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Couples under pressure at Christmas “may divorce in New Year” (2 January 2015)

Date: 02/01/2015
Duncan Lewis, Family Solicitors, Couples under pressure at Christmas “may divorce in New Year”

Relationship and marriage counselling service Relate has said that the stress of the festive season and pressures of debt lead to many couples deciding to separate once the festivities are over.

The Daily Mail reports that on the first Monday of January 2014, Relate saw a 53% increase in the number of calls from couples needing relationship counselling, compared with the previous year.

Couples are also under more pressure to create the perfect family Christmas as a result of the influence of Hollywood couples and reality TV shows depicting their “perfect” lifestyles.

Relate counsellor Priscilla Sim says that the pressures of trying to create the perfect Christmas can add up and become “this big pressure cooker that just explodes”.

Ms Sim added that many see January as the ideal time to reflect and make a new start. Christmas, New Year and celebrations such as Valentine’s Day can put couples under more pressure because of the need to feel happy, she said.

Ms Sim told the Daily Mail that people “are thinking about their lives, their relationships – and they kind of want to go into the new year fresh”.

“…They don't want to bring in all the burdens of the past year and the past few years if the relationship hasn't been going that well,” she said. “So I think we see quite a high volume of calls in January due to that.

“It's kind of like, you have three choices: you either stay as things are, you leave the relationship – or you try and change,” she added.

“And a lot of people do opt to try and change and work things out.”

Relates suggests that as many as 40% of people are worried about money and not being able to buy the right presents for loved ones, as well as having serious arguments with family members on Christmas Day.

Ms Sim said that there was financial pressure on couples to provide for children if they wanted to buy them the latest toy or the latest computer games.

“And inviting people round and making big dinners – all of that costs money, and that's just an extra pressure on the relationship, when there's maybe stuff that's going on already for them,” she added.

“I think in society, in glossy magazines and on TV, we're kind of expected to have this Hollywood ideal of relationships. So when they have an argument, it's the end of the world – when, actually, research shows that arguments are healthy.

“Obviously if you're arguing all the time, that's difficult – but I think the ratio is one in five. If you're having five positive interactions to one difficult interaction you've got a healthy relationship. It's important to have arguments because that shows that you're still two individual people,” she added.

Relates surveys also reveal that people often feel that their sex lives should be better than they are.

”Unfortunately, sometimes we're just too busy, we're just tired, it does fall off the agenda – but that doesn't mean that your relationship is doomed,” she advised.

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