People pleasing is often misunderstood as being "too nice." In reality, it is often much more painful than that.

You may find yourself constantly monitoring other people's emotions, worrying about how your choices will affect them, and struggling to identify what you actually want. You may spend hours replaying conversations, rewriting texts, carefully choosing your words, anticipating reactions, or checking with everyone else before making a decision.

You might agree to things you do not want, say "it's fine" when it isn't, talk yourself out of your own needs, apologize when you have done nothing wrong, or convince yourself that your feelings are unreasonable before anyone else gets the chance.

Over time, this can create a painful internal tug-of-war. You want honesty, but you fear conflict. You want closeness, but you feel resentful. You want to advocate for yourself, but guilt and self-doubt seem to appear the moment you try.

Many of the people I work with are thoughtful, caring, and deeply attuned to others. They are often excellent at understanding other people's feelings while struggling to trust their own.

Caring a lot is a beautiful thing. The issue is that somewhere along the way, you learned that maintaining connection required shrinking yourself.

These patterns are especially common among many of the LGBTQ+, polyamorous, and relationship-focused clients I work with, though they can affect people from all walks of life.

Many clients come to therapy already understanding these patterns. They know they struggle with people pleasing. They know they have difficulty setting boundaries. They know they second-guess themselves, avoid conflict, and abandon their own needs.

The challenge is rarely a lack of insight. The challenge is learning how to respond differently when old fears, guilt, and relationship patterns show up.

In therapy, we slow these moments down and look at them closely. What happens when you think about saying no? What makes it difficult to ask for reassurance? Why does a simple boundary suddenly feel selfish, cruel, or dangerous? What are you afraid might happen if someone is disappointed, upset, or unhappy with you?

Rather than focusing only on understanding the pattern, we work toward understanding the fears, assumptions, and emotional reactions that keep it going. Over time, this often makes it easier to tolerate difficult emotions, trust your own perspective, communicate more honestly, and make choices that feel aligned with who you are rather than what everyone else needs from you.

Therapy also becomes a place to practice these changes. Many people are used to hiding parts of themselves, softening what they really think, or prioritizing other people's comfort over their own. Part of our work is creating a relationship where you can experiment with being more direct, honest, and fully present without needing to disappear in order to maintain connection.

Over time, many clients find it becomes easier to trust themselves, communicate more openly, tolerate tension, and build relationships that have room for both closeness and individuality.

Meaningful relationships should not require you to abandon yourself in order to keep them.

Relationships are complicated no matter how many people are involved.

Many people assume that non-monogamy is primarily about communication. While communication matters, the biggest challenges are often much more personal. Non-monogamy has a way of bringing difficult questions to the surface: How much reassurance is reasonable to ask for? Is this a feeling I need to work through, or is an important need not being met? Is this boundary protecting the relationship, or am I trying to control something I cannot control?

For many people, the hardest part is not jealousy or scheduling. It is learning how to stay connected to themselves while staying connected to other people.

You may find yourself constantly worrying about how your choices affect your partners. Struggling to identify what you actually want. Talking yourself out of needs in order to avoid conflict. Feeling guilty for asking for reassurance. Agreeing to things you are not comfortable with. Or losing sight of your own feelings while trying to keep everyone else happy.

Many of the challenges people encounter in polyamorous and consensually non-monogamous relationships are not unique to non-monogamy at all. They are the same struggles that show up in many relationships: people pleasing, self-doubt, difficulty expressing needs, fear of conflict, unclear boundaries, and the tendency to lose yourself while trying to maintain connection.

Some clients come to therapy because they are considering opening a relationship. Others are navigating recurring conflict, anxiety, resentment, comparison, or disconnection within existing polyamorous relationships. Some are simply looking for a therapist who understands non-monogamy and does not require them to spend half the session explaining non-monogamy.

As someone who is personally polyamorous, I understand both the rewards and challenges that can come with building relationships outside of traditional expectations. No justification or educating required.

At the same time, I do not believe therapy should pressure people toward any particular relationship structure. Some people discover that non-monogamy is a deeply fulfilling fit for them. Others find that it is not. Many people spend time questioning, experimenting, renegotiating, or changing what they want over the course of their lives.

My role is not to convince you that monogamy or non-monogamy is the "right" answer. My role is to help you better understand yourself, communicate more honestly, and make relationship decisions that feel aligned with your values, needs, and desires.

Whether you ultimately choose monogamy, non-monogamy, or something in between, therapy can help you build relationships based on genuine choice rather than fear, guilt, obligation, or self-sacrifice.

In many ways, therapy is therapy.

Most of us come to therapy struggling with relationships, anxiety, grief, self-doubt, loneliness, conflict, life transitions, or the countless other challenges that come with being human. Those experiences often have far more in common across identities than they have differences.

At the same time, being LGBTQ+ can shape how safe it feels to be known, understood, and accepted by others. Experiences of rejection, shame, discrimination, invisibility, or having important parts of yourself questioned can be damaging, even when they are not the primary reason you are seeking therapy.

As a queer therapist, I think it is important to have a space where your queerness is genuinely understood, appreciated, and enjoyed.

Many LGBTQ+ clients come to me for concerns that are not primarily about identity at all. They may be struggling with relationship anxiety, people pleasing, conflict avoidance, difficulty expressing needs, loneliness, self-doubt, or the challenge of building relationships that feel both authentic and sustainable. Queerness may be an important part of the conversation, but it is rarely the whole conversation.

I also recognize that pressure and judgment can come from many places. Sometimes it comes from family, religion, or society. Sometimes it comes from within LGBTQ+ communities themselves. Expectations about identity, relationships, attraction, politics, or belonging can leave people feeling confused, isolated, or as though there is a "right" way to be queer.

I do not believe therapy should pressure people toward any particular identity, relationship structure, or life path. Whether you are feeling confident in who you are, questioning parts of yourself, wrestling with unpopular opinions, or trying to make sense of experiences that feel complicated and contradictory, my goal is not to tell you who you should be. My goal is to help you better understand yourself so that the choices you make feel genuinely your own.

While my experiences may not be the same as yours, I hope to offer a therapeutic relationship where you can feel at ease rather than feeling like you have to perform, protect, or carefully manage your queerness.

Couples don’t come to therapy because they’ve fallen out of love. They come because somewhere along the way, it has become difficult to be fully real with one another.

Conversations get postponed. Resentments build quietly. Needs go unspoken. One partner avoids bringing something up because they do not want to create conflict. The other stays silent because they do not want to seem needy, selfish, demanding, or difficult. Boundaries are nowhere to be found.

Often, both people are trying very hard to protect the relationship. Ironically, those efforts to protect the relationship can become the very thing that creates distance.

Many of the couples I work with are thoughtful, caring, and deeply committed to one another. They are not struggling because they do not care. They are struggling because both people have become so focused on maintaining connection that they have gradually stopped bringing their full selves into the relationship.

You may find yourselves spending hours thinking about conversations instead of having them. Rehearsing what to say. Worrying about how your partner will react. Trying to find the perfect words. Talking yourselves out of your needs before the other person even has a chance to respond.

Both people may be working hard to preserve connection while subtly becoming less honest about what they actually think, feel, want, or need.

Over time, this often creates relationship anxiety, resentment, emotional disconnection, conflict avoidance, and the painful feeling that you have somehow lost parts of yourself within the relationship. Despite efforts to avoid conflict, this distance creates conflict and things escalate. You may snap at each other, ignore each other, withdraw and become distant, or pick fights.

This is especially common among LGBTQ+ couples, polyamorous and consensually non-monogamous relationships, and people who have spent much of their lives taking care of others before taking care of themselves.

Often, both partners already understand what is happening. They know they keep having the same argument. They know they avoid certain conversations. They know resentment is building.

The difficulty is rarely a lack of insight. The difficulty is learning how to respond differently when old fears, guilt, people-pleasing patterns, and relationship habits show up in real life.

My approach is not primarily focused on communication techniques or determining who is right and who is wrong. Instead, we slow these moments down and explore what is happening underneath them.

What makes certain conversations feel so risky?

What are you afraid might happen if you disappoint your partner?

Why does expressing a need suddenly feel selfish, demanding, or dangerous?

What happens inside when your partner is hurt, angry, disappointed, or needs something you are unsure how to give?

Together, we work to understand the fears, assumptions, and emotional patterns that make honesty feel dangerous, needs feel selfish, and conflict feel threatening to the relationship. Rather than simply teaching communication skills, we focus on helping each partner better understand their own emotions, share them more openly, and stay connected to themselves while staying connected to one another.

Therapy also becomes a place to practice a different way of relating. Many couples have spent years minimizing their needs, avoiding conflict, over-accommodating, hiding vulnerable parts of themselves, or sacrificing authenticity in order to preserve connection.

Part of our work is creating a space where both people can experiment with being more direct, more emotionally honest, and more fully themselves without fearing that authenticity will damage the relationship.

Over time, most couples find it becomes easier to express needs without shame, tolerate difficult conversations without becoming overwhelmed, navigate conflict without losing themselves, and remain connected without either person having to self-abandon in order to keep the relationship intact.

The goal is not to determine who is right and who is wrong. The goal is to help both people stay connected to themselves while staying connected to each other.

Healthy relationships require connection, but they also require individuality. Therapy can help you build both.