Dating, Relationships, and Disability

A divorce about four and a half years ago pulled Dave into a long custody battle. His two children were moved 90 miles away without his knowledge, and he won them back only a month before the interview. Devastated during that time, he became a relationship coach. Thinking of his 10-year-old daughter, he wrote a book to help people avoid bad relationships.

Dave adapted a WWII-era unemotional assessment method to dating. Users first list what they want in a partner, ranking each trait 1 to 5 (5 = non-negotiable), and get a match percentage. Then they answer six questions, each scored 1 to 5:

Results are above average, average, or below average, with suggestions. Dave says only 25% of relationships are above average.

Dave admits he has no disability background but believes emotions and the need for love are universal. The tool targets women for now, with versions for all relationships planned once funding allows.

Find the book (on Amazon), social media links, and a $6/month subscription with community features at IsHeWorthy.com.

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Weight concerns are common and tend to grow with age, especially for women going through hormonal changes. For people with disabilities, weight is often shaped by things outside their control, such as medications, limited mobility, and fewer chances to exercise. Dating with both means facing two biases at once: ableism and fatphobia.

Self-criticism and comparing yourself to others don’t lead to healthy change. Love and acceptance work better, and for many disabled people, changing weight isn’t realistic anyway. Doctors can deepen the shame when they blame every health issue on weight instead of seeing the whole person. When friends or supporters offer advice on becoming “more dateable,” that reflects their issues, not yours.

Choosing profile photos can be stressful, and so can the fear of disappointing a date in person. Some apps let users filter by body type and disability. Some people also fetishize weight or disability instead of genuinely desiring the person.

You deserve love without having to change your body first, and your weight is your private business. Body neutrality can feel gentler than body positivity, which may feel forced if you don’t love your body. Start with “I have a body,” then build toward “I have a body that does some good things.”

The right partner doesn’t overlook your body. They’re glad you’re in the body you have.

Episodes about Your Body and Dating and Healing Body Shame

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The Five Stages of Dating Success Playbook is out now — $27 digital, $45 hardcopy

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There's no single right answer, so do what feels comfortable. Kathy's disability is visible, so she recommends naming it in the profile. That filters out people who wouldn't be interested and saves emotional energy. With a less apparent disability, waiting may make more sense. She describes three disclosure points:

I once met a coffee date who had a disability but never mentioned it, despite my openness. That didn't sit well with me. You can also disclose indirectly through photos or interests. One woman she interviewed for my upcoming book mentioned disability advocacy in her profile. Her future husband googled her and figured it out.

Include mobility aids and show yourself being active and doing things you love. That presents you as someone with interests, not just a person with a disability.

She shares a story from a conference. A man disclosed his disability the day before a first date. His match replied with her own quirks, like getting embarrassed and being allergic to apples, which Kathy saw as an ideal response.

Write a profile even if you're not dating online. It clarifies who you are and what you want. The goal isn't to appeal to everyone but to attract the right people. Below is a free profile-writing guide and invites listeners to share their best and worst disclosure responses for future episodes.

Episodes about disclosure (ep. 11) and profile writing (ep. 12).

How to Write a Kick Butt Dating Profile (free guide)

Contact me with the best or most interesting disclosure story you have.

The Five Stages of Dating Success Playbook is out now — $27 digital, $45 hardcopy

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As part of working on my upcoming book about sexual ableism and dating with a disability, I interview Marco and his partner Dana as a follow up to my interview in episode 77.  Marco is legally blind from premature birth, with some residual vision. They've been together just over four years.

They matched on Bumble, where Dana reached out first. Marco had disclosed his blindness in his profile. They talked by phone for weeks before meeting. Dana asked practical questions about guiding and cane use, then walked him into a curb on their first date. Marco was surprised she wanted to talk at all, since many people back off once they learn he's blind.

Dana's worries were about herself, not Marco. She didn't want to belittle him or treat him like a child, and she still asks before helping, for example with cutting food. She learned that blindness is a spectrum and adapted at home by keeping floors clear and announcing open doors. She was surprised how little help he needs; he walks their street with just the dog.

Marco's family questioned whether he could live on his own and suspected Dana might take advantage of him. Marco found this disheartening: his own family thought so little of him. Four years of stable independence have largely eased those fears, though no one has apologized.

They describe their life as typical. They rarely fight, credit good communication and shared values, and plan ahead for accommodations, like airport assistance when flying. Intimacy required only the ordinary conversations any couple has.

Marco says the relationship has boosted his confidence enormously. He's starting community college in addictions counseling after 20 years out of school, which he says he probably wouldn't have done otherwise. Living with a peer instead of a parent feels like more equal footing and more freedom.

Their advice is don't give up and start small, for instance one outing a week. Getting out in public helps break down stereotypes. Marco found Dana while using apps, church, and Meetup at the same time. 

The Five Stages of Dating Success Playbook is out now — $27 digital, $45 hardcopy

Take our Dating Success quiz.

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This week Kathy takes on a heavier topic: trauma-informed care, and how trauma shows up in dating for people with disabilities.

Content note: This episode discusses abuse and sexual violence. Please take care of yourself as you listen.

Contact me to let me know of someone I can interview about adapted sex toys.

The Five Stages of Dating Success Playbook is out now — $27 digital, $45 hardcopy

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In this episode of Kathy O'Connell's Friendship Series, Kathy talks with Camille, a close friend of nearly four decades, about their friendship and the role disability has played in it. They met in college, shared a wide circle of friends, and later lived together. Their lives stayed closely linked through marriage, family, and the college friend group they still share today.

In this episode of Kathy O'Connell's Friendship Series, Kathy talks with Camille, one of her closest friends. They met near the end of their freshman year at Le Moyne, about 39 years ago, and later lived together. Camille lived next door to their friends Lynn and Beth. Beth, Kathy's friend since 7th grade, is now Camille's sister-in-law: Camille met her husband John at Beth's wedding.

Camille, a quieter accounting major, remembers Kathy as bubbly, confident, and someone who seemed to know everyone. She briefly wondered what Kathy could do, like drive, but Kathy simply did it. Camille trusted her to ask for help when she needed it. The friends were often more upset by strangers' stares and comments than Kathy was. Kathy credits her parents for her confidence, especially their message that she might need to do things differently, but she could do them. A favorite shared memory is friends pulling and pushing Kathy up a steep hill on a shortcut home, laughing the whole way.

Kathy recalls how hard it was when she wanted a boyfriend and apologizes if Camille bore some of that. Camille says she remembers nothing bad. She had hoped someone would love all of Kathy, and eventually Scott did. Her advice is to be open, show who you are from the start, and keep putting yourself out there. She notes that dating is harder now that so much of it happens online.

Camille says the friendship is mostly like her others. The difference she values is that her kids grew up with "Aunt Kathy" and learned to see people's differences naturally. Kathy's speech can be hard to follow when she's emotional. Understanding her helped Camille with her son Jackson's speech impediment and taught her patience. Camille admits she once worried about Kathy holding her adopted son Jaden as a baby, but Kathy proved her wrong. Both agree that any new mother has those fears. Kathy also mentions that teenage Jaden sometimes gets embarrassed holding her hand in public, which Camille calls typical teen behavior.

Camille's favorite memories are of laughing together and living together, and of being in each other's weddings. Both call their college friend group a chosen family. Camille says she leaves their weekends together feeling happy inside. She admits the interview was outside her comfort zone, but says good friends should be able to talk about this.

249 - Everybody Has a Thing

253 - From Coworkers to Chosen Family

Contact me to let me know what you think of the Friendship Series.

The Five Stages of Dating Success Playbook is out now — $27 digital, $45 hardcopy

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The Five Stages of Dating Success Playbook launched today. Today's episode covers the two stages we hadn't unpacked yet: active dating and mastery — the payoff for everything built so far.

This is where earlier prep meets real people, and it's not a victory lap — it's its own demanding phase. Disclosure conversations now happen with unpredictable reactions; researched venues meet real-world logistics. That friction isn't failure, it's just what preparation looks like under real conditions.

The reframe: success here isn't landing a partner. It's showing up consistently, authentically, and resiliently — implementing your strategies without losing yourself, recovering from a bad date without spiraling, and staying in the process through a dry stretch instead of quietly vanishing.

The dating journal is a key tool in this stage — treat it like game film, not therapy. After a date, note what worked, what felt off, what you'd change, and what moment felt most authentic. Over time, personal patterns emerge that generic advice never could.

This is where dating confidence becomes life confidence. It has no finish line — like integrity or maturity, it's ongoing: strategic evaluation, a support system that evolves with you, and mentorship. Once you've moved through these stages, you're carrying knowledge that others navigating disability and dating badly need.

None of this is about becoming someone else to be dateable. It's about becoming more clearly, confidently yourself, and bringing that self into dating without apology. Disability doesn't disappear — your relationship to it changes, from something to explain away to one part of a whole, valuable person choosing who they date.

The Playbook is out now — $27 digital, $45 hardcopy

Internal self-worth work and external dating skill are different muscles. Believing you deserve a good relationship doesn't automatically teach you how to handle logistics or anxiety-inducing moments in real time — that gap is where this stage of the work lives.

A self-advocacy script for moments when anxiety causes shutting down or over-explaining:

Practice it first in low-stakes, non-dating situations (asking for a theater seat, requesting a table) so it becomes automatic before you need it on a date.

Dating with a disability often involves extra planning, research, and expense: vetting whether venues are truly accessible (not just labeled so), budgeting for transportation, and preparing backup communication methods. Naming this openly turns it from chaos into a manageable system.

There's no single right way to disclose a disability — instead, a three-tiered framework matches disclosure to relationship stage: what goes in a profile differs from what's shared before a first date, which differs again from a deeper early-dating conversation. The goal is language that feels natural and confident, not rehearsed or defensive.

Strategic planning only helps if you can tolerate that some attempts won't work out. A key skill is distinguishing legitimate incompatibility from actual ableist rejection — not every "no" is about disability; sometimes it's just an ordinary mismatch.

With a tested dating platform, a disclosure script, a safety plan, a budget, and a known list of accessible venues, dating shifts from chaotic to manageable. Preparation doesn't eliminate nerves — it keeps them from being the only thing driving the experience.

DESC method: a repeatable self-advocacy script, rehearsed in low-stakes settings first.

Name the accessibility tax: plan venues, transportation, and budget as a system.

Disclosure is tiered, not one-size-fits-all, across profile, pre-date, and early dating.

Preorders for the Five Stages of Dating Success Playbook are open now - limited discounted supplies:

$15 digital

$30 spiral bound 

Take our Dating Success quiz.

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Dating and relationship success is skill-based — not a personality trait, not luck. It's a set of capacities (self-awareness, resilience, strategy, consistent action) that can be built and strengthened like any other skill.

Most clients ask, in one form or another: "Will someone accept me, and accept my disability?" Ableism teaches that disability must be overlooked or tolerated for love to happen. That's false, but it takes real work to unlearn.

The framework doesn't start with apps or profiles — it starts with self-esteem and self-discovery. You can't build a healthy relationship with someone else until you've built one with yourself. Whatever you believe about your worth leaks into every interaction.

When the internal question shifts from "will they accept me" to "are we compatible with each other," you stop auditioning for acceptance and start evaluating fit. You state accommodation needs plainly instead of apologizing for them.

Resilience, empathy, problem-solving, and advocacy skills that often develop through disability experience aren't deficits — they're genuine relationship assets. Part of the work is learning to actually see and believe your own strengths.

Give yourself grace to move at your own pace — without using self-work as a permanent excuse to avoid dating. Sustainable confidence lives in the middle path between rushing unprepared and never starting.

This is a sequential, evidence-informed path: self-worth → strategy → real-world dating → mastery. It's a skill-building system — it works because you work it.

Quick takeaways:

Preorders for the Five Stages of Dating Success Playbook are open now - limited discounted supplies:

$15 digital

$30 spiral bound 

Take our Dating Success quiz.

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Dating requires skills — and disability adds complexity. But disability services are built around health, safety, and independence, not romantic fulfillment. Sexuality remains taboo, no structured framework exists for disability-specific dating barriers, and success gets measured by employment or housing, never relationship quality.

Kathy O'Connell, a certified rehab counselor with 36 years in the disability field (nearly 30 as a counselor), was born with cerebral palsy. She spent 20 years dating through trial and error with no models or resources. A turning point came on a date when she openly named her disability and what she brought to a relationship — that date became her husband.

A sequential, skills-based framework:

Sexual ableism — the false belief that people with disabilities aren't worthy of romantic relationships — runs through all of it. The framework isn't linear-rushed; it honors individual pace, addresses shame and trauma, and treats dating skills as transferable to other life areas.

Kathy's complete Five Stages of Dating Success program — built for support coordinators, therapists, and disability professionals — packages this into modules, milestone checklists, and action libraries.