Relationship advice is probably one of the fastest growing trends of our social communities today. It seems like we are forever encountering all sorts of problems in our relationships, due at least partly to the hectic and stressful lifestyles we live.

So before I get into details about specific relationship problems and their solutions, I’d thought I’d quickly cover some background to how our relationships are structured today, with the intention that a little background knowledge can make a lot of difference in resolving conflicts.

Couple relationships today

Couple relationships today are in a state of flux, with an increasing divorce rate and an increase in both single-parent families and blended families, and it is not at all clear how the situation will change over time. I do believe, however, that there will always be a need for couple relationships, because they provide stability and comfort for those who are involved in them, and they are the best way we know of providing a secure setting for raising children.

The wide variety of relationships

The variety of relationships today is much wider than would have been thought acceptable 50 years ago. Today we see married couples, couples living together and often having children without being married, and also couples who have a steady sexual relationship but choose not to live together.

With the increasing divorce rate comes a large number of people who get married but then change their partners through divorce (some people call this serial monogamy). As a result of this, and because many women have also decided to have children without living with the father, many children now live in one-parent households. Blended families, where there is a step-parent sharing the care of the partner’s children, are also very common.

Same-sex relationships

Gay and lesbian relationships are now respected in a way that would have been impossible in the past. They are no longer against the law in most of Europe, and are also legal in many states of the USA. There is also the occurrence of same-sex marriages, and it is now also more common for same-sex couples to bring up children. In this context I should say that, although most of the case examples on this site are of heterosexual couples, and the exercises and cases are orientated to this type of relationship, I hope that it may be relevant to same-sex couples as well, in that the kinds of problems encountered by them are basically very similar to those encountered by heterosexual couples, and may be susceptible to similar solutions.

The pressures on couple relationships

The rising divorce rate

The pressures on marital and long-term cohabiting relationships have greatly increased in recent times. In fact, the number of couples getting married, including second marriages, has been decreasing year on year since 1996, while the number of divorces continues to increase (it involved 39% of married couples in 1996 and is now approaching 50%). It has become much easier to obtain a divorce, and the greater economic independence of women has made it easier for them to continue their lives as single parents after the breakup of their marriage or cohabitation.