Worksheet: THE UNCHARTED VESSEL

The Uncharted Vessel

A Clinical Worksheet for Same-Sex Couples

Companion to: Sailing Without a Map — Ari Sotiriou MA PGDip (UKCP)

Complete your section separately from your partner, then share. You may print this page or work through it on screen.

How to Use This Worksheet

Partner A and Partner B complete this worksheet separately, then share their responses. There are no right answers — only honest ones. The places where your responses diverge most sharply are often the most clinically valuable. If a section feels activating, pause and return to it when you feel more settled.

This worksheet is a reflective tool, not a substitute for clinical therapy. If you are working with a therapist, bring both completed worksheets to your next session.

Part One: Your Relational History

Before we can understand the vessel you are building together, it is worth understanding what each of you brought to it. Answer the following individually, from your own experience.

Partner A
Describe the relationship model you grew up observing most closely. What did partnership look like in your family of origin?
Partner B
Describe the relationship model you grew up observing most closely. What did partnership look like in your family of origin?
Partner A
At what point in your life did you become aware of your same-sex attraction? Was this something you felt able to share openly, or did you carry it privately for a period?
Partner B
At what point in your life did you become aware of your same-sex attraction? Was this something you felt able to share openly, or did you carry it privately for a period?
Partner A
Is there anything from that period — of concealment, of coming out, of navigating others’ responses — that you notice still affecting how you show up in this relationship?
Partner B
Is there anything from that period — of concealment, of coming out, of navigating others’ responses — that you notice still affecting how you show up in this relationship?

Part Two: Mapping the Roles — What Was Chosen, What Settled by Default

Because there is no prescribed script, roles in same-sex partnerships tend to settle gradually, often without explicit negotiation. Complete this table individually first, then compare your responses with your partner.

Area of Relationship Who carries this currently? Chosen or settled by default? Does this feel equitable? If not, what would you want to change?
Emotional regulation
(who soothes, who is soothed)		      
Domestic management
(cleaning, organising, household admin)		      
Financial management
(budgeting, bills, long-term planning)		      
Social planning
(friendships, family contact)		      
Initiating difficult conversations      
Initiating physical / sexual intimacy      
Managing external relationships
(families of origin, work)		      
Parenting
(if applicable — primary carer, discipline, school)		      
Looking at the table above: which role allocation feels most out of alignment with what you would have chosen consciously? What has made it difficult to renegotiate?

Part Three: The State of Your Vessel’s Compartments

Rate the current condition of each compartment below, then use the space provided to identify where the most pressing leaks are occurring. Circle or note your status for each.

Compartment Current Status Where is the leak? What specific issue is flooding this space?
The Emotional / Intimate Bond
SecureStrainedFlooded
  
The Erotic / Libidinal Connection
SecureStrainedFlooded
  
Domestic & Administrative
SecureStrainedFlooded
  
Financial Partnership
SecureStrainedFlooded
  
Co-Parenting Alliance
(if applicable)
SecureStrainedFlooded
  
External World
(families, social, workplace)
SecureStrainedFlooded
  
Is there a compartment where external pressure — from families of origin, social environment, or the wider world — is contributing to internal flooding? Describe what this looks like.

Part Four: What You Carry Individually

This section invites each partner to reflect on what they bring individually to the vessel — the internal history that shapes how they respond under relational pressure.

Partner A
When the relationship feels difficult, which of these do you recognise in yourself?Withdrawing / becoming very quiet

  • Managing / fixing / controlling
  • Appeasing / accommodating to keep the peace
  • Becoming critical or directive
  • Other:                                
Partner B
When the relationship feels difficult, which of these do you recognise in yourself?Withdrawing / becoming very quiet

  • Managing / fixing / controlling
  • Appeasing / accommodating to keep the peace
  • Becoming critical or directive
  • Other:                                
Partner A
Is there anything about your experience of growing up same-sex attracted that you have not fully shared with your partner? What has made it difficult to share?
Partner B
Is there anything about your experience of growing up same-sex attracted that you have not fully shared with your partner? What has made it difficult to share?
As a couple: Is there any aspect of your relationship — its legitimacy, its visibility, its future — about which you carry a private anxiety that you have not yet named to one another? Write it here, for yourself first.

Part Five: Building the Adult Bridge

The Adult Bridge is the place from which genuine, equitable, and intimate partnership is possible — where negotiation replaces management, and communication replaces withdrawal. For same-sex couples navigating without an inherited map, the Adult Bridge must be consciously constructed. This section is a first step in that construction.

What is one role or responsibility in the relationship that has settled by default, which you would like to renegotiate? Describe what a genuinely chosen arrangement might look like.
What is one thing your partner does — in navigating the relationship, the external world, or the shared life you have built — that you have not fully acknowledged or expressed gratitude for?
What is one thing you would like your partner to understand about your experience of this relationship that you have found difficult to say directly? Write it here as clearly as you can.
As a couple: What is one explicit agreement — about a role, a boundary, or a shared practice — that you could make this week, consciously and deliberately, as an act of Adult-to-Adult navigation?

A Note for Your Next Session

Bring both completed worksheets to your session. The most valuable material is often not in what has been written, but in what felt impossible to write — and in the places where your responses diverge most significantly from one another’s. These divergences are not failures. They are the navigational data.

If you would like to begin working with Ari Sotiriou, please contact: enquiries@online-therapy-clinic.com

All consultations take place via live video in a secure, confidential setting. Sessions are available for individuals and couples across the UK and internationally.

© Ari Sotiriou MA PGDip  |  UKCP Accredited  |  For personal therapeutic use only. Not for reproduction.