Rik Isensee - Love Between Men: Enhancing Intimacy and Resolving Conflicts in Gay Relationships

Love Between Men

Enhancing Intimacy and Resolving Conflicts in Gay Relationships

Rik Isensee

CONTENTS

Also by Rik Isensee:

Self-help:

Love Between MenEnhancing Intimacy and Resolving Conflicts in Gay Relationships. An excellent and very practical guide for making relationships work.

David McWhirter and Andrew Mattison, co-authors of The Male Couple.

Reclaiming Your Life, The Gay Mans Guide to Recovery from Abuse, Addictions, and Self-Defeating Behavior.

an indispensable guide for recovery and the development of self-esteem that is the cornerstone for building a self-actualized and happy life.

Michael Shernoff, ACSW, co-director, Chelsea Psychotherapy Associates.

Are You Ready?, The Gay Mans Guide to Thriving at Midlife.

an engaging, intimate conversation about how to live with wisdom and passion while embarked on the uncertain journey of midlife.

Robert M. Kertzner, MD, Columbia University.

The Gay Mans Guide to Love and Intimacy (a tape from Sounds True). A guide to developing intimacy through clear communication with your partner.

Fiction:

The God Squad, a spoof on the ex-gay movement. brilliantly over the top Its twisted, but its getting funnier with each page I couldnt help but enjoy this fine display of Rik Isensees wicked sense of humor. Honest!

Jeffrey Jasper, Lambda Book Report.

Were Not Alone, a young adult novel dealing with gay, bisexual, and lesbian youth. Were Not Alone is fast-paced, well-written, and funny. This book belongs in the library of every high school.

Joyce Hunter, MSW, CSW, President of the National Lesbian/Gay Health Foundation.

Humor:

Spank the MonkeyReports from the Front Lines of Our Quirky Culture. Absolutely hysterical, smart, and original. Spank the Monkey is compulsively readable, un-put-downable fun!

David Rosen, Editor-in-Chief, InsightOutBooks

Plays:

Censored!A Mocudrama in Two Unnatural Acts.

Honky-Tonk Parade, winner of the James Highsmith Playwriting Award, a prize for new gay plays.

PRAISE FOR LOVE BETWEEN MEN

a valid guide to establishing closer, more enduring partnerships fills a gap in the resources available to couples.

K. Orton Williams, San Francisco Sentinel

there is meat on these bones; material that any person in a relationship, or considering/fearing one, can learn from. Isensees insights are solid and his chapter on abusive relationships is the sort of material rarely discussed within the gay community. And his summation chapters, which include the awful thought of What If It Doesnt Work Out?, are astute.

Dale Reynolds, Lambda Book Report

This is a practical, down-to-earth manual for men who live in intimate relationships and want to improve them. This book does more than help couples solve complicated interpersonal problemsit helps them to avoid them.

Harvey L. Gochros, D.S.W., professor, School of Social Work, University of Hawaii

Isensee explores gay male relationships by examining the difficulty of maintaining successful male-male bondings in a hostile, homophobic society. He discusses problems unique to homosexual relationships. A helpful book.

Library Journal

A welcome addition to practical gay literature.

Booklist

INTRODUCTION

Intimate contactboth sexual and emotionalis what many gay men are looking for in a relationship. Intimacy derives from a sense of mutual trust, and talking about how we feel enables trust to develop between us.

However, we face a number of challenges to our desire for intimacy with another man. Homophobia and discrimination make it dangerous to acknowledge same-sex attractions. We seldom see gay men portrayed realistically in the media and weve had few positive models for gay relationships. Our exposure to male couples living and coping together from day to day may be very limited. Without the encouragement from family and friends that heterosexual couples take for granted, we end up struggling on our own, with a scarcity of skills and support for handling the conflicts that inevitably arise in any relationship.

When we become involved with another man, we discover that our conditioning as males hasnt prepared us very well for the exchange of feelings that forms the basis for emotional intimacy. Weve been taught to control or suppress our emotions, to the point where we may no longer be aware of how we feel. Having to hide our attractions while growing up may have left us mistrustful about disclosing our feelings to anyone. But if we dont say how we feel, its hard to empathize with each other, so any serious conflict can lead to breaking off the relationship. What might have blossomed with the proper nurturing is allowed to wither, and were left wondering whether love between men is even possible.

Though we risk alienation from our families, discrimination at work, and rejection by the surrounding community, many of us have reached out to one another to establish meaningful relationships. Through meeting the challenge of AIDS, weve learned a great deal about how to take care of ourselves as a community, and how to be more sensitive and responsive to one anothers needs. Now many of us want to develop this same kind of emotional support with our partners.

In my work with male couples, we spend much of our time developing their ability to communicate clearly. Ive been struck by how patterns of mutual antagonism give way to real understanding once partners work through past resentments and get to the core of their feelings toward each other. They often wonder why they couldnt have learned these skills a long time ago. Most of us never received much guidance from our families or at school about how to resolve interpersonal conflicts, much less what it takes to be involved in a relationship with another man. So I decided to put these ideas together in a form that male couples could use on their own.

Much of the skill-building approach I use in couples therapy is included in this book. It will take some work to translate these ideas into your own relationshipusing a guide is not quite like having a therapist point out patterns between you, catch you when you interrupt each other, or help you listen when youre too upset to hear what your partner is saying. But youll have some effective and practical tools to help you approach many of the problems youve been grappling with.

Every couple arrives at their own style for expressing affection and handling conflict; whatever works for you is whats important. But sometimes communication breaks down, and youre not sure how to reach out again. This book provides a model for working through conflicts and developing intimacy in gay relationships. Youll deepen your ability to express your feelings and empathize with your partner. Through detailed examples of issues common to male couples, youll be able to identify patterns and solve most of the problems that arise between you.

When you first get to know someone, you may be attracted sexually and stimulated by common interests. Over time, an intimate connection evolves from your willingness to say what you think and how you feel. Revealing yourself is a great giftas you struggle together, without having to pretend or hide your feelings, you come to love and appreciate each other as you really are.

Thats the level of closeness I see develop between the men I work with, and thats what I hope this book can help you achieve in your own relationship.

PART 1

RESOLVING CONFLICTS

Everything that rises must converge.

TEILHARD DE CHARDIN