Nearly ten years ago a hitherto long and happy marriage was nearly blown apart by my partner’s gender dysphoria. For several years it seemed that the only solution would be to split up, a situation we wanted to avoid as we both had a deep desire to stay married. So we decided to seek couples’ counselling. We chose Sue partly because she shares our faith perspective; since this is an important part of our lives it seemed necessary to have someone who would understand.
We went through a long journey with Sue, both in person and on Skype. The sessions provided us with a safe space in which to say things that would otherwise be difficult and through this process we were able to understand the situation and our own perspectives on it.
It was important to have a counsellor who would at no time ‘take sides’ or be more sympathetic to one partner than to the other, and Sue provided this. At no time did I feel any sense of judgment or disapproval but only a concern to uphold both of us and our relationship.
Even though we haven’t yet ‘solved the problem’ we have made immeasurable progress through couples’ counselling and the process has been immensely valuable.
