Praise FOR CONSENTING ADULTS
“In Consenting Adults, Dr. Gadomski examines the limitations of conventional relationship paradigms and explores how assumptions about intimacy and commitment can shape therapeutic and relational approaches. Offering an adaptive, non-prescriptive framework, the book invites reflection on integrity, consent, accountability, and repair within unconventional relationships. Grounded in clinical experience and attentive to cultural context, it contributes a thoughtful perspective to ongoing conversations about relational ethics and care across diverse partnership structures.”
— Sara Nasserzadeh, PhD, Author of Love by Design: 6 Ingredients to Build a Lifetime of Love
“Consenting Adults is a trail-blazing and illuminating book for anyone in a relationship, (particularly an unconventional one), who wants to examine and deconstruct the implicit, and frequently internalized, mono/hetero-normative assumptions that can lead to dissonance and fragility and reconstruct a relational eco-system based on authenticity and integrity.”
— Ian Kerner, sex therapist and NY Times best-selling author of She Comes First
“Modern relationships are colliding with outdated rules—and most of us are left guessing. Consenting Adults cuts through the confusion with hard-won, real-world, experience-tested wisdom. This is the playbook we’ve been waiting for.”
— Harry T. Reis, Ph.D., author of How to Feel Loved and Dean's Professor at the University of Rochester
“Dr. Gadomski has literally invented a completely new relationship theory, backed up by impeccable scholarship! Even more importantly, she provides an eminently practical and adaptable roadmap for anyone whose relationship is even remotely outside of the traditional "norm." Her revolutionary approach to relationships helps us reconsider and potentially jettison some of the ancient, unrealistic scripts that sabotage our love relationships. This groundbreaking book presents a very radical approach to relationships: that they can be uniquely co-created by independent individuals, to experience deep intimacy and connection, without anyone giving up their autonomy and agency. A 2027 "must-read!"”
— Kathy Labriola, author of The Jealousy Workbook, and Polyamorous Elders: Aging in Open Relationships
“Consenting Adults is a thoughtful and timely exploration of modern relationships that challenges and offers grounded alternatives to rigid scripts and narrow norms. Gadomski shares a practical mix of clinical insight, case studies and lived experience to provide readers with flexible frameworks for building relational integrity and resilience.
A meaningful, compassionate and nuanced contribution to contemporary relationship discourse, Consenting Adults challenges readers and is relevant to both clinicians/practitioners and anyone navigating relational growth with curiosity.”
— Jess O’Reilly PhD, MSc, HappierCouples.com
"Gadomski offers a powerful framework for understanding integrity and fragility as dynamic forces coexisting in all human bonds. Drawing from clinical insight, developmental theory, and rich narrative examples, she illuminates how heteronormative and monogamy-centered conditioning shapes our expectations—and how relationships can flourish when partners engage with accountability, curiosity, and emotional literacy. Essential reading for therapists and anyone committed to loving with honesty and courage."
— Martha Kauppi, LMFT, CST-S, author of Polyamory, A Clinical Toolkit for Therapists
“Consenting Adults is a thoughtful and necessary reframe of how we understand relationships beyond rigid structures and outdated norms. Gadomski moves the conversation away from “what kind of relationship is right” and toward “how do we show up with integrity inside any relationship we choose.” This is exactly the shift clinicians and clients alike need. Her emphasis on accountability, alignment, and relational responsibility offers a grounded, non-moralizing framework that honors both individuality and connection. A valuable contribution for anyone navigating modern intimacy—especially those who don’t fit neatly into conventional boxes.”
— Joe Kort, PhD, LMSW, Author of Is My Husband Gay, Straight or Bi
“Consenting Adults is a thoughtful and deeply needed reimagining of relationships that challenges inherited assumptions about love, commitment, and success. Beth Gadomski guides us in and through a nuanced and vital conversation at the intersection of intimacy, autonomy, and human connection.”
— Alexandra H. Solomon, PhD, adjunct professor at Northwestern University, MasterClass instructor, and bestselling author of Love Every Day
“This book is so timely, especially in an era where conservative relationship values are being promoted as the aspiration once again and all other ways of relating are facing more sociopolitical sanctions than ever. When it becomes difficult to sort through the noise of what is a good relationship dynamic for you and what other people consider good, Consenting Adults provides a way of thinking it through. Its gift is that it doesn’t answer the question on your behalf. It provides a framework for you to decide for yourself, consensually, with your partner(s). And that framework is anchored by the idea that relationships are not figments of our fantasy. They have to be lived in integrity, practiced daily, allowing for fluidity and evolution. It’s a must read.”
— Candice Nicole Hargons, PhD Author of Good Sex: Stories, Science, and Strategies for Sexual Liberation
“In more than three decades spanning the military, federal and state advisory work, the academy, and the consulting room, I have rarely encountered a relationship text with the intellectual rigor and moral courage of Consenting Adults. This is not a how-to manual, it is a reframing of what relational health even means. Drawing on my training across criminal justice, psychology, anthropology, religion, and higher education, I recognize at once what this author has accomplished: a careful deconstruction of the colonial, patriarchal, and heteronormative scaffolding that has quietly governed our assumptions about love. By centering integrity, the alignment of word and action, the willingness to repair, over romance, longevity, or the myth of the one person who completes us, this book offers a framework as useful to monogamous couples as to those in kink, polyamorous, or fluid partnerships. Its insistence on accountability without shame, on honoring trauma without surrendering responsibility, reflects the highest standards of evidence-based practice I have championed within the American Psychological Association. As an educator committed to equity and inclusion, I found it genuinely inclusive, never performatively so. This is an essential, paradigm-shifting work. I will recommend it to clinicians, students, leaders, and anyone serious about building relationships of substance.”
— Dr. Christopher N Smith, PhD, Civil Servant, Professor and Author