Here’s Part 2 of my 3-part interview series with Harry Faddis of “The Quest of Life” radio show. This segment (9/16/11) covers secrets for keeping the spark alive in long-term gay relationships

http://web.me.com/harryfaddis/qol/TheQuestOfLife/TheQuestOfLife.html

The New Year is upon us and so is the time to start defining your Resolutions. But since many New Year’s Resolutions are broken within the first month, how can you achieve your dating and relationship goals to ensure they are successfully met and not sabotaged along the way? Here are a couple pointers to pave the way toward accomplishing those love-life dreams without a hitch! read more >>

Introduction

You know how it is. You and your guy have been together for a long time now, way past “the honeymoon period” characteristic of the early stages of a relationship. You know each other inside and out and have worked hard to build a satisfying and comfortable lifestyle together as a committed couple. You’ve become settled into a familiar structure and routine in your lives. Life is great! And it is! The love, companionship, and security that a partnership offers can be like no other and is one of the benefits of being in an intimate relationship. But beware…these same benefits can also put your partnership into jeopardy with subsequent boredom, feelings of being taken for granted, and eroticism decline in your relationship if you fail to consistently attend to the needs of your partner, yourself, and your relationship. read more >>

Introduction

As gay men, you’ve struggled through and endured all the challenges inherent in finding true love with another man in this homophobic society, but you did it! You found your Mr. Right! So now what?! read more >>

Introduction

So what makes a healthy and lasting long-term gay relationship successful? Our society certainly doesn’t make it easy for us as gay men to date and mate with all the homophobia and discrimination that exists. Though this is slowly starting to change in many parts of the world, man-to-man love continues to be stigmatized and this backdrop of cultural oppression and hatred can put a strain on a gay couple’s budding relationship that many heterosexual pairs may take for granted. As a gay community, we lack adequate and visible positive role models of gay couples that provide hope for lasting relationship success. As men, we’ve been conditioned to define our masculinity in rigid and narrow ways as part of the socialization process growing up and this can create conflict when pairing up two individuals of the same gender looking for intimacy and emotional connection. And then we have our own layers of discrimination and pressure in our own gay community that at times can leave gay couples feeling unsupported and uninspired to achieve relationship longevity in the one place they thought they’d be safe—among their own. read more >>

Introduction

Back in the 90’s, I worked at Linden Oaks Hospital, a psychiatric clinic in Naperville, Illinois in their outpatient department providing counseling to all ages and populations. We did a lot of work with couples and used a handout with our clients that taught them about attitudes and ingredients for having healthy intimate relationships. I still use that handout in my clinical work as it is a great resource in helping couples assess their own relationship functioning, as well as to use it as a guide for developing goals to work on. Linden Oaks is credited for this content, which is outlined below. The word ‘relationships’ is being used instead of ‘marriages’, as was specified in the handout. While written for a heterosexual audience, we can certainly adapt this information to our gay partnerships as the following content illustrates issues that are universal to all relationship styles. Hopefully you will find it useful as it applies to evaluating your own relationship for maximizing its success. read more >>