We had one horrible couples session somewhere else where everything somehow became about us being queer. On Headroom we found someone who understood LGBTQ+ relationships and could focus on our actual problems — trust, family pressure and whether we wanted the same future. Massive relief.

I kept choosing people who were unavailable and then working twice as hard to get them to choose me. When my counsellor pointed out how familiar that feeling was from growing up, I wanted to argue with her 😂. She was right though.

We came in arguing about money. I was convinced he was irresponsible; he thought I controlled everything. After a few sessions it was pretty clear the fights were not really about the spreadsheet. I needed to feel I could rely on him and he needed to feel like an adult in his own house. Once we saw that, we had something to work with. We still disagree about money btw. We just do not turn it into a referendum on the whole marriage anymore.

After the affair came out, every conversation became an interrogation. I understood why, but I was also starting to think there was no way back from it. The work was not about pretending trust should return quickly. We had to talk about what had happened, what I was willing to do consistently, and what she needed to decide for herself. It was messy for months. We are still together now, but more importantly, it feels like we are actually together.

Sex was the only thing we could not talk about without one of us getting defensive. Doing it with a practitioner there made it way less dramatic. Mostly we needed better words for what we actually wanted and what was making us pull away.

I was nervous that BDSM would either be treated like something was wrong with us or that the practitioner would be too uncomfortable to go there. What we actually needed was help talking about consent, power, boundaries and a dynamic that had stopped feeling good for both of us. She was completely matter-of-fact about it, which made the conversation so much easier.

By the time we asked for help we had already decided to separate. I assumed that meant counselling was pointless. It actually helped us have some very hard conversations without blowing up in front of the kids and gave us a much clearer way of handling the next few months.

I thought couples counselling meant somebody would decide who was right. Thank goodness that was not the vibe.

Learning to say ‘I need time to think’ instead of either agreeing or exploding changed more than I expected.

My sessions did not save the relationship. They helped me stop trying to save it alone.