Some people consider getting counseling as something bad, a sign of weakness. However, there is much more to it than weakness or inhibition. It shows the care you have for your partner. It shows how much you want to be with the other person, despite all the difficult circumstances in which you are in. Thus, counseling is a chance that allows you to be with your love and make it up for the mistakes which you committed. Another reason as to why people stay away from counselors is the fee. Again, that is not all a problem since there are several counselors and lawyers that offer guidance for couples free of cost.

A major problem with couples during crisis is that they accentuate each other’s mistakes. Couples must understand that there are much bigger issues in the world than theirs. The best way to understand this is by signing up for an offline support organization. The good thing about these organizations is that it allows you to meet other couples, who are in similar crisis as you are. As a result of this couples will understand that there are people who have similar problems just like them and will solve each other’s issues on their own.

If free family or relationship counseling is what you are looking for, then, it would be always wise to seek advice from the particular religious institution in which you believe in. Religious places like church, mosques, temples and synagogues are place of peace and solace. People who run such institutions have deep knowledge in human relationship and the bond that keeps them intact. They won’t charge you any fee for their advice and might guide you in the right path. Sometimes, you might find it difficult to confess a wrongdoing on your part. Religious preachers can drain such inhibitions from you and will teach you to accept facts as they are.

But relax…cool down…you are not alone. This is what hundreds of people around you have fallen into. There is a desperate cry and longing to get back into that cozy shell called family…to be pampered by your loved ones…. and to fall back into the secured lap of your family.  With today’s generation running behind money and a glam world, what they miss out is the biggest boons of their lives- their families.

This is precisely the reason why family and relationship counselors are becoming prominent. Your stressful schedule may not fit in your family, or you might not be able to provide ample time to your family. In such cases, you lose out the bonds between you and your parents, siblings, children and most importantly your spouses. This will ultimately destroy the peace of your lives. Family counselors can be the saviors of your life. Counselors are understanding and patient people who are willing to discuss and listen to your problems and sort out the issues in your life.

First and foremost, do not be inhibited to discuss problems with your counselors. Feel free to open out your heart and lighter your burdens. Remember that a counselor is a human being like yourself and is there to help you out. This is the first step to free your selves from being paranoid.

Most relationships today lack depth and sincerity. Cheating on spouses has become increasingly common. Relationship counseling aims to solve issues. However it takes time to heal wounds. If you wish to work out and bring back the fire in your relations, it would be best advised to attend a joint counseling. When spouses partake in joint sessions, there is more room for understanding and better solving of issues.  Counseling only works when you realize your own flaws and are willing to rectify and not repeat your mistakes.

In personal counseling, you can discuss your problems with a counselor. Personal counseling provides the opportunities to communicate with a person who will patiently listen to what you want to say. The counselor will not make his own judgments. The counselor will act as a mediator in solving your conflicts or problems with your family members. If you are not satisfied with personal counseling, then you can have group therapy. Here you can find many people with same situations and worries as you. This will helps you to understand the problems of others. The counselor will open the ground for productive communication. In many cases lack of proper communication causes problems in relations.

Family or relationship counseling is essential when you think that your relationship is full of arguments and conflicts. Marriage counseling is the most important one among the relationship counseling. Most of us think that marriage counseling will occur only after experiencing problems in the married life. There are also pre marriages counseling which will help an individual to have a fulfilling marriage life. In this pre marriage counseling different topics are covered. Some of such topics are preparation for the marriage, mutual planning for the future, effect of money in the relationship, need of proper communication between the couples and the influence of other family members in the life of couples.

Some people possess misconceptions regarding counseling. They think that counseling is meant only for those who possess mental problems. Many individual consider counseling only when the problems become much serious. But earlier counseling will drift the chances of serious problems. Some people are not ready to reveal their problems to the counselor. They think that counselor is a stranger and so he can’t understand their problems. This is an utter misunderstanding. The counselor will possess essential experience and training and he is able to solve the difficulties in your relationship. The counselors will hold certain principles like confidentiality and he will not expose your problems to others.

A mindset of one partner “against” the other is *not* going to help you set up a well-functioning marriage.You also need to think about the benefits vs. costs to the relationship of giving ultimatums about $3000 rings (and things in general).  Ultimatums and name-calling (“cheapskate”) seldom lead to the compromise and problem-solving that are necessary for a healthy relationship.I also suggest you give some serious thought to your financial relationship with regard to housing costs and support of your son.  Make sure that you and your boyfriend are in agreement on this before you undertake the commitment of marriage.  It is only fair to your son that all three of you understand one-another expectations for how the responsibilities and privileges of financial financial support, childcare, discipline, and emotional support will be shared.  Ideally you and your boyfriend will agree on the major points — if not you need to resolve any major conflicts *before* you marry.

You may find per-marital or relationship counselling helpful in dealing with such issues.  I also suggest you look at some relationship books to help you identify which issues may lead to conflicts.  (Unfortunately I can’t think of any titles off the top of my head — can any other netters out there think of any good books?)

She has a heck of a lot of courage.  I’m very proud of her. She’s talked with me a lot this week about the “pressure” she had felt at her other school.  How she never felt quite good enough.  Never quite fitting in.  Never quite making the grade because there was so much pressure on everyone to perform. As it turns out she’s just yesterday made the ‘a’ team for netball. She’s a terrific athlete, but had not been encouraged at the other school.   She’s impressed a few of her teachers with her knowledge and abilities.   Once again,  lots of encouragement.  She’s also joined a group who help with ‘peer relationship counselling’ amongst the year 1 and 2 children.  Oh, and she’s going to school camp for 3 days.  Initial anxiety about that has gone now as she’s made a few friends at the new school.  It’s only for 3 days and we’re busy packing for that this weekend.  (it’s Saturday here already).   I was surprised she wanted to go, but she seems to think 3 days at camp is a lot more fun than having to spend that time in the Year 6 classes back at school if she didn’t go. lol

I could go on, but I won’t.  Just wanted to say it’s been a great, big, wonderful week.  Seems to me that sometimes the so called “best” schools don’t always have the best interest of our children in mind. Praise and encouragement goes a long, long way.

The bishops say that calling for couples to make prenuptial agreements dealing with the ownership and disposal of cash and property favours the rich and builds a failure clause into marriage.

Their response to the Government’s Green Paper questions the rationale of including measures related to divorce in proposals intended to strengthen marriage.

The Right Rev Peter Smith, Bishop of East Anglia, said: “Prenuptial agreements seem to imply an expectation of marriage breakdown and undermine the notion of total commitment to marriage. They also appear to favour the financially stronger party.”

Mgr Kieran Conry, who is involved in training counsellors for Catholic Marriage Care, a relationship counselling service for people of all religion or none, said: “It is like having a warranty on a car. It assumes the car will go wrong at some stage. A prenuptial agreement is a warranty on a relationship.

“It indicates a lack of faith in their commitment on behalf of the couple.”

The bishops want the Government to recognise the role that poverty plays in family breakdown and argue that tackling this is an “essential element” to promote stable family life.

Hmm, well I’m far from clear about what a sex addict actually is. It seems to me that his real problem is nothing to do with sex but is to do with not grasping the concept of marriage being a relationship between equals (particularly given the verbal abuse). If he gave equal weight to her needs they would be a lot closer to a solution. In the process he might also be confusing fantasy with reality. If he was considering her needs but ‘couldn’t help himself’ he would almost certainly jump at the chance to get counselling. I guess one way of telling whether its a sex thing or a relationship power thing would be to find out how he would react to being domainated (ie turn the tables). If he’s happy to submit to
domination then use it to extract a promise to go to counselling.

Hmm. I have never known ultimatums to save a relationship in the long term. Even if they have the intended effect in the short term they tend to turn the relationship sour. My advice would be to try to encourage him to accompany her to some sort of relationship counselling by explaining that she needs help to understand his point of view and he needs to be present during the counselling (okay, so this is being economical with the truth…). This would make it easier for him to attend by being less confrontational about it. The implicit promise of an improved sex life if the problems can be sorted out (probably not a lie) might also help.

Their Love lives have taken on a twist of Shakespearean tragedy.

For Helena Bonham Carter and Rufus Sewell, the trials and tribulations of life off screen has become more difficult than many of the Bard’s most complex plots.

The stars, who both have Shakespearean acting credits in their CVs, are said to be nursing broken hearts.  Yesterday Sewell was coming to terms with the collapse of his marriage to fashion buyer Yasmin Abdallah less than a year after their wedding.

And Miss Bonham Carter is still struggling to make sense of her five-year affair with Shakespearean devotee Kenneth Branagh, said to have been rekindled after it ended in September last year.

“They are back together, but I don’t think things are easy,” a friend said. “It’s difficult and very private.  They are in a slightly loose relationship, which may be why they’re keeping it very quiet.”

Miss Bonham Carter, who has starred in Hamlet and Twelfth Night, has been visiting an alternative therapy clinic which specialises in healing and relationship counselling.

She spent more than two hours at the centre in St John’s Wood, North London, which offers “colour” healing, acupuncture and crystal workshops.One of the practitioners attached to the studios gives counselling for couples.

Another practises ‘transpersonal psychotherapy”.

Miss Bonham Carter left looking downcast and clutching a copy of an American self-help manual.  The 1978 book To Love Is To Be Happy With, by American author Barry Neil Kaufman, contains advice on independence and self-esteem.It asks: “Do you want to be happier?  Are you afraid of being hurt in relationships?”

The central idea of the book is that individuals should let go of expectations of each other.

Everyone is responsible for their own happiness, and the happier people are, the more they are loved.

The visit clearly provided food for thought for Miss Bonham Carter, who
started her affair with Branagh, formerly married to Emma Thompson, in 1994.

He and his new love never committed to living together, and were seldom seen
side by side in public.

But last year Miss Bonham Carter declared: “I’m definitely happy and in love.”

The subsequent break-up plainly left her miserable, and she attended the premiere of The Theory of Flight, in which they both starred, alone and dressed in black.

In recent weeks, however, they have been seen together at several showbusiness events, although they were careful to leave separately.  They were even spotted kissing in the street near Miss Bonham Carter’s home in Belsize Home, North London.

When asked if they were together again, she smiled and said: “I’m not going to comment.  I never did before and I’m not going to now.  We might have been seen kissing but I’m not going to say anything.”

… Sewell, , who appeared in Kenneth Branagh’s film of Hamlet, blamed  ‘irreconcilable differences’ for the end of the marriage.

He married Miss Abdallah in a low-key ceremony in London last March.  They had no honeymoon because he was due on stage in Macbeth that  evening, and after the marriage ceremony the bride was on a flight to  Australia because her visa had run out. Days later the couple were spotted  at The Ivy restaurant in Covent Garden celebrating their marriage and  Miss Abdallah being a legal entrant into Britain.

Sewell said at the time: ‘Yasmin is a wonderful person. I feel very lucky.’  Yesterday his agent confirmed that the marriage was over a fortnight  before they would have celebrated their first anniversary. ‘Rufus is now moving ahead with his life and concentrating on his career,  said agent Tor Belfrage.

Sewell, best known for his appearances in Cold Comfort Farm,  the BBC TV adaptation of Middlemarch and British movie  Martha Meet Frank, Daniel and Lawrence, fell for Miss Abdallah  after a brief liaison with Kate Winslet. His most famous romantic  encounter could have been with Madonna. But he refused to go  out with her when she pursued him for a date.

On the plus side she is a beautiful, kind, intelligent, caring person whom everybody but everybody likes her. We almost always have a ball together.

As regards the Child Support Agency chasing up her ex, he is self-employed and is very good at hiding his assets. The CSA won’t go after him because they don’t feel that he’s an easy target so it comes down to her having to do detective work and it’s unlikely that it would pay off even if she had time to do it. He’s a very nasty bit of bone. He’s just bought a
new car but can’t dip into his pocket for his own children. He is the King Rat.

I like the idea of relationship counselling – I will suggest it to her.

If she only wants to get and not contribute, how is it she has taken on a job?

You said: …”I am typically under a lot of stress as a part of my profession and I let
it show now and then.” How exactly do you “let it show”? And how often is “now and then”? I ask because I have known this kind of phrase used as a euphemism for “I beat
7 kinds of out of her.” I am not implying this is what you are doing, but the way you phase this is all about excusing you, rather than looking at how “letting it show” might be affecting her.

You said she: “Never had a vehicle that costs more than her previous salary for 25 years (actually 54.13 years, but who’s counting).” Well, obviously, you are – to two decimal places!!

You say she is demanding and imply she is controlling, yet you are the one telling her – inaccurately – that she can’t finance a car (and therefore have a little independence) and that she will be deported if she divorces you. Did you notice her talk of divorce was linked to 1) your inaccurate threats to her and 2) what she describes as YOUR
controlling behaviour?

I agree with others who have said counselling is a good idea. I am not trying to say everything is your fault. But I doubt very much everything is hers either and I am just trying to show a little of what it might look like from the other side of the fence because if you care about her then you care about that. In a relationship there needs to be equality -
no one should be doing the controlling. I suspect you both need help to find the balance if you want to attempt to save your relationship.

Be forgiving both to her and to yourself – financial worries are the number 1 cause of stress in relationships. I’m not talking from some ivory tower. I’ve done poverty, widowhood and been on the receiving end of an abusive relationship and I KNOW there are no quick fixes. My only purpose in posting this is to try to help you see a little clearer – hurt and anger are terrible spectacles to have to look through.