Couples Therapy for Neurodivergent, LGBTQ+ & ENM Relationships

Couples therapy can be useful when something between you feels stuck, strained or harder to talk about than it used to be.

You might be struggling to understand one another, feeling disconnected, navigating a major change, or simply noticing that the relationship no longer feels as easy as it once did. Sometimes couples come because there has been a specific rupture. Other times there is no single event, just a sense that something needs attention.

My role is not to decide who is right. I help you slow things down, understand what is happening between you, and find ways of communicating and relating that feel more workable for both of you.

I work with couples where one or both partners are autistic, ADHD, AuDHD or exploring whether neurodivergence may be relevant to their relationship.

Neurodivergent relationships can involve genuine differences in communication, processing, attention, sensory needs, routines or how affection and care are expressed. Those differences can sometimes be misread as rejection, criticism, avoidance or a lack of effort.

In neurodivergent couples therapy, I am interested in helping each person understand what the other is actually communicating rather than deciding that one style is healthier or more correct. The aim is not to make either of you more neurotypical. It is to find ways of relating that work for the people in the relationship.

If you keep having the same argument, the subject of the argument is not always the whole story.

Couples can become caught in patterns where each person's response makes sense individually but, together, the responses keep reinforcing the same cycle. You might both leave conversations feeling unheard, defensive or frustrated even when you began by trying to resolve something.

I help couples slow these moments down and become curious about what is happening underneath the conflict. Once you can recognise the pattern together, it often becomes easier to respond differently rather than getting pulled into it automatically.

Intimacy is about more than sex. It can include emotional closeness, affection, feeling known by your partner, being able to be vulnerable, and feeling that there is space for your needs within the relationship.

Sometimes intimacy changes gradually. Sometimes it is affected by conflict, trust, stress, neurodivergence, changing circumstances or differences in what each person needs to feel connected.

Therapy can give you space to talk about those differences without assuming there is one correct amount or type of intimacy a relationship should have. Where difficulties are specifically sexual and would benefit from specialist psychosexual therapy, I may recommend additional or alternative support.

I work affirmatively with LGBTQ+ and GSRD clients and couples, and I am part of the LGBTQ+ community myself.

Affirming therapy means more to me than simply being accepting. I do not want you to spend your therapy explaining or defending your identity before we can talk about the relationship itself.

I am mindful of the ways gender, sexuality, minority stress and wider social expectations can affect relationships, while also recognising that they may have nothing to do with the thing bringing you to therapy. We can focus on what is actually happening for you rather than treating heterosexual or cisgender relationships as the default.

I work affirmatively with people in polyamorous, open, ENM and other consensually non-monogamous relationships.

You may be considering opening a relationship, navigating jealousy, trying to communicate different needs, revisiting boundaries, or finding that an existing arrangement no longer feels quite right for everyone involved.

I do not approach non-monogamy as something that needs to be corrected, and monogamy is not the assumed therapeutic goal. The focus is on understanding what each person needs, whether agreements feel genuinely consensual, and how you can communicate more clearly about the relationship structure you have chosen.

I have undertaken additional training in working with relationships after infidelity and betrayal.

When trust has been damaged, couples can find themselves caught between wanting answers, needing reassurance, feeling angry or hurt, and not knowing whether or how the relationship can move forward.

What counts as betrayal can also look different from one relationship to another. In polyamorous, open or ENM relationships, the issue may be less about exclusivity itself and more about agreements, consent, honesty or boundaries being broken. The same applies across LGBTQ+/GSRD relationships, where the meaning of trust and commitment may not fit traditional assumptions.

Therapy offers a place to slow that process down. We can explore the impact of what has happened, what each person needs now, and whether rebuilding trust feels possible. I do not assume that staying together is automatically the right outcome. The work is about helping you understand what has happened and make decisions about what comes next.