Change your life for the better in 2010

Published on Sunday 3 January 2010 10:54

IT'S a bright, shiny new year and time to drag out and address those issues you've been sweeping under the carpet.

Difficulties with your partner or your children, disputes that are impacting on your job, your health and your life. Most of the issues that make your life toxic boil down to problems with communication; an inability to express how we're feeling and, just as importantly, to listen to others.

So if your sex life is as redundant as your job, your relationship harder work than your career and your teenage children surly strangers who treat you like an enemy, it's time to do something about it.

Start the new year by talking to someone who can help, and with a bit of work, by the time the bells ring next Hogmanay, you'll be looking back and thinking 2010 wasn't such a bad year. "People come flocking in post-Christmas," says Sue Maxwell, head of network services for Relationships Scotland, which provides counselling, mediation and family support across the country. "There are too many family dynamics, too much food and drink, people expecting sex, and it all goes wrong. And after Christmas the relationship problems are matched with mental health issues. People have seasonal affective disorder, are depressed and have no money."

As if the pressures of the season of goodwill weren't enough, there is also the added pressure of Hogmanay, when Scots in particular look back over the year and sometimes decide they don't like what they see. This crystallises in a vow to change things somewhere around the time of the bells and the messy aftermath. "People often make big relationship decisions at Christmas and New Year, and ending a relationship in the middle of the Hogmanay party is a classic. Hopefully this doesn't happen to people with kids.

"But if you're thinking of splitting up, do seek mediation, especially if you have children, as talking things through can either see people being reconciled or help them to work towards a brighter future apart," says Maxwell, who is also a sexual psychotherapist with Relationships Scotland.

Formed from the merger between Relate Scotland (previously Couple Counselling Scotland) and Family Mediation Scotland, the charity is government-funded and draws on 85 years of experience in supporting families experiencing transition, separation and conflict. "It's important for people to talk to someone, a family member or friend. Or, if that's not possible, to a counsellor," says Maxwell.

"Couples often have a lot of resilience and can solve things for themselves, but sometimes they do hit a wall and need help. Men can be especially resistant to counselling and should understand that they need to talk about what's concerning them. It's fundamentally about talking and listening for a period of time to improve a situation so that they can move ahead and resolve difficulties for themselves."

According to Professor Cary Cooper, professor of organisational psychology and health at Lancaster University's management school and president of Relate, the UK's largest provider of relationship counselling, if you're going to criticise, you should remember the golden rule: one negative comment has to be counterbalanced with five positive ones. So if you must jump in and denounce the way your partner has roasted the potatoes, be sure to praise the sprouts, pudding, gravy and stuffing. Oh, and that jumper with the snowman on it – it's just what you always wanted – unless you want to wake up in the spare room on Boxing Day.

Relationships Scotland (0845 119 2020, www.relationships-scotland.org.uk) – all services require a donation, which is based on a client's income

MARRIAGE

MY PARTNER AND I DON'T SEEM TO TALK ANY MORE – IT FEELS AS IF WE'VE DRIFTED APART

"The commonest problem in long-term relationships is that people don't listen to each other," says Maxwell. "After the initial stages of a relationship, we use shorthand and fail to make time in our lives for the other person. When the status quo is disrupted people can't cope, and the tension can often mean their sex life dries up too.

"With couples, I sit them down and say, 'For the last however many years, your relationship has worked well, so you can do this.' They need to acknowledge their feelings and look at why there's tension.

"It's often useful to imagine if a friend was in this situation," she says. "What would you tell them to do? What do they really want? It's the practicalities people focus on, but they are just metaphors for more deep-seated problems."

But if there is no attraction left, no amount of talking or arguing will bring it back. "If someone says, 'I don't fancy you any more,' that's really profound. And even if they want to rekindle a relationship, it often doesn't work. That's when they need to say, 'We had a really good relationship and the next part of our lives is going to be different.' Then they can move forward to another place."

Married for 24 years, Heather and Andrew drifted apart after a reversal in their traditional roles. His well-paid banking job had always meant Heather was able to enjoy keeping the house and raising their two children. When the children left for university, she was able to work, first as a volunteer and then as a paid staff member for a friend who ran a successful event management company in Edinburgh. This situation worked well until Andrew was suddenly made redundant in the summer of 2008. At the same time, their son Tony finished university and planned a gap year – with the expectation that his mum and dad would be financing it, but this was no longer possible.

With Heather putting in more hours at her job, especially in the evening and at weekends, both her workload and salary increased. Given that the atmosphere at home was increasingly tetchy, she didn't mind this at all and private clients meant longer hours and more travel. With Andrew and Tony at home, she was exasperated to find dirty dishes in the sink and beds still unmade when she returned home at night. "How can they walk in and out of rooms all day and not see things," she asked, devastated that her one-time alpha male husband had turned into an irresponsible, lazy slob who was teaching his son to follow in his down-at-heel footprints.

Meanwhile, Andrew thought his stay-at-home wife had become a "hard, career-driven harridan – not at all the woman I married".

Given their respective opinions of each other, friendship, closeness and sharing all became history. As did their previously rewarding sex life, which fizzled out completely. Counselling allowed Heather and Andrew to acknowledge their problems and begin listening to each other, gaining an understanding of how the other was feeling. They became more aware of the triggers for negative communication, and took responsibility for their own behaviour – which stopped them blaming each other. This reduced resentment that had built up in their relationship, and together they found new ways of communicating and dealing with problems.

It emerged that Andrew had felt a huge sense of loss when his role as major breadwinner ceased, and he felt he had lost his sense of himself as a man and a husband. This impacted on his masculinity and sex drive. Meanwhile, Heather was revelling in her new achievements and couldn't understand why Andrew wasn't more flexible about their roles.

Through counselling, they were able to realise that the roles played by their mothers and fathers in their childhoods had shaped their own relationship. By re-evaluating what was important to them both, they were able to establish new expectations for the future.

PARENTING

HOW DO I COPE WITH MY DISRUPTIVE TEENAGER?

"Parents need to meet regularly to talk about parenting their children and how to be consistent," says Maxwell. "Often children will have seen and heard arguments, which can sound worse than they are, and sometimes they may think they have caused some of it. When a parent moves out, children should not feel they are 'the man of the house' or that they have to take responsibility. They are children, and they may need one-to-one counselling if this becomes an issue.

"If there are problems at home there will be problems at school too, so parents will also need to speak to teachers. It is important to be aware that if a child is feeling insecure they will do things they're not supposed to do. Parents should also be in the habit of discussing choices, rather than imposing rules."

Linda and Neil thought they had dealt pretty well with their marriage breakdown and eventual divorce, following Neil's affair with a work colleague. "Such a bloody clich," according to Linda.

At first there had been a lot of yelling, and the children, Chloe and Jack (seven and 11 at the time), were often told to '"go and play so that Mum and Dad can talk". However, they could still hear the fights – and, on one occasion, a plate hitting a wall.

Things calmed down when Neil moved out of the family home in Fife, and from then on the pair tried to make life as normal as possible for their children. Linda wouldn't tolerate the children spending time with Neil's new partner, but they managed to arrange a workable schedule when he could have the children to stay and take them out.

Chloe found it easier. Although confused and sad, she was just pleased to be with her dad, who she missed a lot. For her brother, things weren't quite as straightforward. Jack was uncomfortable with the reason Linda and Neil had separated (Neil's unarguably sexual affair), and at the same time felt that he had to shoulder the weight of being the 'man of the house' – responsible not only for his unhappy mum but his little sister too.

A year after Neil moved out, Jack went to high school and quickly formed a new network of friends. It was then that Linda became increasingly unhappy about his behaviour – he started lying to her and stretching the rules about coming home at agreed times, and she suspected he was drinking – and possibly worse. What upset her most was the complete change from the child he had been into the teenager he seemed to be becoming, and she felt powerless to stop it.

Parent Counselling helped Linda understand the difficulties teenagers face in their transition from childhood to adulthood, which gave her a better understanding of how Jack was feeling and what she could do to help. Through discussion, they were able to identify areas where they didn't agree and develop a joint contract to negotiate rules and expectations within the family. Rather than Linda laying down demands, they talked about choices, which helped them discuss issues in a calmer manner. It also helped Jack feel less confused and frustrated, as he felt his mum understood him better and treated him more as an adult, resulting in many fewer arguments. The most important aspect of this was that she listened to him and he to her, something neither of them had been doing effectively before.

FRIENDSHIPS

MY FRIEND IS JEALOUS OF ME

"There's a lot of work being done at the moment on the Not Level, ie the level where counselling is not yet necessary," says Maxwell. This would involve sorting out a problem by talking to a friend. However, if something starts to impact on your life or relationships and is affecting your sense of self, counselling might be needed. The question is, what do you do when you realise you have made a wrong decision in your life? The best thing is to meet the person involved and talk to them.

There are several kinds of intimacy – physical, sexual, sensual, intellectual – and they aren't always met by one partner, Maxwell says. "When things have gone wrong, the best thing is to talk to the person involved face to face. Often people make a connection over the internet, and think they're communicating, but they're not. You need eye contact and body language for true communication," she says.

Clare's marriage had ended and she was in a fragile state when she met Paul while helping out in her friend's flower shop in Glasgow. Paul was glamorous, gregarious and gay, and they became immediate friends. He was the perfect uncomplicated 'date' for a recently divorced thirtysomething, and Clare would tell her friends "every single woman needs one". They were friends for several years, and Clare, always a little worried about Paul's chaotic lifestyle, was delighted when he met and settled down with Tom. Clare was also now in a serious relationship, so inevitably the pair saw each other less often.

One evening Clare was walking home from a concert and, passing Paul's house, saw his kitchen light on. She found him and Tom entertaining other friends, and at first they made her very welcome over coffee and brandy. But then Tom suddenly made it very obvious that she should leave. Clare realised that Tom was jealous of her friendship with Paul, and her arrival – when they were with 'their' friends – had been completely unacceptable.

So she kept her distance, not wanting to jeopardise Paul's stable relationship. When she later married her partner, she didn't invite Paul because she felt sure that Tom would not want to come. Some months later she heard from a mutual friend that Paul had said: "Apparently one of my ex-friends got married.'" With regret, she closed the book on that part of her life.

Then Clare and her husband unexpectedly met Paul and Tom in the street, and she and Paul agreed to meet and talk about what had gone wrong in their friendship. When Clare explained that she was hurt that Paul had seemed to abandon her, and Paul explained that he was hurt when Clare had seemed to abandon him, it was easy for them to accept that it had been a simple matter of misunderstanding, assumption and imagined grievances. Now both couples enjoy each other's company and can even visit the 'do you remember when' stories.

SELF IMAGE

I HAVE LOW SELF-ESTEEM

"When a partner doesn't stand up for us, we feel betrayed and publicly humiliated. If we let our guard down and rely on someone, when it goes our belief system can be demolished. We need to acknowledge our sense of loss, anger, frustration and shame, and get things back into perspective," says Maxwell.

"It's very common for couples to come down on the side of family when they have to choose between a partner and family, but we have to realise that our relationship with a partner is more important."

From a shambolic but loving family in Edinburgh, 34-year-old Julie was used to dealing with (mostly) affectionate comments from her friends about her individual style, thanks to a mother who ran a vintage clothes shop. At university, there were plenty of boyfriends and a good social life, but she managed to get a first-class degree without too much trouble. In her first job at an established Edinburgh law firm, she met Harry. His glamour and gloss confirmed his upbringing on the family estate in East Lothian. Their romance was a surprise to colleagues, but they were completely in love and, after eight passionate months, were seriously thinking of a permanent life together.

Harry insisted that Julie accompany him to a long-planned family gathering – his father's 60th birthday – in a ski resort in Italy, despite it being 'family only'. It was a disaster, and a tearful Julie left early after being made to feel that everything was wrong with her – manners, clothes, experience and friends. At best, she felt ignored, at worst, patronised. Harry made it clear that he didn't understand her distress and thought they should just "leave it for a bit".

Devastated, she tried to pick up her life, but her world had been rocked. The complete certainty and confidence of Harry's family had convinced her the fault was hers, not theirs, and Harry had seemed to collude. Her first serious romance had betrayed her. Dating was out of the question; she left work because of Harry and withdrew from all social life. Her self-belief was shattered as she believed her inability to fit in with Harry's family had been the result of her shortcomings, and so she did badly in interviews and failed to find work for six months.

On the insistence of a friend, Julie reluctantly saw a counsellor, who helped her re-focus on her own strengths and see that, although she might not fit in with one particular group of people, she had a great deal to be proud of and to give. She began to see Harry's family not as a glorious golden clan she could never join, but as a rather silly, braying, self-satisfied bunch who would be best left to their own devices.

&#149 This article first appeared in Scotland on Sunday on 3 January, 2010

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