Today I want to narrow in on one set of tools that my partner and I use every day to keep our relationship thriving. These are not only tools that I use in my own relationships every single day, they’re also tools that I recommend basically all of my clients use.

Here’s why smartphone apps can play an important role in keeping your relationship humming along: the day-to-day logistics of being in a relationship, especially a long-term relationship, especially if you live together, can be kind of romance killers. There’s just a lot of little things to take care of or keep track of

It’s helpful to have systems in place for you to reduce friction in your relationship and create space for fun, adventure, spontaneity, and that’s where romance grows. Of course, our phones can also pull us apart. I know that I and many clients that I work with at times fall into the trap of being on the couches and “Instagramming and chilling,” except we never get to the “chilling” part because we’re just stuck in our feeds scrolling and scrolling and scrolling.

You may technically be spending time with each other on the couch there together, but you’re not actually having a meaningful connection.

If you’re in an open or non-monogamous relationship or polyamorous relationship, you might also find yourself distracted by dating apps and your partners right there in the room with you.

Instead of our phones pulling us apart, let’s use them to bring us together!

Here are 4 apps you can use to make your relationship just a little bit easier—and that way you can get onto the fun part:

The Reminders app

has been an absolute game changer in my relationships. And it’s the one thing that has reduced the amount of

conflicts and fights and tension in my relationship just like by so much. By putting things into the reminders app that I know that I need to do around the house, instead I get them on a recurring basis, it makes it so that my partner doesn’t have to nag me to do the things that we said that we would do. It makes it so that our lives can just run smoothly on autopilot. And neither one of us feels like we have to be like the boss of the other person. I also use the reminders app to remind me to buy presents far enough in advance so that I don’t have to wait until the last minute and I set those as recurring reminders as well, so every year when it rolls around, I have a new reminder waiting for me. And I also use recurring reminders to remind me to plan date nights and other special surprises for my partners.

Now, I could remember those all on my own, and I usually do, but having reminders in my app, on my phone that I use every day, makes sure that if there’s a busy period of my life where I’ve got something else going on, or I become really stressed, that I never lose track of the things that are most important to me.

Shared Calendar App

Having a shared calendar is so much of a polyamory cliche that I almost didn’t include it in this video, but it really is so important. And so many of my clients aren’t using calendars when I first start working with them. And when they add this piece into their equation, it just makes things run a lot smoother.

There are few different ways that you can set up shared calendars.

Make sure that you actually put the things that you have going on in your life into your calendar. So that’s like your work schedule, any appointments, meetings with friends, if you have other partners, like dates that you’re going on with them.

Then, have some sort of way that you can refer back to the calendars with each other.

The sort of least intrusive way is to set up a recurring check-in every weekend and just sort of look at your calendar in the weeks ahead. Use it to sync up your schedules and make a plan for how you’re going to spend your time together. That approach requires you to obviously like sit down and look at your calendars together, so…

What my partner and I shifted to doing is that we share our calendars with each other so that we can see what we’re up to. When we first started sharing our calendars, we didn’t want to let each other see all the details that we had going on. So we set it up so we only shared like the free/busy availability. And so I could see that he had something blocked off at different times on his calendar, but I didn’t know exactly what it was.

As we’ve progressed in our relationship and trust each other more and live together and are now married, we have gotten to a point where we actually just share all the calendar information with each other so that we can see like exactly what’s going on and make plans around each other accordingly.

Using the calendar app to share your calendars with one another is of course not a replacement for communication. You still have to talk to each other. That’s really important. But one of things that it does is it allows you to see in advance things that are coming up that might cause conflict or might bring up feelings so that you can deal with them well in advance rather than being taken by surprise by them. So that when the moment comes, you’ve reduced some of, at least some of the stress or the friction that could go into those events.

Notes App

And in particular, setting up a shared folder inside of a notes app that you and your partner or your partners all have access to. Human brains are really bad at remembering things. We’re great at making decisions and analyzing things, but terrible at long-term memory. So having a notes app that you dedicate to keeping track of all the stuff that you need to keep your relationship running along is gonna be so helpful.

There two types of things you’ll want to keep you in the shared folder of your notes app:

The first is boring, mundane stuff. Accounts that we have, information about my parents’ address, his parents’ address, how to run our set of our TV and our smart remote, anything that we might need to refer back to in some point in the future.

And the other is to keep track of fun things. And so we have one note for a list of present ideas for each other and also for our siblings and our parents and our closest friends. We have a different note for restaurants that we want to check out here in our neighborhood. We have another app note in the app for movies and TV shows that we might want to watch. Another one for date night ideas. And so that way when we’re sitting around and we’re like, what should we do tonight? We have an idea of things that we could do, places we could go, movies that we could watch right at our fingertips.

That way we’re not just going to the same old restaurants that we’re familiar with over and over and over again. We’re sort of planning in advance to have some spontaneity and adventure to get us outside of our routines.

Meal Planning App (I use Plan To Eat)

The last app that I will recommend is some sort of meal planning app. I use an app called PlantEat. Any meal planning app that you can find is probably gonna work well. You can also use your shared calendar from earlier in this video to plan out your meals if you want to. I like having a dedicated app because it helps me keep track of.

the recipes and the grocery list and all of that, all in one place. Meals are another sort of like tension point in relationships. It’s not just about food for many people. It’s also about care and commitment and quality time. And so like missing a meal together or not having a clear plan about what you’re going to do for your meal can become a point of stress or you end up just sort of like punting and taking take out all the time and spending lots of money that you don’t wanna spend.

I usually just plan it out like a week in advance. My partner and I sit down together during our weekly sync sessions where we also look at our calendars and we plan out our meals for the week. And this sometimes includes planning to eat out or planning to have leftovers or planning to do our things. We’re not committing to every single meal together, but it helps us sketch out for the week ahead when we’ll be eating together, when we’ll be eating separately. It just takes out some of the stress in the day to day of it. So that way you’re not having the same conversation every single day.

Figure out your meal plan in advance and then spend the rest of your week just enjoying your relationship!

This is especially important if you live together with your partner and you’re in an open or polyamorous relationship and so that you don’t just default to, well, we have all of our meals together. If someone wants to have a date night out or see a partner in the middle of the week, it can feel like it’s disrupting your sort of usual flow. Plan in advance to spend some meals separately!

Spending Time Together & Apart

I could make a whole other video about planning to spend time separately.

It’s one of the key ways to have more connection in your relationship is to have some time together and some time apart. so use your calendars and use your meal planning to create some pockets of time where you can just sort of like be by yourself, away from your partner. And so that way you have something to reconnect on when you get back together.

I want to leave you with the reminder that keeping your relationship in sync is one of the most important priorities that you could have. These articles and videos are only as useful as the actions you take, so I encourage you to start using at least one of these apps in this way.

The post Apps I use to be a better husband first appeared on Brian Gerald Murphy.

The post Apps I use to be a better husband appeared first on Brian Gerald Murphy.

Talking about your feelings isn’t always that easy.

In my relationship coaching sessions, clients sometimes share something with their partner during our session that they had not previously told him.

Is there anything you’ve been thinking about that you haven’t shared with your partner?

Sometimes, what they share is relatively boring while other times it’s a bombshell. Here are some things clients haven’t gotten around talking to:

• A change in work schedule
• A guy they’ve been talking to and thinking about hooking up with
• Disappointment over not having started planning the wedding yet after having gotten engaged
• Starting to take viagra sometimes
• Wanting to finalize weekend plans
• Wanting to have more sex

There are two main reasons folks you might put off talking to your partner about something:

1. You’re waiting for the “right” time because you don’t want to be a buzzkill or make your partner upset or anxious
2. You’re worried how your partner will react to what you say

Sex and relationship therapist Esther Perel has some wisdom on this:

“We listen quite well when people say nice things. The challenge is how to listen when someone says something that hurts us or annoys us or that we disagree with. And research tells us we have the capacity to listen for 10 seconds when someone tells us something we don’t agree with. That’s 3 sentences.”

If you have something important to talk to your partner about but you haven’t done it yet, there might be a really good reason why: you’re worried it won’t be received well.

That means, in a relationship you need to practice two skills:

1. The stamina to listen just a little bit longer and just a bit more carefully when your partner is saying something you disagree with or that you’re having a negative reaction to. Can you stay present long enough to really understand?
2. The courage to say the things that need to be said, trusting that your partner loves you and cares about you and is also working on his own stamina to really hear you.

One of the benefits of a relationship coaching session is that you get me as a skilled facilitator to help your partner slow down and really listen to you. You also get a time set aside each week or month where you don’t have to kill the buzz by bringing something up, that’s literally what you’ve set the time aside for.

If you think it would be helpful to have some conversations with your partner with a coach present, book one-off Breakthrough Session or if you’d like a multi-session or on-going support, apply relationship coaching

The post What haven’t you said to your partner? first appeared on Brian Gerald Murphy.

The post What haven’t you said to your partner? appeared first on Brian Gerald Murphy.

That’s completely normal and to-be-expected. 

But how you do that bumping, how you handle tension or conflict or arguments in your relationship makes all the difference. Knowing how to address conflict in a productive way actually strengthens your relationship. 

Unproductive fights, on the other hand, will weaken your relationship.

I made a new video talking about the difference and how you can break out of the typical “tug of war” style of arguing and learn to address conflict in a healthy, productive way.

If you’ve been in a relationship for any significant amount of time, at some point the two of you are going to bump into each other in the titles video. I call it fighting or really talking about any sort of conflict or even just tension in your relationship. And when that happens, it’s probably going to feel like you’re playing a little bit of a tug of war where one of you is trying to win.

It feels like in order for you to win, your partner has got to give way or in order for them to win or feel good about it, you’ve got to give up or give way in some capacity. In this article, you’ll learn how you can reframe your ideas of fighting, arguing, conflict or tension in your relationship so that can both win.

As humans it’s our default response that when conflict arises, we put the conflict in the middle.

You’re on one side of the conflict and your partner is on the other side of the conflict. You, verbally and emotionally, pull back and forth on whatever the issue is in between you. One of you is trying to win to get the thing, to have it go your way.

Instead, reframe the conflict so that you are both on the same side

I want you to reframe it rather so that rather than have the conflict be in between you and your partner..

Where you’re playing a tug of war…

Where you has to give way in order for the other one of these to win, to get what you want…

Think about being right next to your partner, on the same side, and put the conflict out over in front of you both.

When you and your partner are, conceptually, on the same side and the conflict is on the other, you become a united team. The issue you’re dealing with isn’t something that has come between you; instead, it’s an opportunity for you to come together and figure it out together!

Your goal is not to get the thing, whatever that thing might be, such as:

• More sex
• to go to your family’s house for the holidays
• to communicate in a certain way
• to open up your relationship
• to get over the burnt dinner last night
• whatever

Put the conflict over there and the two of you on this side together, solving that problem together.

That reframe from “we’re in a competition, our interests are working against one another; in order for one of us to feel good, the other one has to give up something” to “Now the conflict is over here and together we are going to figure this out” makes a HUGE difference in how you approach the conflict and how you view each other. It’s collaboration, not competition.

If you try to do that and you find yourself putting the thing back in the middle…

Feeling like you have to give something up..

Like you have to lose something,

Like you have to give way…

Or on the flip side…

That you feel like you’re taking something…

That you’re being selfish…

That your partner is giving up something or your partner is losing something…

If either of those are happening, you might need a third person to help to hand up room with you, literally or virtually, whether that’s relationship coach or therapist.

That way, you can put the conflict right there in the center. There’s you. There’s your partner. There is the coach with the therapist.

And then you’re all you put that conflict, that thing, that tension … right there in the middle..

Whether that “thing” is wanting to open up your relationship, wanting to reinvigorate your sex life, wanting to get engaged and move in together, having disagreements about money, or anything else.

You put that thing in the middle and then all three of us are in the room together and we can look at it and examine it from all sides, and together we can figure it out and a plan for it. It’s you’re much less likely to get into a tug of war when there’s that third person there.

You can try it on your own!

You don’t need you don’t need me to be in the room with you. Try putting the thing over there.

Tip: You might want to literally sit next to your partner rather than facing your partner, having that sort of like back and forth sit next to your partner so you can sort of imagine that lifting is over there. See what that changes for you and your dynamic.

If you try it on your own, and you keep falling back into the old pattern…

If you need someone to be in the room with you to help you sort of pick that up and examine it and look at it from all sides and figure out how this can be something that brings the two of you closer together. Let’s talk!

The thing that feels so hard right now might just be the thing that brings you closer together than ever. I’d love to help you get there.

The post How to fight well in a relationship first appeared on Brian Gerald Murphy.

The post How to fight well in a relationship appeared first on Brian Gerald Murphy.

“Oh boy, it ain’t easy but it’s worth it!”

“All couples fight, but when it’s good, it’s so good!”

I don’t know when it started, but the idea that romantic relationships are hard is a lie that needs to die. Now.

I’ve been with my partner Peter for 13 years but in the years before we got together, I had A LOT of failed and frustrating relationships. Like, I packed a lot of heartbreak into the 5 years between coming out and dating Peter. 

I thought relationships were supposed to be hard.

I mistook “the chase” (aka anxiety!) for love.

I mistook conflict for chemistry.

I mistook mismatched expectations and desires for the “cost of admission” for being in a mature relationship. 

From sitcoms and movies and stupid sayigns like “the old ball and chain” and well-intentioned people talking about how much WORK relationships took, I just… kinda thought that the struggle was normal.

That this was as good as it was gonna get.

That’s something most of us go through. There are periods of time where we all think “is this it?”

Or, “What if I don’t get another chance?”

Or, “this is just what it takes”

Or, worse yet, “This is all I deserve”

What are some of the things that you believe about relationships? Let me know in the comments!

But here’s the thing: while some relationships are really hard, those relationships are usually unhealthy and unsuccessful. That’s not the type of relationship you want. 

Healthy relationships? Healthy relationships take work to maintain and grow of course, but it’s easy work. It’s fun work. It’s fulfilling work. 

The Gottman Institute researched happy, successful relationships and found that couples who stay together and are satisfied in their relationships have TWENTY positive experiences for every ONE negative experience. 

AND, during times of conflict, those couples have 5 positive interactions for every 1 negative one. Yes, five sixths of the time spent IN CONFLICT is still positive. 

“Relationships are so hard” is a lie. The type of relationship that you deserve is one where you are having a great time with your person the overwhelming majority of the time.

So if your relationship feels really hard, what do you do about it? The first step is to acknowledge that you want things to be different. And then take action to change things. 

This article will help you sit with and work through uncomfortable feelings that crop up in relationships sometimes. And then this playlist will help you talk with your partner about what’s important to you.

If you want some extra support in making shifts in your relationship, reach out! I’m here for you.

The post “Relationships Are Hard” is a lie! first appeared on Brian Gerald Murphy.

The post “Relationships Are Hard” is a lie! appeared first on Brian Gerald Murphy.

The post Polyamory Breakup Myths first appeared on Brian Gerald Murphy.

The post Polyamory Breakup Myths appeared first on Brian Gerald Murphy.

If you’d like to spice up your relationship by involving another person in some way, you are not alone.

A 2011 study found that just over 40% of gay couples are something other than monogamous. Half of those couples were in some sort of open or polyamorous, while the other half were monogamish.

If strict monogamy isn’t working for you, but a fully open relationship sounds like more than you’d like to manage, monogamish might be right for you. I’m going to explain what that is, how it works, and how you can figure it out if it’s right for you.

Monogamy seems like it should be easy to define. But is it really?

Is it

the state or practice of being married to one person at a time?

Is it

the practice or state of having relationships with only one partner?

Is it

the practice or state of having sexual relationships with only one partner?

Or is it something else?

And what counts as breaking monogamy?

Is watching porn cheating? What about dancing with someone at the club? What about flirting? Different people define monogamy in different ways.

So, first up, it’s important to get clear on what commitment means to you and to your partner, or partners.

One thing is definitely clear though with everyone that I talked to. If you’re having sex with other people, it’s no longer monogamy. If that’s something that you want, monogamish might be right for you.

Is this something that you’ve considered or tried out? Let me know your thoughts and experiences down in the comments.

First up, what is monogamish?

A monogamish relationship is when you are mostly monogamous, except that you can have sexual experiences with other people if you’re both involved. Usually in monogamish relationships, these are very casual partners, and it isn’t a central part of your relationship.

Maybe it’s a treat that you indulge when you’re on vacation together, or it’s a way to celebrate Pride weekend, or and every now and then romp with a friend or two.

Next up, how does monogamish work?

The defining features are, your relationship is still centered on just the two of you. You’re both always present. There isn’t an ongoing romantic connection or a commitment with anyone that you’re hooking up with. And it’s something that happens less often, rather than more often.

Turning your relationship from monogamous to monogamish has benefits for you and for your partner.

Dr. Jeffrey Parsons found that “compared to strictly monogamous partners, monogamish couples showed more satisfaction with their relationships, and even more happiness from the mere fact of being with their partner.”

Finally, is monogamish right for you?

Okay, I’m going to go out on a limb here and say that if you’re asking the question, is a monogamish relationship right for me, that chances are that some type of non-monogamous relationship is right for you. Our culture really, really, really enforces monogamy and so if you’re wondering about alternatives, it’s probably a good idea to pay attention to that curiosity.

Here’s how you can tell if a monogamish arrangement might be a good idea for you:

• You trust each other.
• You already have a healthy relationship.
• You have open communication.
• You and your partner are both interested in hooking up with other people.
• You don’t want to date or get into a romantic relationship with another person.
• The two of you have enough of an overlapping interest that you’ll both be into the same person.
• And you’re excited about hooking up with someone else with your partner present. Some guys want to be able to go and do their own thing which is totally okay, but that’s not what monogamish is.

If all of that is in place, then you’re in a good spot to turn monogamy into monogamish.

In fact, you might already be in a monogamish relationship, and you just never named it that. I know lots of couples already have some sort of arrangement that they’ve never given a name to or a structure to. So, if that is you, congratulations!

If you would like some support in figuring out how to transition your relationship from strictly monogamous to monogamish, open, or some other type of non-monogamous relationship, I’m here for you.

Pop over to briangerald.com/coaching to learn more about and apply for relationship coaching.

There are a few things that you’ll want to keep your eyes wide open for as you embark upon your monogamous relationship.

Those are how to figure out open relationship rules, and what to do if feelings crop up in you or your partner. And I’ll be making more videos specifically about monogamous relationships. So remember to add your name to the email list to keep in the loop!

The post Monogamish first appeared on Brian Gerald Murphy.

The post Monogamish appeared first on Brian Gerald Murphy.

Tall? 

Scruffy?

A strong jawline?

Muscular?

Or maybe a bear. Or a daddy. Or someone making six-figures. Or an activist. Or an artist.

If you’ve got some idea of your perfect man in your head, you’re not alone. But how do you know if the man in front of you (or, let’s be honest, they’re you’re gonna swipe left or right on) is Mr. Right?

So, what should you be looking for in a boyfriend?

First up: physical attraction is real and a key component. Let’s not ignore it. I’m going to make a video about the biases we bring to our ideas of who is attractive later, subscribe to make sure you see it.

What do you want out of a relationship? 

If you’re looking for it to last a long time and to build a life together…

Attraction is going to evolve.

You very well might be more attracted to your partner over time, so don’t write someone off too soon. 

And looks change, so don’t grow too attached to that — especially if it’s the thing you’re most into! That’s a red flag

The most important things are 

• How do you feel together?
• Are you able to handle conflict productively?
• Do you share a common vision?
  

Underneath all of that is: are your values aligned? 

Does your best version of yourself align with and support his best version of himself? Does he support you in becoming the best version of yourself?

This doesn’t mean that you need to be the same religion — or both be atheists — or whatever — but rather how you see and move through the world is so fundamental to who you are and who you will be over the years and decades that you need to fit with your person.

If you fundamentally don’t value the same things, you’re setting yourself up for endless conflict that no amount of money or status or good sex will be able to soothe over

Since we’re talking about values: what are YOUR values? Not what are you looking for in a partner, but what is important to YOU and how you live your life? 

To answer that, it’s important to clear on the difference between a value and “an idea of what you want in a boyfriend”

Values are the deeply held ideas that guide your life and your decisions. Your actions — such as how you respond to conflict, what type of career you pursue, and the decisions you make sexually — all flow from your values. It makes sense that your choice of partner would be informed by them too

Some examples of values are

• Loyalty
• Commitment
• Authenticity
• Efficiency
• Justice
• Autonomy
• Cooperation
• Power
• Honesty
• Consistency
• Spontaneity 
• Generosity 
• Passion
• Patriotism
• Humanitarianism 
• Courage

Your values are going to be unique to you. When you get clear on YOUR values, it will be easier to let go of superficial ideas about a perfect fantasy boyfriend you may have, figure out what’s nice to have vs what’s must have, and be secure in knowing your deal-breakers.

Finding a boyfriend is just the beginning though!

Once you make it official with your new boyfriend, you’ll want to make sure that you have — and keep — a healthy relationship. Here is an article and video with 6 signs of a healthy gay relationship.

The post What to Look for in a boyfriend: Gay Edition first appeared on Brian Gerald Murphy.

The post What to Look for in a boyfriend: Gay Edition appeared first on Brian Gerald Murphy.

We’re more secure, more confident, and less jealous in open relationships or in polyamorous relationships.

Today I’m going to explain why I think that’s the case and give you some practical things that you can do in your relationship to make you feel more secure, whether you’re already in an open relationship or polyamorous relationship, or you’re considering one, or whether you want to stay monogamous.

Whenever I talk about open relationships, a common refrain from folks not yet in one are,

“I don’t know if I could do that, I’m just too jealous,”

or “I’m just too insecure.” And when I work with clients who are considering an open relationship, sometimes one of the feelings that comes up is just a feeling of insufficiency, of why am I not enough?

I think it’s important to point out that these are all people in monogamous relationships. How many people do you know or maybe you’ve experienced yourself in a monogamous relationship where you feel insecure, you feel anxious, you feel like you’re not enough, you feel maybe even jealous? Monogamy doesn’t actually make any of those feelings go away. It doesn’t protect us from those things.

Underneath all those uncomfortable feelings, there’s usually at least one of two underlying fears.

There is a fear of inherent unworthiness.

You might tell yourself that there is something about me that just isn’t good enough.

And/or a fear of being left or abandoned by your partner.

Perhaps because you’re not enough, your partner will leave you for someone else. That there’s someone sexier, richer, funnier, better in bed, whatever it might be, that your partner is eventually going to leave you for.

These fears tap into some deep, primal evolutionary parts of our brains.

So if you’re feeling that way, no shame, no blame. Just acknowledge that that’s where you are and be gentle with yourself for how you’re feeling. Those are uncomfortable feelings and big fears.

The question then becomes: what do we do about that?

Monogamy offers this myth that it will protect us from all of those uncomfortable feelings and the results, that it will keep us protected and safe and stable and secure. But we can know by our experiences in relationships that even in monogamous relationships we still sometimes feel jealous or insecure or insufficient and sometimes monogamous relationships just end.

What a healthy open or polyamorous relationship offers is a framework to look those fears dead in the eye and confront them.

You don’t have to wonder is your partner with you out of obligation or because they feel sorry for you or because they’re stuck. They could be with anyone and they’re choosing right now to be with you. And furthermore, you don’t have to wonder…

“Is my boyfriend attracted to someone else?”

“Does he have a crush on that coworker?”

“What’s going on with the new guy in his choir?”

Because there’s a place for open communication about that.

I don’t have to wonder if my boyfriend has a crush on someone, I know he does!

That doesn’t have to be scary or take away from what we have, because I can still feel secure in our relationship. When we talk about those crushes, when I know that he’s on a date with someone, it takes all of the sort of negative power away from it and it becomes a place where we can connect instead.

So if you feel jealous or insecure in your relationship and you don’t like the way that that feels, an open relationship or polyamorous relationship might actually be a way for you to confront those feelings and allow those feelings to dissipate, to release the power that I have over you.

And if you want to be monogamous, that’s a-okay, too.

One thing that you can learn from folks in open relationships or polyamorous relationships is to do that work of confronting your feelings and looking at them head on and talking about them.

Why do you feel jealous?

Why do you feel insecure?

What’s underneath those feelings?

And how can you do the work within yourself to address that rather than relying on this structure to protect you from it?

Because the structure of monogamy can ultimately fail in protecting you from those things. However, if you have got a solid core in yourself and a solid foundation in your relationship, the exact structure of your relationship (monogamous, open, polyamorous, etc) is less important because you’re not gonna feel as jealous or insecure. And when you do have those feelings come up, you’ll have healthy tools to deal with them.

How to put all of this into practice

This is obviously just scratching the surface, and the work of feeling secure in a relationship or the work of opening up a relationship can be complicated. If you want some personalized support and guidance as you move through that process, I’m here to help. You can apply for a free discovery call to see how I can support you in your relationship.

The post An open relationship made me MORE secure & LESS jealous first appeared on Brian Gerald Murphy.

The post An open relationship made me MORE secure & LESS jealous appeared first on Brian Gerald Murphy.

Hey, that’s me!

Today, I want to give you a peek inside the work that I do, so that you can learn more about what relationship coaching is, and decide if a relationship coach might be right for you.

Last week, I talked about a big mistake that I realized that I had been making in my relationships, and what I’m gonna do to address that. And I was able to come to that realization because I was working one-on-one with a coach.

Even though this is my job and I have lots of training and experience in relationships, even I still sometimes need a outside perspective.

I think that we all do, really. A supportive place with a trained professional to help me get clear on my deepest values, what I really want and desire to help me figure out where I’m stuck, and most importantly, what I’m gonna do to move forward. So, today, I wanna walk you through what relationship coaching is, why you might wanna work with a relationship coach, and what to look for in a relationship coach.

Why might you want a relationship coach?

If you’re looking to open up a relationship, or you want to get clear on your own personal sexual ethic, or you’re looking for some support as you navigate your own unique relationship challenge or opportunity, I offer practical, supportive, one-on-one relationship coaching.

Here are some things that you might cover in relationship coaching.

• Define a sexual and relationship ethic for yourself
• Create a plan to open up a relationship (and then work through issues as they come up in this new relationship structure)
• Navigate a new or evolving relationship. For example: changing from dating to being official, Learning to see and share your needs, your desires, figure out your sexual compatibility, or how to structure the relationship, what the future might look like and more.
• Figure out the relationship structure or structures that work best for you.
• Work through and unlearn sex negativity, and internalized slut-shaming.
• Unpack shame around your sexuality and your desires, and learn how to claim all of that juicy goodness.
• Identify the religious messages that you’ve received around proper sexuality, and then figure out what to do with all of that. What’s helping you? What’s getting in your way? What do you wanna hold on to? What do you wanna let go of?
• Practice healthy, nonviolent communication, and conflict resolution.
• Develop personal practices and practices in your couple, your triad, your foursome, or your moresome, to support yourself and your relationship or relationships.

What is relationship coaching?

Relationship coaching is you-focused. It’s all about what you want out of your life, and your relationship. It’s not about following someone else’s formula or script, or a 10-point plan to gay dating bliss. This is about what’s important to you, and how you’re gonna get there.

Relationship coaching starts from a place of wholeness. You are already enough. More than that, you are absolutely capable of achieving your relationship goals with effective support, information and guidance. That’s what I’m here for.

Relationships take work but they don’t have to be hard, and you don’t have to go at it alone. Pop over here to apply for a free discovery call, so we can see if we might a good fit to work together.

If you think you might benefit from relationship coaching, it’s time to start looking for a relationship coach. Of course, you can work with me, but there are other coaches out there.

What is important to look for in a relationship coach?

First and foremost, you wanna look for someone with training and some sort of credentials or certification. You’ll want to find someone who really takes it serious, who has put in the time and the effort to get education, training and credentials so that they know what they’re doing.

This is your life — your love life — in their hands, you want to make sure that it’s in good hands!

Be sure to look for someone who has some results to show you. Just because the coach is sexy, or has a successful relationship themselves doesn’t necessarily mean that they can be helpful to you. Look on the coach’s website for some testimonials, or ask them if they can put you in contact with a former client who can talk to them about what the experience was like working with them.

One of the most important things is connection and chemistry. This is a relationship just like a friend relationship, or a romantic relationship. You want to make sure you’re working with a coach that you can vibe with, that you trust, that listens well, that you feel like understands and gets you, that you feel comfortable with.

If you’re not comfortable with your coach, you’re not gonna be able to be honest. And if you can’t be honest, you’re not gonna get the best results. So, look for someone that you have a good connection with.

Their background and the perspective that they’re gonna bring to the coaching relationship is also important. Now, a really good coach can coach just about anyone. That’s what we’re trained to do. And also, it’s not helpful if you need to spend much of your time in coaching or in therapy explaining yourself and your perspective to your coach. You don’t want to have to explain queerness to your straight coach, or you don’t want your monogamous therapist thinking that the open relationship itself is the problem. So working with someone who has a similar background to you, or has lots of experience working with folks in similar situations to you is going to allow you to just get going faster, and see results sooner.

If you want to find love, create a committed relationship, rekindle romance, open up a relationship, or improve your sex, dating or relationship at any number of other ways, I’ve got your back.

Like I said, chemistry is important. And so, head on over to briangerald.com/apply to apply for and schedule a free no-obligation discovery call to see if we might be a good fit. We’ll get clear on what it is that you want, where you’re stuck, and we’ll begin to chart a path forward for you.

I can’t wait to talk to you!

Peace,
Brian

The post Is a gay relationship coach right for you? first appeared on Brian Gerald Murphy.

The post Is a gay relationship coach right for you? appeared first on Brian Gerald Murphy.

“Feelings are not facts”

and

“Your feelings are valid”

So which one is it?

“My partner doesn’t respect my feelings” is a complaint I hear often. So is “I don’t know why he’s upset, that’s not what happened!” In today’s video, I breakdown what “feelings are not facts” and “your feelings are valid” really mean. You’ll learn some personal development steps you can take to understand yourself better. Understanding your feelings can lead to more healthy communication in relationships. Plus, you’ll get some practical relationship tips to help your partner understand you better and to help your partner respect your feelings.

Your feelings — whatever they are! —can be a powerful tool to help you live into your best life.

Ok, so which is it:

“Feelings are not facts” or “Your feelings are valid”?

Both, actually. Here’s why:

Your feelings are valid in that they are what you are feeling.

You are actually feeling them. That is true. That is valid. Don’t let someone try to convince you that your feelings are not real. 

At the same time, your feelings don’t necessarily reflect the reality around you and/or they might not be a rational, helpful, or appropriate response to what happened. 

But that doesn’t change the fact that in the moment, you’re feeling them!!

So when you’re all up in your feelings, what do you do?

Start to name the story your feelings are telling you

— and recognize that that might be what’s really going on or it might not be. You might not be able to know yet. You might not ever know for sure.

Come down from heightened emotions.

When you are in the throes of your feelings, you are not going to think rationally. This heightened state is also physically stressful on your body. This isn’t about quickly “getting over” what happened — we can still take that seriously! Think of it instead of taking care of yourself now so that you can deal with what happened more effectively.

Take some to “self soothe”

This is just a fancy phrase for “do things that make you feel better.” That could be taking a few deep breaths, going for walk, dancing it out, or even eating some ice cream. Here are 7 ways you can deal with uncomfortable feelings.

Use your feelings to figure out which needs aren’t being met right now

Ask friends, family, and/or partners to help

You don’t have to go through this alone. Ask your friends, family, or a partner for some support.

This is a time to remember the importance of friendship. It’s not reasonable or healthy to expect one person to meet every single one of your needs. Have a group of close friends and family that you can be vulnerable and lean on is so important.

When you’ve got some distance: try to figure out what your feelings are telling you

Were you unsafe? What needs to change to keep you safe? What can you do? What can you ask others to do?

Are you feelings alerting you to a pattern? Has this happened before? What can you do with that info?

Did what happen touch on something from your past — was your reaction in large or small part in reaction to some past, unresolved hurt? What can you learn from that? How can you feel that old wound as well as this current one? 

Observing without judgement and figuring out what you’re feeling are the first two steps in nonviolent communication. From there, you can more effectively ask for help in getting what you need from those you care about and those you’re in conflict with.

I put together a short video series all about using nonviolent communication to improve your communication and get your needs met. Watch below if you want more skills to improve your relationships.

The post The difference between feelings & facts first appeared on Brian Gerald Murphy.

The post The difference between feelings & facts appeared first on Brian Gerald Murphy.

Hej! God eftermiddag! Jeg hedder Brian og jeg lære dansk.

“Hi, good afternoon. My name is Brian and I am learning Danish.”

One of my quarantine hobbies has been learning Danish (as you may have gathered). It’s been a long-time goal of mine and with more time + being stuck at home, now is finally the time that it’s happening!

As I’ve been doing that, I realized that there’s a connection between learning Danish and having a healthy fulfilling relationship. But don’t worry, you don’t have to learn Danish.

In this article, I’m going share the connections I’ve been making between hobbies (in my case, language learning) and relationships so that you can find your own way to apply those principles to your life to make yourself a better partner and to make your relationship more fun and fulfilling.

When lock down started, I thought, like many others, “Okay I gotta do something to pass the time since my whole life has become up-ended.”

As I’ve been doing learning Danish, it reminded me of a crucial component of every relationship. And that’s me (or that’s you).

Relationships are made up of people.

And so in order to like be in a relationship, you’ve gotta like, you gotta be a person and your partner has gotta be a person and then you come together, and you make this relationship together.

So often in relationships, there is this sort of like merging that happens and we lose ourselves in our partners. And there is like something really exciting — it can even be like erotic — about like getting to know another person and closing that distance between the two of us.

That’s what a relationship is, right? To see someone else and to be seen fully and to build a life together.

But what can happen is, you can lose sense of yourself or I can lose sense of myself and I’ve seen this over and over again, with have friends and clients where as they get like deeper and deeper into a relationship they begin to lose part of their identity and they become more of a unit.

This merging is really romanticized in our culture, but it ultimately leads to relationships that end up being unfulfilling.

A key component of any successful relationship is to continue cultivating yourself and things about yourself and personality and your own interests.

My partner, Peter, is really into running and I run with him sometimes. And that’s like a fun thing that we can do together and I get to share in his interests and he knows that I care about him and I support him and I definitely go to most of his races to cheer him on. So that is something that we do together sometimes, but by and large, like running is his thing that he does on his own time, that he’s self motivated around. He has his own group of like running buddies that he runs with and follows on Strava and like running is his thing.

And he also is a singer, he sings in a choir like that’s his thing.

I realized recently that “my thing” is mostly work and YouTube. And I wanted to have some more hobbies of my own. So as I’ve been learning Danish!

It’s been fun to like rediscover a sense of myself. And then it becomes this thing that I get to share with him sometimes. I can tell him about what I’m learning. Sometimes I say things to him in Danish. I’ve learned how to say ‘I like you a lot,’ and ‘you’re really cute’ in Danish. So I do that with him sometimes.

We continue to be interesting people that the other one wants to date and wants to be in a relationship with.

It’s not just like you find someone and then you lock them down. And then like, you stop wooing each other, you stop courting each other, you stop falling in love with each other.

So whether that’s learning a language or running or singing or something else altogether, I encourage you to have things that are just for you, that cultivate your own sense of identity, of self worth, of interest. Develop that. And that’s gonna be good for you whether you’re in relationship or you’re single, knowing yourself and having things about yourself that you like and enjoy. And being able to spend time alone by yourself is healthy no matter what your relationship status is.

If you are in a relationship now or in the future, it gives your partner something to fall in love with all over again.

Find something, maybe it’s something in your past that you’ve like let slide maybe it’s something you’ve always wanted to do, but you’ve never really given the time of day. And cultivate something just for yourself, and it doesn’t have to be something that you do with your partner. You don’t have to involve your partner. Do it just for you.

I would love to hear what that thing is for you. Let me know in the comments down below. If you’re doing something publicly, drop links so that that we can check it out. I would love to see it.

The post What makes you desirable first appeared on Brian Gerald Murphy.

The post What makes you desirable appeared first on Brian Gerald Murphy.

Everything looks different than it ever used to look before. That doesn’t mean though that we have to wither away and just wait for this to pass. If you want, you can keep up your sex, dating and relationship life.

In fact, now is an exciting time to do that and so today I’m gonna cover some ways that we can date in the midst of COVID-19. Whether you’re single, dating or in a longterm relationship, I’ve got something for you today.

Before we get started, an important disclaimer: if you’re not in the mood for sex and dating in the midst of all this, that is totally okay.

Whether you’re worried about losing a job or taking care of a sick family member or any number of other understandable stressors right now, if it’s just too much and you’re not in the mood: A-okay.

But… if you’re wanting to keep a love alive in this moment, I have got a few tips to help you do that.

If you were seeing someone before all of this started…

… the number one thing to do is to keep talking and to keep dating. So talk on the phone, schedule Skype dates, maybe meet up for a six feet apart hike or walk together. In the midst of these scary and uncertain times this can be an opportunity for you to show your compassion and your care and consideration for each other but also make sure to keep that sexy spark alive.

You don’t always want to be talking just about the pandemic or slip into exclusively caretaking roles.

Find ways to have a little fun in the midst of all of this.

If you’re single…

…obviously meeting guys out in the real world is just not an option anymore. Online dating is gonna be the name of the game for a little while and the vibe on the apps is going to be different right now than it has been in the past. It’s going to be much less hookup focused because hooking up is not something that most people are doing right now, depending on your perspective that will be a good or a bad thing. The apps in general might also be a little bit slower pace. That’s definitely something that I’m noticing since most people are not going out and meeting up right now for dates or for hookups. There’s just less of a time sensitiveness to it and so that like flurry of back and forth is a bit slowed down which can be nice in its own way. Just sort of be prepared for that. Things might move at a bit of a slower pace and you don’t need to take that personally.

In fact, that slower pace can work to your advantage.

Use this moment to really focus on making connections, getting to know the person, not just like, do you want kids? Or like, what’s your career? But also getting to know each other in a sexual way via digital. Because of that slower pace on the app and people checking in less frequently, once you’ve made a connection with someone or there’s a spark there, take it off of the app, switch to text or to Kik, to FaceTime, to Skype, any number of different ways.

I have some friends and clients that have gone on first dates on Zoom or Skype and then even second and third dates. Video chatting is a viable option to getting to know each other: pour yourselves a drink or a seltzer or soda or make some food and have a date together just virtually.

If cyber sex and webcamming is something that is exciting for you. Feel free to do that if he’s into it also, there’s nothing wrong with starting a relationship out on a more sexual vibe, sex and romance and commitment are all important parts of a healthy and fulfilling relationship. So, get off.

Remember there’s no wrong way to do any of this and there’s not really a script for any of this. Just keep checking in with yourself:

Do I feel good?

Is this feeding me?

Am I being respectful and considerate?

Do I feel like I’m being taken care of in the midst of all this?

If you’re having fun and the other person is having fun or the other people are having fun, great. Keep going!

If you’re in a relationship and you’re living with your partner and you’re social distancing together…

… then in many ways, you’re in sort of a lucky spot because you get to have that in real life, in-person connection with the person that you’re dating but social distancing and being in the midst of this pandemic is stressful AF and so you’re gonna have your own set of challenges.

If you find yourself getting really scared or anxious about what’s going on in the world or maybe you’re going a little stir crazy from being cooped up and not being able to get outside or interact with other people, naming that and saying like, “This is stressful and here are the things that I’m stressed about” or, “Here are the things that I’m worried about, here are the things that I’m anxious about.”

Simply naming those things can help to take a bit of pressure off the situation.

Maybe even say to your partner, “Hey, I don’t want you to try and solve this for me, I just want you to listen and to hear me.” Even that is powerful

My biggest tip for couples living together is to schedule date nights.

Since you’re with someone all the time, you might think that you need to schedule a date night. However, actually scheduling a date night is so much more important right now. This way you can have time set aside to be just for your relationship. Not working from home time or stressing about Coronavirus time or figuring out the laundry schedule or what you’re gonna do for food — keep it free from the daily distractions of life.

You wanna really protect time that’s for your relationship, to be romantic, to be sexy and so this can be an opportunity to remember the early days of dating and so schedule a time and maybe get ready separately, put on a nice outfit, shower, wear some cologne, wear some sexy underwear.

Make it like dating your partner even though you’re together 24/7 now.

And finally, for everyone…

… spend some time working on yourself. A key part of every relationship that you will ever be in is you, who are you? And how do you show up in those relationships? So take some time to work on yourself and that will pay off in dividends.

How could you do that? You could journal, meditate, you could masturbate, you could pick up a new hobby. Spend some time getting to know yourself and developing yourself so that you have an understanding of who you are and that will serve you so much in every relationship that you’re going to be in and so that you’re an interesting full person who can show up and be a part of the relationship that you’re in or whatever dates you might be heading into.

The post Gay Dating During COVID-19 first appeared on Brian Gerald Murphy.

The post Gay Dating During COVID-19 appeared first on Brian Gerald Murphy.

I’ve got A BUNCH of messages from guys asking whether it’s ok to send sexy pics when they’re starting to date someone — Y’ALL ARE THIRSTY!

In this video, we’re gonna cover:

• should you sext when starting to date a new guy?
• is it ok to swap sexy pics when trying to build a gay relationship?
• how soon is “too soon” to send nudes?
• gay sexting advice
• how to balance sex and romance in a gay relationship

My answers usually: you do you, boo.

While I stand by that, I want to dive into the whether, when, and the how of sending nudes.

When it comes to anything sexual, my default is always do whatever feels good and exciting for you.

That can be easier said than done when we’re trying to sift through the noise of everyone all around us trying to tell us what we should want from the media to parents, to religion, music videos, love songs, and so much more. There’s a lot of crap to cut through to figure out what you want. So how do you go about figuring out what it is you want and what is good and exciting for you.

Here’s my first tip: If you don’t want to send nudes for any reason, whatever reason, literally any reason, then don’t.

It’s that simple, really. That’s it, that’s the whole story. You can stop reading right now.

If you do want to send some sexy snaps though or you have an inkling that you might, or you want to explore that resistances, see what’s going on under there, then let’s carry on.

This is how I approach sending nudes. So take what works for you, throw out the rest and adapt it all for you.

Sex is an integral part of most romantic relationships. To have sex, or to want to have sex is a natural part of the human experience and expressing ourselves sexually is a good thing. So this idea that having sex too early or introducing a sexual component into a relationship too early can ruin a relationship? Bullshit.

There’s no one right way to structure a relationship and there’s no one right path for successful dating. I’ve had a casual hookup turn into a year’s long relationship. And I’ve had a boyfriend that I never had sex with once. If you both want sex or a sexual component to your relationship like swapping nudes, then there’s no such thing as too soon.

The only way that you can be too soon is before both of you are ready and excited about it. Swapping nudes isn’t going to ruin your relationship. And just because you or he, or both of you want to take things to a sexual place, doesn’t mean that y’all aren’t also capable of love and romance and commitment. They’re not mutually exclusive.

Having it all sort of like the whole point of this!

So here’s what I think: don’t think of sex and emotional commitment as being in opposition to each other. Rather they’re two aspects of your relationship and you’re evaluating both of them when you’re dating.

Do you have the sexual connection and fulfillment that you’re wanting in this relationship? If so, awesome, keep it up! And if not, maybe that’s an area to look at or focus on.

Do you have the emotional availability connection and commitment that you’re looking for in this spot on your relationship journey? If so, awesome, keep it up! And if not, then that’s an area that you can focus on and address.

It’s not about withholding one for the other rather it’s about adding more of what you do want.

Denying yourself and the person you’re dating the sexual connection that you want out of fear or as a way to try and extract something else, like a romantic commitment out of him, is going to be a really unstable foundation to build your relationship upon.

So if swapping some sexy snaps sounds like fun for both of you, like I said, you do you, boo.

The post Gay Dating Advice: Should You Send Nudes? first appeared on Brian Gerald Murphy.

The post Gay Dating Advice: Should You Send Nudes? appeared first on Brian Gerald Murphy.

In THIS video, I’m gonna answer a related question that he didn’t ask: how do you manage? Balance? Handle? take take care of? 

Oy! You know what I mean! 

How can you be considerate of one boyfriend when you’re with another?How do you spend quality time with one boyfriend without completing forgetting that the other exists? That’s what we’re gonna cover in this video

Two thing are true:

1. When you are with a partner, it’s important that you’re present with HIM. He matters. And your relationship with him deserves attention.
   
   
2. Your other partners still exist — and have feelings and needs that deserve attention and respect — even if you are not physically present with them.

Here are some things you can do to be considerate of all of your partners.

1. Make explicit plans to see each of your partners.
   Put it in your calendar.
   Keep your partners in the loop on your plans.
   
   
2. Don’t treat any of your partners like “backup”
   That could look like only seeing your bf when your husband has other plans or just assuming you’ll spend the evening with your husband if you didn’t make plans with your bf or friends or a date
   
   
3. If you are going to be late — let the other know! — and don’t make it a habit!
   
   
4. Be present with the partner you’re spending time with. Don’t be on your phone with other people constantly
   
   
5. But also, plan to be appropriately available.
   If you’re taking a vacation with one boyfriend, your other might like to hear from you a few times — just like you’d keep in touch with kids or even close friends. Plan ahead for that and don’t just spring it on the one you’re with.
   
   
6. Keep “dating” your long-term partner too.
   “New relationship energy” (NRE) is intoxicating but old relationships are important too. Make an effort to do fun, adventurous, sexy stuff with your long-term partner. Remember: the exciting stuff isn’t only for the new guy.
   
   

Ok, that’s what I’ve got for now.

How do you take care of all of your partners? Let me know in the comments over on YouTube.

If you want more tips, tricks, and tactics on having a successful open relationship, I put together a playlist with all of my best advice. Check it out here and remember to subscribe for new videos every Wednesday afternoon.

The post Open Relationship Best Practices first appeared on Brian Gerald Murphy.

The post Open Relationship Best Practices appeared first on Brian Gerald Murphy.

David asked,

“If you are in an open relationship how do you differentiate sex from love? How do you not get jealous or self conscious about it? I have heard a lot of people who have an open relationship and they are able to separate the two.”

In today’s video, we look at the difference between love and sex, how both love and sex are at play in an open relationship, and whether the distinction is even helpful in the first place.

For this, there are actually two answers to this.

Number one is that you separate sex and love the same way that you separate love from any other activity that you might do.

A good example of this is eating.

You could go out with your partner, or someone that you have crush on, someone that you’re in love with and it could be a really romantic date. There’s lots of love, feeling, emotion in the eating.

You could have food in the context of foreplay or sex like strawberries, and whipped cream, and chocolate leading up to this like romantic evening together.

Or, you could eat lunch by yourself. You could go out to a business lunch with coworkers.

You could have a big meal and dinner with friends. So, there are different ways to eat. Some of those involve lots of love, some of those are all by yourself, some of those are with friends, some of those are some mix of in between.

The same is true with sex.

Sometimes there’s a lot of love present in sex, sometimes you have sex by yourself, sometimes it’s just for fun, sometimes it’s because it feels good, it tastes good.

We’ve been taught that sex is this super special thing, and it is, it can be, but it’s also a basic human function. Sex, like eating, is important and meaningful because of what we bring to it.

If you want your sex to be meaningful and full of love, bring that intentionality to it. And, if you want your sex to be fun or frivolous, or just feel good, spontaneous, anything else, you can bring that to it.

Knowing that about ourselves can then help us understand that, and remember that when it comes to our partners.

It’s going to be what they bring to the encounter. Just because they’re having sex doesn’t mean that’s there’s lots of love there, but it also doesn’t mean that there isn’t love there. That’s for your partner to figure out with whoever he’s having sex with, and for the two of you to talk about together.

The second answer is that you don’t necessarily need to try and separate love from sex in order to have a healthy, fulfilling open relationship.

I know that the idea of your boyfriend loving someone else can be super intimidating because we’ve been taught that that’s an ultimate betrayal, that there’s only so much love, and if your boyfriend loves someone else it’s taking it away from you and giving to someone else, and that’s just the end of the world.

But that’s just not how love works.

We know that already. No one ever suggests that a parent loves their first child less when they decide to have a second child. We understand that you can love one child with all of your heart, and then also love a second or a third or a fourth. Or, if you’re the Duggars, the 18th or the 19th with all your heart as well. The same is true of romantic relationships, that love is abundant.

I found that when guys are scared that if their partner has sex with someone else, it might mean that they love them. And, how can they make sure that it’s just sex and not love? There’s usually some underlying fears and feelings there, beyond just, “I don’t want him to love someone else.”

Then, it can be helpful to get curious about why it’s important for you that it be just sex and not love. What are you feeling, and what are you afraid of? Are you worried about him leaving you? Are you worried about being alone? Are you worried about commitment? Are you worried about intimacy? Are you worried about trust? Are you worried about spontaneity, freshness? Newness, adventure? What’s going on there? (Read this article if you need some help figuring that out).

So that’s my two part answer to sex and love in open relationships…

The first one is that it’s not always about love, sometimes it’s just sex, and that’s a lot of fun.

The second answer is that even if there is love present that’s okay too, that can be a healthy part of a fulfilling open relationship.

If you’re trying to figure out if an open relationship is right for you and navigate that process, I put together some videos that will walk you through just that. I’ll see ya over there.

The post Sex vs Love in Open Relationships first appeared on Brian Gerald Murphy.

The post Sex vs Love in Open Relationships appeared first on Brian Gerald Murphy.