Gay Couples Therapy NYC
Evidence-Based Care for Gay Couples in New York
Whether It Slipped Away or Shattered Overnight
Private, expert-led online couples therapy for gay couples in New York
Something Shifted. You Both Feel It.
You did not arrive here randomly. Something shifted in your relationship, slowly over time or suddenly through a rupture, and now it does not feel the way it used to. Many gay couples and LGBTQ couples begin looking for gay couples therapy when the relationship no longer feels safe, connected, or steady, even though both partners still care deeply.
You may find yourselves walking on eggshells. Small disagreements turn into major relationship conflicts, or nothing gets said at all. You stop bringing things up because it feels pointless or risky. Over time, trust erodes or breaks, and the same arguments repeat. Communication skills that once worked no longer help. Conflict lingers, repair takes days, and home no longer feels like relief. These relationship challenges often take a toll on mental health and emotional well being for both partners.
Sex and physical intimacy often change as well. Desire becomes awkward, infrequent, or complicated. Emotional intimacy may feel distant, even when physical intimacy still exists. One partner may keep initiating while the other avoids. Some couples find themselves on dating apps but not emotionally connected to each other. Talking honestly about sexual needs, boundaries, or emotional connection feels risky, especially when past conversations have led to shutdown or escalation.
For many same sex couples, these struggles are shaped by unique challenges related to sexual orientation, gender identity, and minority stress. External pressures such as discrimination, family rejection, or lack of support from family members can quietly strain the relationship. Internalized shame, past relationship trauma, or experiences within the LGBTQ community can make vulnerability feel unsafe, even in committed relationships.
Some gay men and LGBTQ couples arrive after problems in open relationships, non monogamous relationships, or polyamorous relationships. What once felt freeing now feels exhausting. Agreements may have been broken. Someone may have crossed a boundary or caught feelings. Navigating jealousy becomes overwhelming, and resentment builds. The relationship structure that was meant to support connection starts to create distance instead.
Others notice a quieter loss. The relationship begins to feel transactional. You function as co-managers of daily life rather than partners. Laughter fades. Emotional bonds weaken. The sense of being chosen gives way to routine. Relationship satisfaction drops, even though nothing dramatic has happened.
Gay couples therapy and LGBTQ couples therapy can help when the focus is not just on talking more calmly, but on understanding relationship dynamics underneath the surface. When therapy begins to work, conversations feel safer. Communication improves. Couples learn to slow down conflict, recognize negative patterns, and repair more quickly. Emotional connection strengthens. Emotional intimacy and physical intimacy become possible again. Agreements become clearer and more sustainable. Jealousy becomes something couples can navigate together rather than something that takes over the relationship.
Many couples have tried couples counseling or online therapy before and felt disappointed. Sessions may have focused on generic advice, surface communication tips, or mediation rather than real change. Some couples had to explain what it means to be a gay couple, how open relationships work, or how sexual identities and gender expression affect the relationship. Others felt their mental health issues or relationship issues were treated as individual problems instead of shared patterns.
Gay couples therapy with an affirming mental health professional is different. It provides a safe and supportive space where LGBTQ couples can explore relationship challenges, identity concerns, and emotional needs without judgment. Couples therapy grounded in Emotionally Focused Therapy, Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, and other evidence-based approaches helps partners identify what actually drives conflict, improve communication, and rebuild emotional connection.
This is not about perfection. It is about helping gay couples and LGBTQ couples develop healthier relationship dynamics, greater intimacy, and resilience in the face of stress. Whether couples are seeking gay marriage counseling, LGBTQ couples counseling, or online couples therapy, the goal is the same. To help partners feel understood, supported, and able to move forward together in a healthier relationship.
This is different.
Why Couples Trust Travis With Their Relationship
Break Free from the Patterns That Keep You Stuck
Gay couples therapy works best when it goes beyond communication tips and addresses what is actually happening inside the relationship when things break down. Many gay couples and LGBTQ couples come to couples therapy already understanding their issues. They know the arguments, the distance, or the rupture around trust, sex, or commitment. What they often do not understand is why the same relationship patterns keep repeating, even when both partners want something different.
That is where Travis Atkinson’s work stands apart.
Travis Atkinson is a licensed mental health professional and couples therapist who has worked with gay men and LGBTQ couples for decades. He was one of the first Certified Gottman Method Couples Therapists in New York, one of the first Certified Emotionally Focused Therapy for Couples therapists and supervisors in New York, and one of the co-creators of Schema Therapy for Couples.
This means his approach to gay couples therapy is informed not only by clinical experience, but by direct involvement in shaping how couples therapy is practiced, taught, and refined.
Travis specializes in LGBTQ couples therapy that focuses on relationship dynamics beneath the surface. His work addresses the unique challenges faced by same sex couples related to sexual orientation, gender identity, minority stress, internalized shame, and the emotional weight many LGBTQ individuals carry from family members, past relationships, and experiences of discrimination within society and the LGBTQ community.
His approach to couples therapy integrates Emotionally Focused Therapy, Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, the Gottman Method, and Schema Therapy for Couples into a single, depth-oriented process. Emotionally focused therapy helps couples identify and shift negative patterns of interaction that interfere with emotional connection, emotional intimacy, and physical intimacy. Cognitive Behavioral Therapy helps couples understand how thought patterns, coping strategies, and learned behaviors contribute to relationship conflicts and mental health issues such as anxiety or depression. The Gottman Method strengthens communication skills, emotional bonds, and friendship in committed relationships. Schema Therapy for Couples helps partners recognize long-standing emotional needs and protection strategies that become activated under stress.
Together, these approaches allow couples therapy to focus on real change, not just insight.
This depth is especially important for gay men and LGBTQ couples navigating open relationships, non monogamous relationships, or polyamorous relationships, where relationship issues often involve navigating jealousy, repairing trust, and addressing unique challenges that fall outside traditional heterosexual couples therapy models. Travis provides a safe and supportive space where couples can openly explore boundaries, agreements, sexual identities, and emotional needs within a safe and inclusive environment.
Rather than offering generic advice, gay couples therapy with Travis focuses on addressing unique challenges as they arise in real time. Couples counseling helps partners slow down moments of conflict, improve communication, and recognize when tension is being driven by external stressors such as discrimination, family rejection, or minority stress rather than the relationship itself. Over time, couples therapy supports rebuilding emotional connection, fostering intimacy, and increasing relationship satisfaction.
The goal of this work is not perfection. It is a healthier relationship where both partners feel emotionally secure, understood, and better equipped to handle relationship challenges together. Whether couples are seeking gay marriage counseling, LGBTQ couples counseling, or online couples therapy with an affirming therapist, this work is designed to help them move forward with clarity, resilience, and greater intimacy.
Let’s Bring Back What First Brought You Together
Gay couples therapy is not about going backward or recreating a honeymoon phase. It is about rebuilding emotional connection, trust, and intimacy in a way that fits who you are now and what your relationship actually needs.
Many gay couples and LGBTQ couples reach a point where effort alone no longer works. You may be successful in your careers, thoughtful in how you communicate, and deeply committed to the relationship, yet still feel stuck in the same arguments, distance, or unresolved pain. Couples therapy provides a structured way to address relationship dynamics that have become hard to shift on your own.
Working with a licensed mental health professional who specializes in gay couples therapy allows you to focus on what matters most. Emotional intimacy. Physical intimacy. Communication that does not escalate into conflict or shut down entirely. A healthier relationship where both partners feel seen, chosen, and supported.
This work is especially important for same sex couples and LGBTQ couples facing unique challenges related to sexual orientation, gender identity, minority stress, or family dynamics. Gay couples therapy and LGBTQ couples therapy create a safe and supportive space to talk openly about trust, sex, boundaries, commitment, and the emotional impact of societal pressure or past experiences.
Why Start Now
Most couples wait longer than they wish they had. Relationship challenges rarely resolve themselves, and unresolved conflict can take a toll on emotional well being, mental health, and relationship satisfaction over time.
Couples therapy helps partners develop communication skills, improve conflict resolution, and strengthen emotional bonds before distance becomes harder to repair. Emotionally Focused Therapy and other evidence-based approaches help couples identify negative patterns, rebuild emotional connection, and foster greater intimacy.
Online couples therapy makes it possible to begin without adding more stress to your schedule. Sessions take place in a private, safe space where couples can focus fully on the relationship without commuting or interruption. This approach works well for gay men and LGBTQ couples balancing demanding lives while wanting meaningful change in their relationship.
While services are offered through online therapy, referrals to support groups or in person therapy resources may be discussed when clinically appropriate.
Ready to Begin
If you are looking for gay couples therapy, LGBTQ couples therapy, or gay marriage counseling with an affirming couples therapist, this is a place to start. Couples counseling here is designed to address unique challenges, improve communication, and help couples move forward together with clarity and confidence.
Rebuilding connection does not require perfection. It requires the right kind of support at the right time.
Meet Your Therapist at GayCouplesTherapy.com
Working with a couples therapist who understands gay relationships changes the entire experience of couples therapy. In gay couples therapy, time should be spent working on the relationship itself, not explaining your lives, your identities, or why your relationship does not fit heterosexual assumptions.
Travis Atkinson is a licensed mental health professional and couples therapist who specializes in gay couples therapy and LGBTQ couples therapy. His work focuses on the real relationship dynamics that show up for gay men and same sex couples, including issues related to sexual orientation, gender identity, minority stress, and the impact of family dynamics and social pressure on committed relationships.
Many gay couples arrive carrying layers of stress that go beyond the relationship itself. Experiences of discrimination, coming out, family rejection, internalized shame, or pressure within the LGBTQ community often shape how partners communicate, fight, withdraw, or protect themselves. These external stressors can easily be mistaken for relationship issues when they are actually part of the larger context the couple is navigating together.
Gay couples therapy here is designed to address those unique challenges directly. Couples counseling focuses on helping partners understand how emotional patterns, communication habits, and coping strategies developed, and how they now affect emotional connection, trust, and intimacy. Therapy provides a safe and supportive space where difficult topics can be discussed openly, including conflict, jealousy, boundaries, sexual identities, and relationship agreements.
Travis works with gay men and LGBTQ couples across a range of relationship structures, including monogamous relationships, open relationships, and non monogamous or polyamorous relationships. Rather than applying a one size fits all approach, couples therapy is tailored to the specific needs of each relationship, with attention to both emotional intimacy and physical intimacy.
This work integrates Emotionally Focused Therapy, Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, the Gottman Method, and Schema Therapy for Couples. These evidence based approaches help couples identify negative patterns, improve communication skills, navigate conflict more effectively, and rebuild emotional bonds. Therapy also helps couples recognize when tension is driven by external factors such as discrimination or family pressure rather than by the relationship itself.
Gay couples therapy and LGBTQ couples counseling are most effective when they take place in a safe and inclusive environment. Here, therapy is affirming, direct, and focused on helping couples build a healthier relationship where both partners feel understood, supported, and emotionally connected.
Take the First Step Toward Lasting Love
Reignite the spark and strengthen your bond with our proven methods and empathetic care. Together, let’s create the fulfilling, connected relationship you both deserve.
Imagine What Becomes Possible with the Right Kind of Couples Therapy.
A healthier relationship built on trust, emotional connection, and real change, guided by expert gay couples therapy.
From Tension to Repair
In effective gay couples therapy, conflict becomes information rather than a threat. Couples learn to understand relationship dynamics, slow escalation, and repair more quickly so disagreements no longer erode trust or emotional connection.
Rebuild Emotional and Physical Intimacy
Couples therapy helps gay couples reconnect emotionally and physically by addressing the patterns that shut desire down. As emotional safety increases, intimacy becomes something partners move toward again rather than avoid.
Build a Relationship That Lasts
This work goes beyond surface fixes. Gay couples therapy focuses on creating a healthier relationship where both partners feel valued, understood, and secure over time, even when stress or conflict arises.
Create a Shared Future Together
Many same sex couples struggle to imagine the future when the present feels unstable. Couples counseling helps partners clarify shared values, strengthen commitment, and move forward with greater confidence and alignment.
Break Old Patterns and Move Forward
Negative cycles do not change through insight alone. LGBTQ couples therapy helps partners identify long standing patterns, develop healthier communication skills, and respond to each other in new ways that support connection instead of distance.
What we offer
Specialized Couples Therapy for Gay and LGBTQ Couples
Gay Couples Therapy: Who We Are
The Loving at Your Best Plan for LGBTQ+ Couples
Meet Travis Atkinson: Guiding LGBTQ+ Couples to Thrive in NYC
Travis Atkinson is the founder of GayCouplesTherapy.com and the creator of the Loving at Your Best Plan for LGBTQ+ couples. He brings decades of experience helping gay couples and LGBTQ couples strengthen their relationships, especially when they feel stuck in conflict, distance, or repeated breakdowns around trust and intimacy.
As a licensed mental health professional and couples therapist, Travis’s work focuses on the relationship dynamics beneath the surface. Rather than offering generic advice, his approach helps couples understand why the same arguments keep happening and how to change the emotional patterns that drive them. This work is designed for couples navigating real life pressures, including stress, identity, family dynamics, and the complexity of modern relationships in New York City.
A Leader in Gay Couples Therapy
Travis is one of the co-creators of Schema Therapy for Couples, developed alongside Jeffrey Young, the founder of Schema Therapy. This model helps couples identify and change long standing emotional patterns that fuel conflict, withdrawal, or shutdown, even when partners genuinely care about each other.
He also collaborated directly with Sue Johnson, the founder of Emotionally Focused Therapy, to create the first training video specifically focused on EFT for gay and lesbian couples. This work helped bring attachment-based couples therapy into the LGBTQ clinical landscape in a meaningful and lasting way.
Advanced Training and Research-Based Expertise
Travis brings rare depth of training to his work as a couples therapist. He is:
One of the first Certified Gottman Method Couples Therapists in New York
One of the first Certified Emotionally Focused Therapists and Supervisors for couples in New York
An Advanced Certified Schema Therapist, Supervisor, and Trainer
The Gottman Method holds a unique place in gay couples therapy. It is one of the few couples therapy models supported by decades of rigorous research that explicitly included same sex couples. These studies demonstrated that the same core relationship dynamics predict stability, satisfaction, and resilience in gay and lesbian relationships, providing an unusually strong evidence base for LGBTQ couples counseling.
Travis integrates Gottman Method research with Emotionally Focused Therapy, Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, and Schema Therapy to support emotional connection, communication, conflict resolution, and long term relationship satisfaction.
An Affirming, Depth-Oriented Approach
Gay couples therapy here is explicitly affirming and grounded in an understanding of sexual orientation, gender identity, and the unique stressors LGBTQ couples often face. Therapy provides a safe and supportive space to address issues related to discrimination, family rejection, internalized shame, and the pressure these external factors can place on a relationship.
This approach is especially helpful for couples navigating open relationships, non monogamous relationships, or periods of significant transition. The focus is not perfection, but building a healthier relationship where both partners feel understood, emotionally secure, and better equipped to handle challenges together.
If you are seeking gay couples therapy, gay marriage counseling, or LGBTQ couples counseling with a highly experienced, affirming couples therapist, this work is designed to help you move forward with clarity, resilience, and greater connection.
The goal is not just insight, but a fulfilling relationship built on trust, emotional connection, and greater intimacy.
How it works
Simple Steps to Start Gay Couples Therapy with a Licensed Couples Therapist
Book Now
Schedule a couples therapy session online at a time that works for both of you. Sessions are offered via secure online therapy, making it easy to begin without added stress or travel.
Have questions about gay couples therapy, couples counseling, or fit? Reach out by email to get clear information before scheduling your first session.
Call
Prefer to speak directly? Call 212-725-7774 to discuss your relationship concerns, learn how couples therapy works, and decide on next steps together.
Need more help?
GayCouplesTherapy.com offers virtual couples therapy sessions through a secure, HIPAA-compliant platform. Online therapy allows couples to receive high-quality, confidential care without the need for in-person sessions.
All couples therapy services on this site are provided directly by Travis Atkinson, LCSW, LICSW, in accordance with professional and legal licensing requirements.
U.S. Licensing Information
Travis Atkinson is licensed to provide couples therapy when one or both partners is physically located in New York or Vermont at the time of the session.
Telehealth regulations require that each client’s physical location be confirmed at the beginning of every session. Clients will be asked to state their location at the start of each appointment to ensure compliance with licensing laws. Licensing is based on physical location during the session, not residency or permanent address.
If neither partner is physically located in New York or Vermont at the time of the session, therapy services may not be available unless licensing reciprocity or temporary practice allowances apply in that jurisdiction. Clients are responsible for confirming eligibility based on their location.
International Clients
Regulations governing psychotherapy and telehealth vary significantly by country. In some countries, mental health practice is regulated through protected professional titles and licensure, which may restrict or prohibit cross-border therapy. In other countries, psychotherapy is not regulated in this way, and there may be fewer restrictions on participating in online therapy with a U.S.-licensed clinician.
Because these laws differ widely and can change, clients who are physically located outside the United States are responsible for confirming whether participating in online couples therapy with a U.S.-licensed therapist is permitted in their current location. Therapy services are provided in good faith under U.S. professional and ethical standards, but compliance with local regulations cannot be guaranteed for every international jurisdiction.
International clients will be asked to confirm their physical location and acknowledge responsibility for understanding any local laws or regulations that may apply before beginning therapy. If there are questions about eligibility or compliance, clients are encouraged to reach out prior to scheduling so these issues can be clarified in advance.
Each counseling session is led by a licensed therapist and designed to support meaningful progress, whether couples are seeking short-term guidance or ongoing couples counseling. Therapy is provided in a safe and inclusive space where LGBTQ individuals, including transgender individuals and those navigating gender transition, feel respected and understood.
