Clare Wenham

Is marriage counselling the same as couple counselling?

Marriage counselling and couple counselling are both part of a relationship therapist’s work. Is there any difference between them? The answer is – it depends. If a couple is in a long-term relationship, they live together, have joint financial obligations, know each other’s family, particularly if they have children together, then the practical and relationship issues that couples have to deal with are the same, whether they are married or not. A married partner has greater protection under the law, however, so it is when a couple decides that they want to end the relationship that being married, or not, becomes the most significant; an unmarried couple can face greater uncertainty, and have even more need for legal advice.

So although I work with many married couples, relationship therapy is open to all couples, including, of course, same-sex couples, . Each stage of life presents different challenges. I see a surprising number of couples who have been together for five or six years, but have only recently married. Many have a small child. They thought that committing themselves to marriage and children would heal the cracks in their relationship, but after the initial euphoria of the wedding or the birth, the opposite has happened. Expectations of married life, and the fear of failure have increased. Differences that were forgotten during the excitement of planning the future have resurfaced in the cold light of routine, and can’t be ignored any longer.

Good counselling supports you to find out why your relationship isn’t working,whether you have been together a life-time, a few years or just a couple of months. It helps you to communicate your feelings and your needs better, and to discover what has to change if you are to stay together. Individuals also come for relationship therapy; you may be struggling to get over a relationship that has ended, unsure whether to continue with your partner, or wondering why your relationships never seem to last.

I don’t think there’s any such thing as a ‘normal’ marriage or a ‘traditional’ relationship. I come across couples who are living together, and are far more ‘married’ than those who have done the whole big white dress, expensive party thing. A good marriage is about comfortable, shared commitment to the same values and goals. Saying vows in front of your friends and family can help you to achieve that, but if you don’t listen to each other, or understand each other properly, then that legal piece of paper won’t help a bit. My job is to give you the time, the space and the support to do some honest talking and listening. Many couples don’t look for help until it’s almost too late. So if you are starting to struggle, ring a Relate-trained or BACP registered counsellor. The research shows that the sooner you get support, the better your chances of staying together. Married or unmarried, it’s the commitment to making your relationship work that makes the difference.

How do I know we have built a good counselling relationship?

I’ve worked with them for months, watched them argue, defend, then start to listen and understand each other. I’ve seen them slowly turn more towards each other, to talk together, rather than just angrily through me. They have told each other what they really need, begun to negotiate different ways of talking and communicating… and suddenly the work is done, they are ready to take over, to ‘go it alone’. I have got to know them and to like them. I have thought about their problems, looked for different ways of working with them, been a mediator, a listener, a curious friend, a reflector of all that they have told me and each other; and now it’s time to let them go.

I always have mixed emotions when clients move on. It’s a great feeling if a couple want to stay together and look as if they will make it happen now. It’s a privilege to help a couple separate in a way which causes the least hurt and misunderstanding for them and their family, but it’s also important to acknowledge the sadness that both are feeling, even if they know they can’t go on living together. If we have built a good counselling relationship, I am bound to feel attached to a couple, to hope things go okay, to feel curious about ‘what happens next’. But the counselling relationship is a professional one; I am often a container for a couple’s emotions, I can support them to to deal with them better, but I know the work is done when they are able to understand and contain feelings for each other, or, sadly, when they recognise their partner can’t do that for them, and their future is not together.

So if we have built a good counselling relationship, I will feel sad to see a couple move on, but hopeful that it is an ending which holds the seeds of new beginnings for them both.

How can you help your child to be happy at school?

It’s a couple of weeks into the new school year now. Most children will have settled back into class with a new teacher and will look forward to the school day, but it is the time of year when some parents start to notice that change is affecting their child’s behaviour negatively, and it’s no bad thing to be aware of what help is out there for mums and dads.

Little ones starting school wet the bed for the first time in ages, they don’t want to go because ‘my tummy hurts’ or as one five year old said to me after her first day ‘I’ve been to school, it was nice, but I won’t go again’. In that hour when they come home from school, or when you first see them after school, it really helps to just sit down with them if you can, while they have a drink and a biscuit, giving them time to talk and unwind; small ones, in particular, may sit and draw while they talk to you; it allows them to make sense of their day to you while it’s fresh in their minds.

After tea they are often so tired that they are practically asleep standing up, and older children get very tired too, but when it comes to bedtime they are wound up and can’t settle. Clients are initially very sceptical when I suggest the mini-meditations for children on the Calm for Kids website, but they really do work, and after a couple of evenings, parents have told me that they find even noisy, ‘fighty’ boys reminding them about the CD, because they help them feel relaxed as they lie in bed. The CD costs about the same as a pizza, but its benefits last a lot longer.

There’s a lot of pressure on teenagers at school, but there’s also evidence that teenagers, particularly teenage boys, have a different body clock from the rest of us; they find it hard to go to sleep, and i-pads, x-boxes and televisions in bedrooms really don’t help. It won’t be popular; they will tell you that, ‘nobody else’s parents do it!’, but it does make sense to ban all technology from bedrooms at night. Teenagers also find it hard to get out of bed in the morning; the research tells us they need huge amounts of sleep, but winning the battle of the i-pad on school nights, allows you to be more lenient at weekends, and improves your chances of seeing them safely out of the house in the morning as you go to work. If you sit down and negotiate a ‘win-win’ with them, and their wishes and feelings are also being taken into account, they will usually see the benefits of a compromise.

Sometimes a child doesn’t settle down at school, and this can happen when you least expect it; it may be after happy years in nursery, in the first year of junior school, at age eleven, and even post-16. Children and teenagers often don’t want to say, or don’t know what’s wrong, and they show it by being defiant, reluctant to do things, rude, or fighting with their siblings. Occasionally school gets in contact to say a child is not settling, or is being difficult. What do you do?

The first point of contact is the class teacher. You may well find that your child is being dreadful at home, but is fine at school. That usually means there’s no problem. Most children express their tiredness and feelings of pressure at home; it’s the natural place to release their emotions, and so long as you have basic ground rules about what’s acceptable, and keep talking and asking if they are okay, there’s unlikely to be much wrong. There’s a great book to help you understand how your child’s brain works, and to improve how you talk to each other, and it’s useful with all ages, from two year olds to teenagers. I know some adults who have understood themselves a lot better after reading it too. It’s The Whole-Brain Child by Daniel Siegel and Tina Payne. It’s a practical, up-to-date, hands-on guide to getting on with your child and helping them grow. I recommend it frequently to parents, and they quote it back to me and tell me how it’s improved their relationship with their children and with each other.

If you are seriously worried about your child’s progress, and feel you need more advice or support, the teacher in charge of special needs, or SENCO, is your next port of call. There’s no shame in your child needing extra support; sometimes it’s really able children, who find it hardest to settle to routine tasks in a new class. The phrase I always keep in my head is, “The child’s behaviour is giving us a message; it’s our job to work out what that message is” Children often can’t put into words what’s wrong; some children withdraw when they don’t feel good, others ‘act out’. It’s up to us, as adults, to recognise that if a child, or teenager’s behaviour changes, there’s something they need to talk about.

If you are seriously concerned about your child’s behaviour or progress, you can ask school for an assessment with an Educational Psychologist. There’s often a long waiting list, but they really do know their stuff, and will usually get to the bottom of what’s wrong. Don’t forget how useful your GP can be; they are experienced with children and frequently a good source of advice too. I’ve added some resources and contacts that many parents have found useful to my links page.

And what about you, the parents? Suddenly, after eighteen years of giving them your time and your love, maybe forgetting to nurture your own relationship, because teenagers need so much attention, they are gone; off to university, communicating mostly when their bank card doesn’t work or they need to know how to make ‘spag bol’……..That means you’ve done a really good job, but it’s not always the dominant feeling as you are left behind. It may feel brilliant to have an empty house, to not be treated like a free taxi-driver anymore, to become a couple again, but often it doesn’t. I’ll talk about it another time.