Maria Arpa
While every couple’s circumstances is unique, after many years of helping couples in distress, I have noticed that some situations have a lot in common. The one I want to discuss here is when a couple decide to break up because they just don’t know what else to do.
Very often the couple feel that they have exhausted every possibility (and themselves) trying to patch things up; advice from family and friends didn’t work, shouting didn’t work, being silent didn’t work, being nice didn’t work, counselling didn’t work, nothing worked. In fact it just got worse until the sense of hopelessness took over and one partner or both partners gave up. Sometimes contempt sets in and then it really does feel finished.
I see many couples in that position. They get recommended to me as a mediator and they start off by telling me they have come to see a mediator because they want to break up. What’s amazing is that when I really dig deep I find that some couples don’t want to break up at all but they have no possible idea of how to stay together.
What’s even more amazing is that if a couple present as not being sure if they want to break up, a ‘family mediator’ who is only trained in mainstream family mediation is then supposed to send them off to counselling since family mediation training is all about break up, separation and divorce and has no components for reconciliation.
Luckily, I developed a model of mediation based on a communications process I developed called the Dialogue Road Map which has been tried and tested in difficult and violent situations so I have tools and a track record to help a couple find their way back to coupledom if that’s what they really want. It requires the partners to really examine themselves and to create a new framework for the relationship but for those that want to stay together, it’s a lot better than breaking up a family and a home and everything that goes with it.
So, having worked with several couples and helped them put their relationships back together even though they came to me asking for help with a break up, I decided to distil the elements and bottle it. So, we have created Rescue Your Relationship, a short course and private session for couples that want to try and make it work.
Our next dates are 8th and 9th November in London and I’m trying to let people know this possibility exists because we all know at least one family who could do with this type of help.
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