Case Study: Carol's Story

"We came to relationship counselling because for some time things seemed to have ‘gone off the boil’. I thought it was because I was absorbed in looking after the children and my husband was working more and more to support us. 

A friend recommended Scottish Marriage Care and we got an appointment within three weeks. I remember thinking: should we bother going? I really thought that we would not get an awful lot out of it. We both agreed that basically we still got on well enough and when we had more time, things would get back to the way they were. 

The counsellor enabled us to look at what we had expected from our marriage, what we had achieved but also what we had not. I had given up my career to be at home with the children and my husband had become more and more immersed in his work. We were both able for the first time to get in touch with how we actually felt about this. I hadn’t realised just how resentful I felt about giving up my career, and my husband thought that he had just become a meal ticket. 

During the counselling process we experienced how it used to be when we first married, and acknowledged just how much we had changed without us realising it. The changes were dealt with in a positive way. We were amazed to discover that events we thought we’d handled well had affected our relationship, e.g. birth of the children, redundancy and even moving house twice. We hadn’t really talked about them that much, because we were both thought we were able to cope. 

We learned to communicate, be real with each other and appreciate the importance of making time just for us. We developed personally and within our relationship in so many other ways, and we’re so glad we kept the appointment."

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