get married after about 2 years of courtship. The ideal courtship length seems to be about 2 years and 4 months, to be exact.
2. Marry after age 25.
3. Talk about the big issues before marrying. How many kids does he want? How does she handle money? Are you sexually compatible? Couples tend to have one of these 6 common problems to deal with throughout their marriage:
   • Money
   • Sex
   • Parenting
   • Getting along with In-Laws
   • Tidiness/Chores
   • Use of Personal Free Time
4. Do stuff together, but also enjoy spending time at home together. One of the important things we look at when evaluating a couple’s relationship is whether, if given the option, they like spending time at home together, or if they’d rather be on the go. A preference of being on the go can be an indication that they’re avoiding being trapped together at home.
5. Have issues? Get help. A recent New York Times Article talked about how couples tend to get the most out of doing a couples workshop, rather than going to just therapy by itself. Workshops can serve as a good relationship “checkup”. If you’re interested, take a look at one of our coming gay couples workshops HERE.

For those of you who are getting married, we wish you a long-lasting, happy marriage. Congratulations!

Do same sex couples tend to get along better? I’ll be on radio KSVY 91.3 in Sonoma talking about this at 2pm PST. I plan on reviewing the below two excellent studies.

Esther Rothblum, a professor of Women’s Studies at San Diego State University, coauthored a fascinating study completed in January, 2008. She, and another associated study found:

• Same sex partners are generally happier than their straight siblings who married.
• Gay couples take larger risks to live openly, thus they must work harder to stay together. By working harder to stay together, they end up creating happier relationships.
• Same sex couples automatically experience a greater sense of compatibility, possibly due to the fact that less “translation” is needed between the sexes. (Basically, when your partner is of the same sex as you, he/she is already at a communication advantage, as compared to heterosexual couples.)
• Same sex couples are: 
  • more honest with each other about monogamy and sex
  • more mature, considerate, and fair to each other
  • more funny and affectionate when they argue
  • less controlling
  • take things less personally

What do you think? Do you agree with these findings in your relationship?

Another study, by San Francisco local researcher Robert-Jay Green, PhD, in the Journal of Homosexuality, reported the same thing, but with a unique slant: There’s a growing body of research that shows that the partner who makes more moneyhas more power in the relationship. But, same sex couples tend to have similar incomes, so there’s less need to struggle over power.

Gay Couples Institute Research Team

Many couples in gay relationships struggle with stopping arguments. But are arguments really something to be avoided?

The country’s leading relationship researcher, John Gottman, PhD, has found in his 30 years of observational research that all relationships have disagreements, and even arguments at some point.

Arguments, by themselves, are not correlated with breakup, separation, or divorce. He found that all couples will, at some point during an argument:

• get defensive
• criticize one another
• get overwhelmed and walk away.

So should gay couples worry about these communication rough spots? Not really, BUT there is one pattern of communication you should avoid: contempt.

John Gottman defines contempt as basically talking down to your partner, like they’re a child who has done something wrong. Contempt has over a 90% correlation with separation/divorce.

So what does contempt look like?

(more…)

Do open relationships really work? Let’s find out.

Here’s the information you need to register for the web seminar series on open relationships.

The seminars are being held:
- Tuesday, June 24th, 12:30pm, (PST) Topic: Communication Skillbuilding - Part 1
- Wednesday, June 25th, 12:30pm, (PST). Topic: Is This Right For Me?
- Thursday, June 26th, 12:30pm, (PST). Topic: Communication Skillbuilding - Part 2
(if you can’t attend, as long as you’ve registered, you’ll get the downloadable audio file)

Only 15 total spaces are available so that everyone has a chance to ask questions of the expert. The Priority List nabbed all the spots, but I’ve received the ok for 6 more.

Watch this video for all the details now!

In 2000, Vermont was the first state to legalize same-sex relationships, so that heterosexual and same-sex couples had the same legal rights. Published in February in Developmental Psychology was the first longitudinal study completed to examine same-sex couples in civil unions.

Researchers had 65 male and 138 female couples participate in the follow up study. Where do you think they are now? Are they still together? (more…)