Couples Therapy for Gay Men
Couples Therapy for Gay Men in Croydon
The conversation you keep not having.
Key facts
- BACP registered #197852
- Couples therapy £100
- 50-minute weekly sessions
- In person in Croydon
- Pink Therapy listed
- Currently in advanced training at Tavistock Relationships
What brings couples here
Some couples come in the middle of a row. Others haven't properly rowed in two years.
It might be the same argument again, about his phone, or whose turn it is to ring whose mum, and you both know your lines before either of you speaks. It might be that you haven't had sex since his birthday, and you're both very polite about not mentioning it.
It might be that nothing is obviously wrong. You're good company at a dinner party, then you get home and sit at opposite ends of the sofa, each on your phone. That's harder to bring up than a row, because there's nothing to point at.
Or something did happen. One of you slept with someone else. Or you opened the relationship and one of you said yes when he meant please don't. Or one of you spends the weekend high and the other has stopped asking where he was on Saturday night.
You don't need to know which of these it is before you come. Most couples can describe the row and not much of what's underneath it. That's where we start.
What's different between two men
Your relationship doesn't come with a script. That leaves more room, and more to decide.
Whether you're monogamous. Whether you want children. Whose family you go to at Christmas, when his set a place for you and yours still introduce him as your friend. Plenty of couples never say any of this out loud, and find out years in that each of them had assumed a different answer.
Sometimes one of you is out to everyone and the other is out to almost everyone. Who goes to the work do, which photos he's allowed to be in, what he gets introduced as. Those small arrangements tend to carry more weight than either of you lets on.
You each learned young what was safe to want, usually in a house where it wasn't talked about. That doesn't go away because you now have a relationship you're allowed to have. It shows up as the thing you can't quite ask him for, or the way you flinch when he asks you.
And sometimes you're the couple your friends point to as proof it can work. It's hard to admit you're struggling when you've been somebody's example.
If you've opened the relationship, I won't be trying to close it. What we'd look at is whether it's working for both of you, whether you're each telling the other the truth about it, and where the jealousy goes.
What happens in the room
I'm a BACP registered psychodynamic therapist, currently in advanced training at Tavistock Relationships. Couples therapy with me looks at the pattern, not just last Tuesday's version of it.
You each came into this relationship with your own sense of how close is safe, learned long before you met. So one of you reaches and the other backs off. Or you're both so careful that nothing real gets said.
Whatever happens between you at home will happen in the room too, sooner or later. One of you talks over the other, or goes quiet, or makes a joke just as it gets serious. When that happens in front of a third person, we can stop and look at it, instead of having the same row again in the car on the way home.
You also won't have to start by explaining yourselves: what an open relationship is, what chemsex is, what it's like to be the couple everyone assumes is fine. I'm listed on the Pink Therapy directory, and we can start from your actual life.
Who comes, and where we meet
You might have been together eighteen months or eighteen years. You might be in the middle of a crisis or quietly disappointed. Often one of you is sure about coming and the other is coming because he was asked. That's a normal way to start, and worth saying in the first session.
You don't need to agree on what the problem is. You do both need to be in the room, which is why I don't offer couples therapy online.
The first session is 90 minutes and costs £150, so there's time to hear from both of you. After that it's 50 minutes a week at £100. I keep the price there on purpose: this work only helps if you can afford to keep coming.
We meet in person at my practice near East Croydon station and Reeves Corner. Couples come from Croydon, South Croydon, West Croydon, Purley, Wallington and nearby parts of South London.
Common questions
- Do you offer couples therapy for gay men?
- Yes. I work with couples where both partners are men, in person at my practice in Croydon. You both come to every session, together.
- We argue constantly. Is that what couples therapy is for?
- Yes. The same argument coming round again is one of the most common reasons couples come. I won't be teaching you to argue more politely. We look at why this particular argument keeps coming back, what each of you is defending when it starts, and why it feels so much bigger than the thing it's about.
- We're not fighting, we've just gone quiet. Is that worth coming for?
- Yes. Plenty of couples who come aren't in crisis. They're flat, and they've got good at living with the distance. Nothing is obviously wrong, which makes it hard to raise, and that's a good reason to come.
- Can couples therapy help if we're in an open relationship?
- Yes, and I won't be trying to close it. An open relationship can be an honest choice that works. We'd look at what the openness is for, whether you're both telling each other the truth about it, and what it does to closeness and jealousy.
- One of us isn't fully out. Does that make couples therapy harder?
- No, and it's worth bringing. When one of you is out to everyone and the other is out to almost everyone, that gap usually carries more than either of you says: about safety, about the future, about whose life gets to be seen.
- What if one of us uses and the other doesn't?
- We can work with that, and nobody is on trial. We'd look at what the using does between you: what it reaches for, what it numbs, and what's harder to say to each other because of it. If it has got to the point where it needs treatment in its own right, I'll say so and help you find specialist support alongside or before couples work.
- How much does couples therapy for gay men cost in Croydon?
- Couples therapy is £100 for a 50-minute weekly session, in person in Croydon. The first session is longer, 90 minutes, so there's time to hear from both of you, and it's £150, paid upfront through the booking system.
- Do you offer online couples therapy for gay men?
- No. Couples therapy is in person only at my Croydon practice. I need to see both of you in the room together.
The practical bits
Couples Therapy for Gay Men
First meeting: £150 for 90 minutes
Then £100 per 50-minute session
- 50-minute sessions, weekly
- In person in Croydon (near East Croydon station, Reeves Corner)
- Daytime and evening slots available
Your first session is 90 minutes, so we have proper time to understand what brings you here. It's £150, paid upfront through the booking system. After that, ongoing sessions are invoiced monthly by email.
Related reading
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