Author: daragh

Last week’s Mental Health Awareness Week (13-19 May) theme was Movement. Simply making time every day last week to step outside in daylight and increase my steps made a significant change to how I felt and managed my stress.

Working as a couples ‘therapist for over 25 years I am acutely aware just how many more of us are struggling with mental health or that of their partners. Thankfully now there is much more awareness and understanding of mental health conditions but sometimes it’s difficult to make sense of how mental health issues impact on a couple relationship.   

How does mental illness affect the couple relationship and how does a partner navigate these difficult times?

We all experience ups and downs in our relationships but if one or both people in the relationship are having mental health problems this often brings extra challenges and we underestimate the impact this can bring to the strongest of relationships.

The mental health problems that often present in working with couples are: Acute Stress, Depression, Anxiety, Addictions, Self -Harm, Grief, Pre and Post -Natal Depression, Eating Disorders, Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD), Bipolar and Borderline personality disorders.

Although our romantic relationships should provide security and comfort, they can also be a source of depression, anxiety and stress. A question that’s often asked is whether relationship difficulties contribute to mental illness or whether mental illness causes relationship distress.

This is a difficult one as there is often no clear answer. Highly conflictual relationships can cause significant stress and where individuals are more vulnerable to mental issues relationships can trigger mental health symptoms.

Here are some examples of issues in relationships that can affect our mental health:

1. COMMUNICATION BREAKDOWN

When one or both partners are experiencing poor mental health, communication is often the first thing to break down as they struggle to make sense and articulate what is going on for them. It feels easier to just closedown and withdraw or to keep fighting and arguing in the same old way. A breakdown in communication and distancing from each other often leads to couples feeling alone and isolated, often increasing depression and anxiety. Partners can feel impatient and discouraged when they see no signs of improvement.

2. ADDICTIONS AND ALCOHOLISM

Partners with addictive behaviours can bring additional stresses into a relationship which can cause or exacerbate mental health issues. Alternatively, a partner with a mental illness can resort to addictions to serve as a coping mechanism and numb the pain.

3. FINANCES

Financial difficulties, job stress, long working hours, job loss, career change, retirement can be key major contributing factors for mental health problems.

4. HEALTH

Poor physical health, acute illness, operations, hospitalisation, having a baby, post- natal depression, going through the menopause and caring for family members can all be difficult to navigate for a partner with mental health issues. Partners can become overwhelmed with becoming carers for their partners and families and eventually get worn down and resentful suffering with their own mental health problems.

5. PARENTING

Changes in parents ‘mental health can often affect children. They often pick up on your low mood and anxiety. Dealing with your child’s mental health can often prove very stressful and overwhelming leaving very little space or time for the relationship.

In my practice I frequently hear how a client can struggle to cope when a partner is affected with mental illness. What used to be a shared partnership in work, finances and parenting, becomes the sole responsibility of one partner to keep all the wheels turning. At times if these feelings aren’t acknowledged, resentments grow.

6. DEPRESSION AND ANXIETY

If a partner lives with depression, they often seem very withdrawn and disinterested in you and the things you both once shared together and enjoyed. This emotional distancing can be harmful in the long term.  Displays of excessive worries and feelings of guilt and shame, confused thinking and extreme mood changes are examples of mental health problems.

7. INTIMACY ISSUES

Partners with mental illness may suffer with low self-esteem and lack confidence about how they feel sexually as well as performance anxiety. This can result in disinterest in sex and intimacy, leaving partners feeling rejected and unloved. Anti- depressant medication can often result in decrease in libido and performance anxiety.

HOW TO STRENGTHEN A RELATIONSHIP WHEN A PARTNER HAS A MENTAL ILLNESS

1. BE PATIENT

At times this can be a really big ask, but the more patience you can show for a partner the more it shows that you are really trying to understand what they are going through.

2. BE SUPPORTIVE AND CONSIDERATE 

in the way you show your love, empathy and compassion as you both try and navigate your way through this difficult time. 

3. ENCOURAGE A PARTNER TO BE MORE OPEN AND HONEST ABOUT HOW THEY FEEL

This often takes time to build the trust to feel you are there for them and you do care. It may be easier to write a text or email than talk face to face initially.

4. LEARN AND READ AS MUCH AS YOU CAN ABOUT THE ILLNESS

The more knowledge and understanding we have reduces the misconceptions and stigma so often associated with mental illness.

5. LOOK OUT FOR POTENTIAL TRIGGERS 

Be more aware of identifying and recognising triggers. 

Experiences of trauma are particularly vulnerable to triggers.

6. SEEKING THE RIGHT OUTSIDE HELP 

and showing support through this process. Take time to research the right help from organisations or therapists who you can talk to or meet up online. Online forums and chat lines are a useful place to meet people who are having similar experiences. Going to couples therapy can be hugely beneficial. A regular session can offer a safe place for both your thoughts and feelings to be shared and understood. It can very much help to minimise damage to the relationship and help you both to enjoy being in it.

7. LOOKING AFTER YOURSELF 

is vital otherwise it can be very difficult to be continually supportive. Ensure you keep doing your normal routines. Meet with friends and get plenty of exercise and rest. This can give partners parameters to help them improve and get well.

8. REMEMBER POSITIVELY WHY YOU ARE TOGETHER 

Often a partner will feel ashamed and guilty for bringing this difficult problem to the relationship and may feel they will be abandoned by you.  It is also likely that the carer in the relationship will often feel overwhelmed and can’t carry on.

Mental Illness in a relationship can be very challenging for a couple to handle and can often lead to a relationship ending. However, it’s important to stress that with the right help and guidance we can recover and manage mental illness better.  

I often share this quote from Noam Shpancer:

Mental Health…is not a destination, but a process. It’s about how you drive, not where you’re going.

Dawn Kaffel

If you would like to discuss things further or to make an appointment, you can call me on either:

07976 403741 or (020) 8959 9528.

Alternatively you can contact me by email by clicking here.

In couples therapy sessions, focus is often taken up with hearing and seeing aggression and anger being played out. Passive aggression on the other hand is harder to identify often staying under the radar just bubbling away.

Passive aggressive behaviour is defined as “behaviour that is seemingly innocuous, accidental or neutral but that indirectly displays an unconscious aggressive motive “. Passive aggression is a way of expressing negative feelings such as annoyance or anger indirectly rather than directly. This kind of behaviour can be very harmful to relationships and can often lead to heartache and loneliness if misunderstood and not addressed.

How does Passive Aggression show up in a relationship?

When a couple have a healthy relationship with anger, they can usually feel it and tell each other what’s upsetting them, discuss it and find a resolution and move on.

Passive Aggression can be very subtle and often difficult to put your finger on. It just lurks around waiting to show up in many ways. It usually presents from someone who is unable to express their hurt feelings and anger openly and honestly so resorts to dishonesty and a lack of authenticity. They act passively but express aggression covertly.

Does this cycle feel familiar?

A passive aggressive partner can try and block whatever it is you want. Their unconscious anger gets projected onto you and you get angry and frustrated with them. Your fury is theirs but rather than owning it they calmly ask why you are getting so angry and blame you for the anger they are provoking. Ongoing passive aggressive behaviour like this perpetuates resentment in a relationship and ultimately erodes it.

Some examples of Passive Aggressive behaviours in a couple relationship:

• Denial
• Fault finding and veiled threats.
• The cold shoulder/silent treatment.
• Use of sarcasm or back handed compliments.
• Avoiding responsibilities for tasks
• Saying “I can’t “but meaning “I won’t”.
• Saying “Yes” but meaning “no”.
• Procrastinating and deliberately forgetting to do things.
• Pretending things are fine when you know they aren’t.
• Purposely push your buttons by doing things that will cause issues.
• Deliberate criticism and name calling.
• Refusing to discuss their partners concerns.

At times we can all engage with some of these behaviours but when there is a consistent pattern of multiple symptoms, its more than likely you are dealing with a passive aggressive partner.

As a couples therapist it’s important to be aware how passive aggressive behaviour can show up towards me in a therapy session which can be extremely useful to share with a couple. For example, a client may decide to withhold payment without giving any explanation and will often find an excuse when asked about it, rather than be honest about their feelings. Equally a client may not like how a session may have gone one week and decide to cancel without any explanation.

Why we behave passive aggressively?

There are often several reasons that contribute to passive aggressive behaviour:

Raised in an environment where passive aggression was learnt as acceptable perhaps as a response to care and affection not showing up that much.
Growing up in an environment where anger was not an emotion that was accepted or validated, so developing passive aggressive behaviour may have been a way of gaining some kind of control.
Being bullied as a child or facing discrimination because of being part of a minority group may make you feel you have no voice. Instead of being assertive and expressing emotions reverting to passive aggressive behaviours is an alternative.
Feeling stressed and/or depressed.

Strategies on how to deal with a passive aggressive partner

Passive Aggressive behaviour can be difficult to identify and to deal with. Consider these ways of dealing with a passive aggressive partner:

Respond rather than react. Try not to respond with anger to passive aggressive behaviour. Take a moment to pause and take a deep breath instead of lashing out and escalating the conflict.
Communicate your feelings of what you are experiencing to your partner in a calm, clear, assertive way, not in the middle of an argument or when emotions are high.
Don’t blame or criticise your partner. Use the “I” word to share your feelings and stick to the facts.
Show interest in understanding together where this behaviour may have come from and be specific about the changes you would like.
Noticing a partner’s behaviour – can you take time out to find out what may be going on for them rather than going straight to anger.

If these strategies do not help improve the situation with your partner, it may be time to seek out professional help from an experienced Emotionally Focused Couples Therapist (EFT)who will help you understand and make sense of your emotions and how they are linked to your behaviour. EFT helps change on-going negative cycles of arguing and conflict by helping couples understand their more vulnerable emotions.

EFT focuses not only what happens between two partners, but it also encourages each partner to develop greater self-awareness of his or her own emotions and behaviours.

Dawn Kaffel

In recent days the world has been horrified to witness how the age long history of conflict in the Middle East has now turned to full blown war. Families are being torn apart as the conflict escalates.

In no way is this a comparison, but over the years I have worked with so many couples who feel and behave as if they are at war with each other. They come to their sessions seemingly wanting to improve their relationship but before too long, they are positioning themselves in their usual fighting positions. For some couples it seems impossible to disagree with each other without resorting to full blown conflict.

The psychotherapist Esther Perel says “Conflict is intrinsic to all relationships. The presence of bickering or disagreements doesn’t mean the relationship isn’t good, or that it isn’t worth it, often it’s an alarm. Your relationship needs attention.’

It doesn’t take rocket science to understand that the enormous pressures that our lives have been under these past few years seems to have diminished our capacity to manage conflict more effectively. Why is it so many more couples seem to present in sessions either the inability to manage their escalating arguments and the belief it would be better to end the relationship, or just bury heads in the sand and avoid conflict because they are afraid of the consequences?

An important thing to remember is that occasional bickering and conflicts and arguments are a normal and a healthy part of our close relationships. They help us learn how to communicate with each other, find common ground and compromise. When we feel safe and secure with our partners to express our feelings, we usually argue less.

Hearing from partners that they bicker all the time, feel constantly criticised and feel they can’t do anything right should sound an alarm bell. In contrast those couples who tell me proudly they never argue or have many disagreements always makes my heart sink and invites me to question what else might be going on for them.
Couples who use an avoidant approach to conflict and constantly compromise are often afraid to acknowledge their emotions which in time can build up resentments. A partnership with no arguments is often a partnership of lethargy and little energy so working out how to argue affectively to keep your relationships safe and growing is the goal.

TAKE OWNERSHIP
When couples feel they aren’t communicating well and seek out couples therapy it’s often because there is an escalation of their arguments that keep repeating. As their conflict increases, it feels very detrimental and threatening to their relationship. The more distant they feel from each other, the more the conflict cycle continues to play out.

My role as their therapist is to help them understand their patterns of escalation in a non -blaming way and to help turn Conflict into Connection. Firstly, we need to take a pause, breathe easily and decide to work out what is really going on. This amount of

conflict can’t surely be because I forgot to empty the dishwasher or spent too much time playing games on my phone? They are more likely to be caused by our needs and vulnerabilities not being met by our partners. When you prefer to play on the phone than come and sit and talk to me it may trigger my own insecurity of whether I feel you really love me and want to spend time with me.

I often ask these questions:

• What do you think you are fighting about?
• How do your arguing differences show up?
• How do they play out in your relationship?
• How do you handle the difference and how do they impact each of you?

Esther Perel identifies 3 hidden dimensions under most relationship fights:

• Power and Control
• Care and Closeness
• Respect and Recognition

When working with couples caught up in this negative cycle of distress, it’s important to help them understand how they both contribute to the cycle. Perhaps one partner may habitually blame the other when something goes wrong, or maybe they’re just tired and stressed out after a long day at work, then they can lash out at one another. Alternatively, if a disagreement happens, one person may shut down and completely withdraw which makes the other person respond with more anger and fear.

Can we ask these questions of ourselves and each other to REFLECT instead of REACT?

• How do I argue? Do I escalate, shut down or avoid?
• Why do we repeatedly fight about the same things?
• How did I experience arguing and conflict in my family of origin?
• What did I learn from that experience?
• What do I need that’s different?
• What do I need to do that’s different?

Recognising these cycles and taking responsibility for your own behaviour and feelings is crucial to learning how to have less highly charged arguments. Arguments do not need to feel inevitable. They just need working on!

When partners are in this very familiar negative cycle it’s easy to overlook and not pay any attention to what is working and what your partner is doing that is positive.

It’s crucial to keep things balanced so noticing and calling out when something feels different and positive helps to move away from the negative destructive patterns. It always surprises me how couples find this much more difficult to do!!

It takes time and patience to understand how we get caught up in these negative cycles. It takes commitment and a longing for a closer connection to create new patterns.

As Esther Perel suggests

‘Sometimes the best fight you can have is the fight for each other.’

If you would like to discuss things further or to make an appointment, you can call me on either:

07976 403741 or (020) 8959 9528.

Alternatively you can contact me by email by clicking here.

ANXIETY is the theme of this Mental Health Awareness Week (15-21 May 2023). As we try to navigate our lives in an increasingly changing world, our mental wellbeing is constantly being tested which has led to a huge increase in anxiety: the UK’s most common mental health disorder.

Mentalhealth-uk.org have been driving an innovative campaign leading up to Mental Health Awareness Week called Not Just Anxiety, highlighting just how multi-faceted anxiety is. It’s vital that more awareness of anxiety and anxiety disorders like OCD, phobias and separation anxiety that show up in our lives, our workplace and our relationships are better understood and validated.

All of us can feel anxious at various times in our lives and, as a couple therapist, anxiety shows up in my counselling room in many different guises.

So many things cause anxiety in relationships. It means different things to different people. It’s not uncommon for anxiety to have a profound impact on the quality of your life and the life of your relationship.

HOW DOES ANXIETY IN YOUR RELATIONSHIP SHOW UP?

• Recognising if you have your own anxieties how you may be more prone to anxiety in a relationship.
• Past experiences of hurt and betrayal with a previous partner or early childhood experiences can bring up triggers even though you think you have recovered from then.
• Understanding how insecure attachments can contribute to relationship anxiety. Anxious attachment can show up at the start of a relationship when we are uncertain if a partner has the same feelings as we have. You might feel you are going to be abandoned or rejected and the relationship won’t last. Avoidant attachment can lead to anxiety about the level of commitment you are making and the need for deepening intimacy.
• Feeling you are walking on eggshells and can’t talk about what you are thinking or feeling because you fear a negative reaction from a partner. It’s very important that you are in a relationship where it feels safe and secure to talk and share with a partner without being shut down.
• Ongoing cycles of fighting and arguments that never seem to change or get resolved can bring a lot of anxiety to a relationship. It’s probably the most common reason why couples seek out therapy. They present all the arguments they have but often find it difficult to identify the emotions that trigger the anxiety. A recent couple recognised that their feelings of being unloved and not thought about by their partner triggered them into feeling so anxious that they were going to be abandoned, that they began a whole cycle of shouting and blame which escalated them to a point where they were indeed ready to split up. Recognising what would have happened if they had just shared how anxious they were about being left would have been a better option.
• Finding yourself constantly thinking about your partner and what they are doing, where they are going and who they may be spending time with. Feeling stressed out and not trusting your partner causes anxiety. It’s not unusual to find it difficult to trust a partner when you have been hurt or cheated on in the past.
• Being in a relationship where thoughts and feelings are frequently dismissed, and your opinion is not valid.
• Feeling your partner doesn’t talk to you with respect and care, perhaps even feeling you are in an abusive or co-dependent relationship. No longer feeling you are friendly and supportive of each other as you used to be.
• Uncertainty around the future of your relationship where it’s going, are we on the same page. Do I matter to you? Are you there for me? These feelings reflect the strong need for connection and to feel safe and secure in a partnership.
• Uncertainty around our physical and sexual relationship. Why aren’t we having sex anymore, are you no longer attracted to me? Are you attracted to someone else?
• My partner has anxiety, and I don’t know what to do.
• Ongoing medical conditions in yourself, your partner or family members can bring anxiety to the relationship.
• Sabotaging behaviours show up in relationship anxiety such as picking unnecessary arguments, pushing a partner away, continually finding faults with your partner are all examples of how anxiety questions whether your partner really loves and cares for you.

HOW TO MANAGE ANXIETY IN YOUR RELATIONSHIP

• Identify what’s underlying your anxiety to understand how it shows up for you and in the relationship.
• Question how you feel about yourself? Are you confident and self- assured or lacking in confidence with low self-esteem?
• Write down your anxious thoughts in a clear way.
• Believe you are worthy of love and affection.
• Be aware of how anxiety shows up in your body perhaps heart racing, palpitations and feeling sweaty. Find tools to manage your breathing to bring a sense of calm.
• Being able to communicate with your partner is key: how you are feeling and your worries and challenges.
• Spend more time enjoying being in the relationship than worrying about it.
• Focus more with your partner on what works for you both in the relationship rather than focusing on what doesn’t work. Look for the joy and happiness that you are both creating.
• Find a therapist to help you work through your anxieties and get them under control so you can minimise damage to the relationship and enjoy being in it.

Anxiety can show up in happy relationships as well as unhappy ones. What’s important is how we take ownership of our anxiety and take steps to manage it more effectively. That takes true strength.
Dawn Kaffel

If you would like to discuss things further or to make an appointment, you can call me on either:
07976 403741 or (020) 8959 9528.

Alternatively you can contact me by email by clicking here.

Reading this headline in the Times last weekend and hearing Jacinda Ardern announce her resignation as the youngest serving prime minister of New Zealand saying:

“I am human, politicians are human. We give all that we can for as long as we can. And then its time. And for me it’s time”.

This made me think how many couples I work with, especially in these difficult stressful times, who either make impulsive decisions to end a marriage quickly, or struggle for some time with whether enough is enough in their relationships and if it’s time to quit.

It often comes as a shock when one partner in a couple hears their partner say they feel a lot of dissatisfaction and unhappiness in the marriage, when the other feels things are ok. These feelings are often dismissed as “it’s just a phase we’re going through – just like all our friends with young children and stressful jobs and who often have similar feelings.”

Immediately what shows up is a different perspective and a disconnect. It is likely a couple at this stage will be living quite transactional lives, going to work and looking after the children where they believe their needs will be met. Their relationship has probably been this way for a couple of years. The unheard partner starts to question ‘what is the point of this relationship if I don’t feel heard and nothing changes”.

Couples can be quite unaware just how detachment starts to grow between them, creating an on-going negative mind set of everything that’s wrong with the relationship, bringing constant examples of “resentment stack-ups” of why the relationship isn’t working.

Couples like this are in a very fragile place and probably often feel quite overwhelmed with just how precarious the relationship has become and how stuck they are in their gridlock positions.

When meeting couples on the brink, I tell them that I am not here to push them to stay together but to stand alongside them both where they are as I try to focus keeping the balance: managing one partners ambivalence and need for change, with the importance of uncovering the underlying issues that have contributed to their ‘stuckness’.

It’s important at this stage that I try to reassure them that I understand their ambivalence about coming to therapy; how they have lost hope, but balancing that with

a strong sense of how things could change for the better if they have the courage to start connecting to their own feelings and perhaps moving forward with different behaviours and some renewed hope of change. We also discuss the possibility that therapy may not come up with the changes they are looking for.

Working with an Emotionally Focused Therapy (EFT) lens, I help couples connect and tune in to their emotional experience where once both partners feel heard and understood. I help them identify their own behaviour rather than looking at their partner’s behaviour and to make sense of how this behaviour leads to emotional disconnection. For example: one client talked a lot about how he feels that his partner has, for years, put all her energies into her very stressful job and their two children and he gets the crumbs. This makes him feel very lonely and rejected in his marriage. His partner initially became very defensive and critical that he never offered to help her or make time for her – all she felt was he just wanted was to have more sex. Helping her tune into his emotion of missing her and longing for her, especially since he had come from a large family and didn’t get much attention as a child, has been important for her but difficult for her to stay with her vulnerability and shame because all she hears is the same criticisms about her from her partner that she receives from her mother.

Couples on the brink are on shaky ground and they need to feel there is hope in how things can change and move forward rather than constantly going back into their conflicts and disappointments.

Checking in with couples as to what they think would be possible for their relationship can be a useful tool in shifting the gridlock, but equally there are partners who feel they have run out of possibilities and that then becomes the focus of our work.

There are many couples who after extensive time in therapy, decide for many reasons that they need to end their relationship. Ending a relationship, especially if children are involved, is always going to be painful and challenging but that doesn’t mean it shouldn’t happen.
Deciding to quit can be a sign of strength. Before you do that just ask yourself:

• Have I taken time to think things through about how I feel about myself?
• Do I understand the part I play in our distancing?
• Have we taken time to talk together about how we feel about ending the relationship and understanding why we think we need to take this step?
• Do we spend our time just focusing on what’s wrong with the relationship, losing sight of what could work for us both?

Crucially, leaving a marriage should not be seen as giving up and quitting with all the shame associated with this. As Dr Linda Papadopoulos quotes in her article in the Times “we should call it recalibrating or changing direction.” Dawn Kaffel

If you would like to discuss things further or to make an appointment, you can call me on either 07976 403741 or (020) 8959 9528.

Alternatively, you can contact me by email: info@couplescounselling.com.

Over the recent High Holidays in the Jewish calendar, we are told that from the lst day of Rosh Hashana (new year) the book of life is opened and ten days later, on the Day of Atonement the book is closed, and our fate is sealed for the coming year. During this period, it is a time for self-reflection and a time to ask for forgiveness and repair our relationships. The late Chief Rabbi Jonathan Sacks once said that the most important lesson of the High Holy Days is nothing is broken beyond repair.

In his New Year address to the community our Rabbi read The Dash by Linda Ellis. I had never heard this read before and it had a profound effect on me as I sat listening and reflecting on how these positive words give us so much to think about our life and how we choose to live it.

I read of a man who stood to speak At the funeral of a friend
He referred to the dates on the tombstone From the beginning – to the end

He noted that first came the date of birth And spoke the following dates with tears, But he said what mattered most of all Was the dash between those years

For that dash represents all the time That they spent alive on earth
And now only those who loved them Know what that little line is worth

For it matters not, how much we own, The cars…the house…the cash.
What matters is how we live and love And how we spend our dash

So think about this long and hard. Are there things you’d like to change?
For you never know how much time is left That can still be rearranged

If we could just slow down enough To consider what’s true and real And always try to understand
The way other people feel.

And be less quick to anger And show appreciation more And love the people in our lives Lie we’ve never loved before.

If we treat each other with respect And more often wear a smile Remembering this special dash Might only last a little while

So, when your eulogy is being read With your life’s actions to rehash
Would you be proud of the things they say About how you spent YOUR dash?

The dash represents life and the way we choose to live it. The dash represents the good times and not so good times, the hellos and goodbyes. Most importantly the dash represents the impact we have had on the people around us.

I introduced this poem in session to a couple this week who were in real crisis. They were caught up in a very negative destructive cycle of anger, criticism and blame. They were both spiralling down a path towards ending their relationship and felt it was time to call it a day. I was struggling to find ways to comfort them both.

The poem appeared to stir up different emotions in them both. It brought them some calm and slowed us all down. They both cried as they understood the meaning of the words and as they looked at each other and held each other they both acknowledged they have one life and they both need to find a better way of making the best out of the dash. It was a very emotional moment witnessing their softening and moving towards a closer connection.

As couple therapists we all need to have different tools in our tool- boxes to help our clients show up to each other in the way that is needed and to feel they are living a relationship where they feel loved, cared for and understood.

Here are some other tools I use:

Seeing couples individually
Often couples have let their problems and familiar patterns of behaviour go on for far too long. Seeing partners on their own for sessions is often helpful in unsticking stuck thinking patterns as they move towards shifting their own behaviours instead of constantly looking at the others.

Understanding cycles
Helping couples to understand their negative cycles and how that shows up in their behaviour with each other is not always easy to understand. Using drawings to illustrate and label behaviour and emotion can be useful

Looking after self
Seeing yourself in a more holistic way as a partner. Recognising the importance of looking after self in order to be fully present in your loving relationship. A partner cannot be responsible for being the provider of everything.

Additional help to regular sessions
I often suggest chapters in books as a reference
Pod casts to listen to and sometimes exercises to help rebuild connection and to establish better communication skills.

As we are confronting some of our most difficult challenges of our times, I believe nothing is broken beyond repair and its never too late to change and to be better. REMEMBER TO LOOK OUT FOR THE DASH.

If you would like to discuss things further or to make an appointment, you can call me on either: 07976 403741 or 020) 8959 9528.

Alternatively you can contact me by email info@couplescounselling.com

Dawn Kaffel

It is very fitting that LONELINESS is this year’s theme of Mental Health Awareness Week 2022. According to the Mental Health Foundation, one in four adults feel lonely some or all the time. There is no single cause and there’s no one solution as we are all different. However, the longer we feel lonely, the more we are at risk of mental health problems. This was never more so than during the past two years of the Covid-19 pandemic which has led many people to feel isolated and cut off from communities and their loved ones.

Mental Health Awareness week helps to raise awareness of the impact of loneliness on our mental health and wellbeing and how we have all experienced loneliness in different ways and the practical steps we can take to address it.

We may have had pre-conceived ideas of what loneliness is – just an older person’s issue or a result of a bereavement. Loneliness can affect us all. It seeps into every section of our community regardless of gender or sexual orientation. We are not always aware that loneliness can occur even if you are in a relationship? Just because you are dating someone or in a long-term marriage does not exclude us from the possibility of feeling lonely.

Alone versus loneliness

Being ‘alone’ is a physical state where you are physically by yourself and can take pleasure in this solitude. Being ‘lonely’ is an emotional state where you FEEL alone and isolated, disconnected from others even when they’re right next to you.

Loneliness is a complex feeling and has to do with the quality of one’s relationship as opposed to the number of people in ones’ life.

Robin Hewings, Programme Director from the Campaign to End Loneliness quotes Loneliness as being a negative unwelcome emotion whereas solitude can be a positive emotion.

I hear from clients how they feel: “something isn’t working, we are growing apart”, “I don’t feel listened to and no longer feel very important.” Rarely do we recognise ourselves as feeling lonely in the relationship. When we do feel lonely in our relationships, it can mean several things and it shows up in counselling sessions in different guises. It may mean you feel unloved or unheard. It may mean you no

longer feel as close to each other as you used to feel. This can have devastating effects on your relationship if not understood.

What are the signs of loneliness in a relationship?

Ongoing feelings of disconnection, isolation and disengagement from your partner may be signs that you are in a lonely relationship.
What causes loneliness in our relationship? Life transitions
One of the most common ways it manifests is with the impact of change in your
life situation like a change of job which means longer hours and less time to spend together. It can be a big life transition like moving in together, moving house or moving countries, marriage, pregnancy, divorce, illness, children leaving home, retirement.

Incompatibility
We no longer feel we are on the same track and working together to achieve our original shared goals. Feelings of intolerance, impatience and unhappiness are never far from the surface which can be quite a lonely experience.

Health problems
If a partner is dealing with chronic illness, or severe long term health issues of a close relative, loneliness may well show up in a relationship.

Loss of intimacy
No longer feeling closely connected physically or sexually to our partner often leads to feelings of isolation and loneliness with the tendency to close-down and withdraw from the relationship.

One of the questions I often couples with whom I am working:

“What does loneliness feel like and how does it show up in your relationship?”
These are some of the answers:

• something isn’t working
• loss of emotional connection
• avoiding each other
• drifting apart
• thinking more negatively
• you are never there for me
• feeling sad
• irritability and anger with each other
• we barely talk to each other anymore
• don’t make time for each other
• children are the priority
• too stressed with work
• no time or desire for sex

The impact of loneliness on a relationship

Loneliness doesn’t always show up very clearly. It can create emotional and physical distance where you find yourself feeling more annoyed and irritated by your partner, starting arguments and an unwillingness to engage, seeing everything negatively. You may find yourself avoiding your partner emotionally and sexually, generally feeling very disconnected and alone. One client recently shared that he would never have described himself as feeling lonely in his marriage but now it’s been talked about that’s exactly how he felt when his wife had their first child. A year later he felt she didn’t care for him anymore. He felt the baby was much more important to her than he was. He had even got as far as thinking he will need to leave his marriage.

Another client expressed deep sadness that her partner continually prioritised his work over her and the family. Even holidays were never holidays as he was always working. It was only when she recognised how lonely she was after the children left home and it was just the two of them that the relationship became untenable for her.

If these feeling aren’t addressed it can lead to feelings of depression and anxiety, alcohol and drug addiction and emotional and sexual affairs.

How to work through loneliness feelings in your relationship

As with all emotional issues, it’s so important to find a way to communicate with your partner some of the feelings you are having without getting into an argument. Remind your partner you are not criticising or blaming them, you just want to share your feelings of loneliness. Your partner may not even be aware that you are having these feelings and need more support. We often assume our partners should know what we need and what we are going through. The reality is they more often don’t. They really appreciate it when you make time to talk openly and

honestly about what you are needing from them and discuss the changes that you both need to make to feel differently about each other.

However, there are times when we can’t find a way of talking to our partners so perhaps this is the time to seek help from a couples counsellor. They will listen to you both and, by asking the right questions, can help you tease out your feelings of loneliness, help you to engage with each other so that you can experience your relationship in a more connected way and no longer feel lonely together. As Robin Hewings said in a recent podcast on loneliness in the workplace: “it’s not about never feeling lonely again, but finding ways of not getting stuck in loneliness which is what cuts very deeply into people and their relationships.”

“Being alone is bearable; loneliness while in a relationship is painful.”

Dawn Kaffel

If you would like to discuss things further or to make an appointment, you can call me on either:

07976 403741 or (020) 8959 9528.

Alternatively you can contact me by email by clicking here.

 

Following on from my previous blog focusing on a relationship challenge where one partner wants to leave – in this blog I want to focus on the challenges that couples can go through when either one or both partners need to care for ageing parents.

Many couples I see in my practice struggle with being part of the sandwich generation where they are having to manage ageing parents at the same time as working and raising children. Add the arrival of a pandemic into the mix has meant these issues have been highlighted. Saying it’s been difficult and tough is an understatement. Often unable to visit care homes or hospitals and parents who may be far away suffering with serious health problems, has led to further stress and anxiety and all kinds of new demands for a couple relationship.

Clients often express feelings of being pulled in so many directions which can bring up lots of difficult emotions and put a strain on a relationship.

If you don’t live close by, how much time is taken up worrying about how they are coping and feeling guilty because there is not enough time to visit more often.

A client told me that during lockdown he lived in a permanent state of anxiety, waiting for the phone call in the middle of the night from a parent saying that they had had a fall or there’s been an accident.

Caring for an elderly parent can be stressful and difficult beyond belief especially if there are unresolved issues between you from the past which can have added implications on partners and families.

How we respond to ageing parents is often based on our attachment styles. John Bowlby understood the importance of the crucial bond that develops between young children and their caregivers and between adults and their relationship partner, close relatives and friends. He said the need for relationship bonds follow us from “the cradle to the grave.”

What was your experience of attachment patterns as a child, for example was it a secure and safe place within which to grow or was there a lot of anxiety around, leading to an anxious/preoccupied attachment or was it an avoidant attachment?

Many adult children often grapple with the difficult decision of whether to or how to care for parents who were unsupportive, neglectful and/or abusive. Its’ not always easy to find that love and care and be generous when you didn’t receive it as a child. Resentments and anger feelings towards parents often show up directed at our partners.

These situations can be very stressful for a couple and often talking through issues from the past with an experienced counsellor can help you arrive at the right decisions for you.

Even if you may have had great parents who spent most of their lives caring for you and now need that extra support, it’s not always easy to find that love, care and generosity when there may be so many demands going on for you that another becomes overwhelming. Helping a child through a difficult time at school, dealing with mental health issues, moving house, financial or relationship issues or simply going through the menopause yourself. All these requests on your time take away time from the couple relationship.

So how does a partner give continual support at these crucial times when it feels there is constant competition for attention and care is going elsewhere?

Suggestions for keeping a relationship strong whilst caring for ageing parents

Making sure your partner is always a priority.
Don’t bottle things up and feel you should cope on your own. When stressed there is a tendency to think we have no time to talk about our feelings and we tend to bottle things up and then it only needs a little something that results in a blow-up. Make time to regularly check in with your partner. Don’t give up on keeping your relationship top priority. Often partners can feel they are completely overlooked at this time as all the energy and life that was the marriage now goes elsewhere.

No topic is off limits – you are a team
It’s important we feel supported by our partners during these crucial times in a relationship. It’s important to feel it’s a safe place to talk about anything with your partner and trust each other. Just feeling you have that space to talk about how you feel, without feeling judged or needing a partner to problem solve. If you are being talked to make sure you are really listening so your partner feels that you are there for them. The marriage can get into trouble when both parties aren’t on the same page.

Don’t be afraid to ask for help
Make sure you give yourself time to find out all the help there is out there from your GP, social services, carers associations and occupational therapists. You may need your partners help with this.

You can’t do it all
If you are a person who finds it difficult to ask for help or feels you are always the responsible one in the family having to do it all – you will find yourself overwhelmed. When a crisis hits, there is the tendency to go around like a headless chicken as you try to come to terms with the changes in your family dynamic. This is not the time to shut everybody out but the time to reach out to your partner, siblings and friends. Often a problem shared is a problem halved

Keep things simple
Simple, loving gestures matter a great deal in a relationship and never more so when we feel overwhelmed when caring for others. Try to show an act of kindness or love every day, even if that’s ordering their favourite take-away or reaching for a hug. Acknowledge them for something they’ve done and let them know how much you care.

Self-care
Meeting the needs of an ageing parent can lead to continual exhaustion and frustration. Try to keep doing what you were always doing. Clients have expressed their sense of guilt when they make time for their yoga class, or a night out with friends, feeling they should be spending it instead with their ageing parent. Make sure you look after your mental and physical health by getting enough sleep, exercising and eating properly is so important. You may not be able to do it with the same frequency but stopping your exercise routines, your coffee with friends and short breaks with your partner will NOT enable you to face this role reversal and cherish every moment with a parent whilst you can. If you can’t look after yourself, it’s hard to look after others.

Caring for a parent can be one of the most challenging situations we face. Prioritise your marriage so you can stay strong together throughout the caregiving experience.

I sign off with this quote from Tia Walker

“In the heart of every caregiver is a knowing that we are all connected. As I do for you, I do for me.”

If you would like to discuss things further or to make an appointment, you can call me on 07976 403741 or (020) 8959 9528. Alternatively, you can contact me by email: dawnkaffel@couplescounselling.com.

Dawn Kaffel

Relationships are complex and challenging, of that there is no doubt. Never more so than over the past two years when we have had to manage Covid and all its implications on top of everything else going on in our lives.

Over the coming months I am going to focus on different relationship challenges that often present in couple therapy.

What I am noticing in many couples at present is a feeling of great unsettledness, a lack of energy and motivation for the relationship and the unwillingness to engage. They are coming to counselling not to work on their relationships but convinced they need to end them. Clients tell me that the enforced togetherness during the pandemic only highlighted the many issues that have never been addressed and now it’s too late.

They are stuck in a certain pattern of thinking and often assume the only way to stop feeling this pain is to opt out, leaving behind partners and children who are desperately trying to understand what has just happened here?

The partner who wants to leave has probably struggled a lot of emotional pain for some time to get to this point and often presents with statements like:

“I haven’t been happy for a long time”
“You are always so busy at work you have no time for me”
“Our only way of communicating is through arguments and fights” “I love you, but I’m no longer attracted to you “
“I always want us to be best friends”

They feel the only way to fix these difficult feelings is to leave and then the feelings will vanish.

It always comes as a shock to hear the partner that wants to stay disclose that they had no idea their partner was so unhappy and wanted to leave the marriage. Perhaps that’s the real problem. What has been happening in these relationships over the years that I haven’t noticed what is going on in front of me?

It’s very clear that no one knows exactly what we are getting into long-term when we commit to marriage. The hope is that we will continue to stay committed and connected to each other for the years to come. However, what is not always considered is how both partners will change over the years. What connected them when they first met, may very well change, ten, twenty, thirty years later. What do we do as a couple to prepare us for the changes? What work do we do to make sure we understand the changes in ourselves and how do we connect that to our partners?

Here are a few critical components couples must know to stay connected and to create a relationship of growth.

• Understanding what you both need from the relationship and why
• What drives my partner
• How to keep attraction alive
• How we deal with difference and conflict so there is more security and love

Most of us don’t think about these important factors, merely going about our busy lives focusing more on what we are doing and what we are achieving and doing our best to avoid what is too difficult to contemplate.

I remember a male client recently telling me he had told his wife on two separate occasions over the years that he was very unhappy. As he felt she didn’t take much notice and just thought he was stressed from work decided the only way for him was to leave the marriage.

Another couple who hadn’t had a sexual relationship for many years suddenly found herself very attracted to her fitness trainer and wanted to leave the twenty-five-year marriage rather than understanding what had been happening in their dynamic that had led to this situation.

Unfortunately, long relationships and marriages don’t come with a guidebook. We learn things about each other on the way, especially in the beginning and then we seem to give up as life and external factors take pride of place.

What is very clear is that if we don’t understand ourselves, what affects us and how we behave and how we connect, how on earth can we expect to understand and know our partner? One of the most positive aspects of couple therapy is how in a safe place with a therapist, individuals can start to understand their own behaviours and the impact that has on their partners. Working with a therapist and using Emotionally Focused Therapy (EFT), first developed and researched by Sue Johnson in Canada, helps partners tune into their important feelings and needs and enables them to put those feelings across to their partners in a safe connecting way rather than in ways that can invite a negative and disconnecting response. Using an attachment lens, couples learn how to live in their relationship to create the closeness and security they need. They learn to recognise their emotional needs for safety and connection and learn to ask in non-blaming ways for partners to help meet their needs. According to Johnson, “emotions are the music of the attachment dance”. As we understand our emotions and respond to them, so the dance changes and couples can move from difficulties and struggles to closeness and harmony.

What to Avoid
What I often see in couples when one partner expresses their strong change of feeling message and only wants to leave, is how a comparatively ‘stable’ relationship starts to destabilise both people at a very fast rate. The overwhelming feeling of shock and worry as everything starts to unravel and, for the partner fighting for the marriage, fear and loss loom large. It’s hard to comprehend the reasoning of the partner who wants out. Many who leave still

love their partners and want to stay close and friendly even if the love has lost its sexual charge. This reaction is understandable but often loss of control of emotions can make things worse. Thinking you can change your partner’s mind will often make the partner feel manipulated and misunderstood and more determined than ever to leave

Going into couples therapy a partner often hopes the therapist will be able to “talk sense” into the leaving partner. Unfortunately, things don’t work this way.

What can Work
A giant tidal wave has hit you and it will take time and a great deal of patience, understanding and resilience to first stabilise the situation before tackling anything.

Working with a therapist can help you to understand:

• How some partners can turn off their emotions to protect themselves: often learned behaviour from their family background
• Why your connection has broken down.
• What has gone so wrong for your partner that they want to leave and what part did I play in that?
• What damaging patterns can we identify in our relationship that led to this?
• How have we shown up emotionally for each other over the years and what we have experienced in our lives together
• Understanding perhaps how the sheer efforts of living difficult life events may have ground you both down and led to much less feelings shown between you.

Whilst it’s important that both partners are willing to work on the relationship issues, its equally essential that you stop putting all your focus on your partners needs and feelings and begin to take ownership of your own needs to regain your sense of power.

Your partner may be very unsure about staying in the relationship, but what are you unsure about? What do you want? What are you willing to live with? What do you need to be different if you were to stay together?

This is one of the most difficult of relationship challenges and it’s rarely a smooth ride. The more self-awareness, vulnerability and honesty each partner can bring to their positions, the easier it may be to connect and explore options that take both partners’ needs and fears into account.

If you would like to discuss things further or to make an appointment, you can call me on 07976 403741 or (020) 8959 9528. Alternatively, you can contact me by email: dawnkaffel@couplescounselling.com. Dawn Kaffel

If there is anything positive that’s come out from this current Covid pandemic, it’s that issues of loneliness and isolation experienced by so many, especially during this last year, are firmly at the centre of our awareness. Organisations such as Campaign to End Loneliness believe that people of all ages need connections that matter and provide a wide range of support networks and resources available to everyone. Nothing highlights this more than the heart- breaking images of the elderly in care homes looking out of their windows to see a family member who they can no longer touch or hug.

As our population ages, the amount of older people in the UK grows and we are seeing an increase in the number of people aged over 65 experiencing chronic and severe loneliness.

However, we often think that loneliness is something that comes with ageing, following illness or bereavement but in my clinical practice I am frequently faced with individuals and couples at any age and stage struggling with loneliness.

There is a paradox here: how can we possibly be lonely when we have a partner and we are living together side by side. Unfortunately, lonely marriages are all too common.

During this past year of Covid where we have been forced to stay at home and be with each other 24 hours a day without the usual distractions of social interactions we all desperately need, so the realisation of what we have in our relationships and how we feel about each other has come sharply into focus.
Loneliness in our relationships seems to be even more highlighted.

Interestingly a 2017 study published in the American Journal of Preventative Medicine, found that people who reportedly spent more than two hours a day on social media were twice as likely to feel lonely than those who spent half an hour on those sites.

HOW DOES LONELINESS SHOW UP IN OUR RELATIONSHIPS?

• On-going feelings of disengagement and disconnection. The relationship isn’t giving me what I need.
• You feel you have no one to talk to or listen to you
• You may feel unloved and unheard by your partner and you may close down and withdraw from the relationship
• A general feeling that the relationship is not working as well as it used to. Feeling disconnected and not as close as we used to be.
• We don’t make time for each other and have lost our emotional connection
• At times we need more support than usual from our partners especially around a life change event like buying a new home, having a baby, starting a new job, or serious illness. If we don’t feel supported by our partners at these crucial times, feelings of loneliness can start to creep in.
• It’s important to determine if your loneliness only appears in your current relationship or if these feelings you are experiencing are a pattern from your past and not isolated to this particular relationship.

WHAT CAUSES LONELINESS IN A RELATIONSHIP?

• Emotionally excluding your partner from your thoughts. Not talking in a way you used to. Not communicating your hopes, dreams, feelings and needs.
• Feeling the spark we once had has fizzled out. There is a lack of affection, loss of connection and much less sex and physical intimacy.
• The things that initially attracted us become distracting and unattractive. Resentments, intolerance and impatience with each other are emotions that show up rather than talking about the loneliness.
• When partners focus more on work and achievements than the partnership
• If one partner has to travel for work and is away from home for long periods.
• Addiction to alcohol, drugs can be used to conceal loneliness
• Focusing more on the children than the relationship
• When a partner may be dealing with a chronic illness or a serious health condition

HOW DO WE SHIFT THIS LONELINESS FEELING?

Start to re-establish an emotional connection by feeling you can share your feelings with your partner. This means a willingness to show your vulnerability, explain how you are feeling from your own experience in a non- accusatory way rather than coming from a place of anger and hostility. Try using the ‘I’ word rather than the ‘you’ word. Perhaps try asking your partner what’s going on for them. Try building an awareness of what has happened to both of you and if there’s willingness on both your parts to do things differently and work towards neither of you experiencing loneliness in your relationship.

Change is not going to happen instantly but if we can slowly be more open and honest with how we are feeling, even if that is difficult and painful, we have a much stronger chance of dealing with feeling lonely and building a stronger emotional connection to each other.

If these suggestions fail to improve things, please consider getting some help from an experienced couples’ therapist who with the help of Emotionally Focused Therapy can help you get in touch with some difficult emotions that will help you feel more connected and thought about in your relationships.

I end this blog with a quote from Robin Williams

“I used to think the worst thing in life was to end up alone.

It’s not.

The worst thing in life is to end up with people that make you feel alone”.

If you would like to discuss things further or to make an appointment, you can call me on 07976 403741 or (020) 8959 9528. Alternatively, you can contact me by email: dawnkaffel@couplescounselling.com. Dawn Kaffel