The Boys are Alright...with Relationship Therapy

There’s some cliches about straight men in relationship therapy, primarily that they are dragged there by their female partners. I work with individuals and couples across a spectrum of sexuality, gender identity, and relationship arrangements, but rarely with male/male couples so the vast majority of the men I see for couple work are there with women. Many of them tell me that they’ve tried relationship therapy before but that the therapist ‘just sat there listening’, or they tell me that they have very little hope I can help, and often they are very angry. Me being another witness to their struggling relationship can be hugely embarrassing, especially if they suspect that I will side with the complaints and criticisms of their partner - if they think that I, being a woman, think men are shit, or emotionally stunted, or useless, or absolutely to blame for the shared unhappiness.

But as readers of my blog you probably know I’m not that kind of therapist. Nor am I like the therapist in that Couple’s Therapy thing you’ve seen on the telly: I don’t have a lovely office like her’s, but nor would I tolerate such shit in my sessions. But if you’re interested in relationships, watch it, it is fascinating.

I do a few things that seem to make my male clients move from angry and suspicious to invested and hopeful. I make it clear that there can be gendered ways of behaving and experiencing relationships and that there isn’t a right or wrong one, but it’s useful to know how common these differences can be, and we can look at how to manage those. I sometimes mention this blog, and I sometimes mention my own personal experiences with the men in my life which I never report with the script aren’t men awful but rather with these can be different gendered experiences. But I think I do two things which are the most useful.

The first is, there’s a lot of laughing in my sessions, we do banter. Humour gets short shrift in therapy as if it is just a way of hiding other feelings, as if laughing is the poor relation of crying which can be actively encouraged as more authentic or true. But quite frankly that’s bollocks. Laughing together is an excellent way of bonding, the act of sharing a joke actively connects people, it builds trust. And it provides relief. It says these sessions can be enjoyable, fun, something to look forward to. And when a couple who have been rowing and hostile start laughing together about themselves and the hard work of a long term relationship it reframes the work as something manageable, shared, united, and far less terrifying.

Dark humour about hard circumstances isn’t always, whatever other professionals tell me, avoidance or distraction or minimising but rather something to lean into as a new and lighter way of understanding ourselves and our experiences. Humour builds resilience in ourselves and in our relationships. The data seems to suggest that laughing reduces anxiety and stress which is crucial to building better relationships. 

The second is I tell my clients my strategy, it isn’t a secret, or, worse, that there will be endless sessions over years where a couple can have their ongoing arguments. I tell my clients what my plan is and how I think we should do it, and then we all know where we are going and have agreed to it. I tell them that I’m quite directive and I’ll be asking them both to change things about themselves - and they will absolutely think I’m being unfair to them at some points but don’t worry, so will their partner. I tell them I’m ok with them hating me because it won’t last, and we usually laugh about that because by now they know this won’t be like a soft space soft voice place but rather somewhere you can have the whole bandwidth of feelings, and I’m hardy enough to deal with it all. It’s a real safe space where we can all cope with the discomfort that comes with change rather than a fake safe space with a load of rules and no swearing. 

My strategy with a couple in crisis - who are in a lot of conflict - is often a 4 point plan. My male clients often take notes with this, it’s a language that is understandable rather than one about emotional intelligence or greater empathy or vague and impossible moving goalposts like an expectation to be more loving or caring. Which, for many men, feels like being told they are failing. The first part is to reduce the heat, really dialling down the conflict. When people are angry with each other they don’t listen, they just look for a space to get their point in. And they’ve probably had this row, in some form, many times previously. I usually provide really clear rules and get people to agree to it, and there can be huge and visible differences within a couple of weeks when people aren’t in a constant state of defensive fury. The second part is to build warmth, create good faith using specific tools and activities. I often send videos to a couple to watch together which explain these processes and again, the differences within a couple of weeks can be enormous. When both parties say they can feel the change, and are making this journey together, with the same goals, this can be so transformative. 

The third part is to build a team, and the final part is to build the passion/sort the sex. Even the closest, happiest relationships often experience a decline in sexual interest (except, the data suggests, with male-male relationships). The duration of a relationship is actually the strongest predictor of lessening desire rather than relationship or sexual satisfaction. An old myth is that if women are happy in a relationship and feel loved then they want sex, but actually lust and desire requires a whole different bunch of tools and reckonings that sometimes are in direct tension with all the needs of a loving, secure relationship. But for many of my male clients knowing that we’re not just trying to get to more peaceable domestic existence, but one that includes better and more connected sex makes it something worth working toward. One of the myths of working emotionally with men is that they are,by fault of their gender, difficult to work with. But with laughter and transparent strategy I find what I usually find - the boys are alright.