New article - Happy relationship, happy children?

23 - Nov - 2016

 

When couples with children come to therapy one of their biggest fears is that any trouble in their relationship might be affecting the children and often guidance is sought about how best to protect them. The bad news is that such fears are well founded, the good news is that there are things that can be done. In this two part article we will talk about how to approach difficult situations, highlight warning signs and suggest ways for handling them constructively.

First of all you need to complete a thorough assessment of your relationship to be clear about what the concerns might be - a clear understanding of how you are in your relationship will enable you to think more clearly about the times and situations when things may be problematic and when your children might be affected. 

So thinking about your relationship - are you happy with it? Do you always say whats on your mind? Do you feel listened to? Do you feel understood? Do your needs get taken into account? Is your relationship as strong as it has always been? Do you think your partner is happy? Does your partner do the things he or she used to enjoy? Do you laugh together? Do you enjoy your sex life? Do you have lots of happy memories together? Do you look to the future together with a sense of excitement? 

If you are starting to identify think about some problem areas try and be as clear as possible about what you have noticed. Avoid conclusions like we are so loving anymore - instead identify behaviour for example we don’t have date nights any more. Once you have identified behaviours, think about when the behaviour change happened. What was happening in your lives at that time, what was the impact of events, what was discussed at the time and were issues resolved? Even if you were happy with the way things were handled, was your partner? Have you ever checked in to see if your partner was happy? Thinking about any unresolved issues, what happens when situations arise that remind either of you of it? How do you handle it? What is the impact of it? What gets said and what does not get said?

By now you should have a good idea of the situations, contexts and times where conflict may exist. Even if you feel comfortable with the problem areas identified and think that conflicts are manageable between yourself and your partner you may want to think about whether there is anything to address with your children. So the second stage is to now think about your children.

Bringing conflicts to mind what do you think your children would say, think and feel about them? Do you remember anything they said or how they reacted? Did you understand their reaction? Did you explore with them what they wanted from what they said or did? Has their behaviour changed at home, at school or with their friends and how do the changes correspond with changes in your relationship? Has their relationships changed with you, your partner, other family members and relationships?

If you are starting to think about times when things were difficult and finding yourself worrying about whether you handled them in the best way then the very first thing to do is to stop that negative train of thought. Instead congratulate yourself for your courage in giving this some thought and look at this as merely a stepping stone to improving things.

A relationship without conflict is unlikely to be one where those in the relationship are fully engaged so it can be really helpful to remember that intimacy can come from conflict in as much the same way as through good times! Conflict shows the existence of care and what is important is that it is handled in the most skilful way. The problem for children is that they often only see the negative situations and may start to worry about what might happen or even, in situations where parents have resolved a conflict not know for certain that is the case and suspect that worse is still to come.

In our next article we will look specifically at what to do now.