I think my boyfriend wants to leave but he won’t tell me why

Woman looking angry and worried

My boyfriend and I have been together for over a decade and have two children. I think he wants to leave, but I don’t know why. He has been off for a while and is often out, but whenever I talk to him he acts like he’s ok. He talks to me like normal, but he never asks how I am. He said he wants to try with our relationship, but I think he’s just waiting for the time to go and doesn’t want to try at all. Is counselling something that would help? I love him with all my heart and I don’t know what to do.

Ammanda says…

It sounds as if you’re feeling very confused right now about what’s what in your relationship. You say that in some respects things seem normal, but that he’s also going out a lot and I guess leaving you feeling alone with the kids and your worries. You say too that he’s been ‘off’ for a while and I’m assuming you mean you haven’t felt like you’re as close to one another recently. But the big question is whether or not he wants to leave. You say you don’t know why he might want to go, but that even when he tells you he wants to try to make things work, it’s clear you have big doubts about whether he means this.

So let’s step back a few paces and have a better look at what might be happening. It sounds like one of the biggest issues is that you feel he never asks how you’re feeling. Has that changed? With lots of relationships we often take it for granted that our other half is OK unless they actually tell us that something is wrong. I’m wondering if maybe you’ve stopped asking him how he’s feeling too. When we don’t communicate, feelings that could be expressed about all sorts of things can get stuck. That can lead to resentment and often anxiety because you feel like something is wrong, but no-one’s talking about it in a way that helps.

If you haven’t been clear with him about how concerned you are, now’s probably the time to start. But getting this conversation going right can be tricky. Sometimes when we’re worried about something, our anxieties get the better of us and we end up asking, accusing or even telling our partner how they feel and forget to concentrate on helping them to understand what we’re experiencing.

Perhaps you’ve always found it difficult to share thoughts and feelings with each other. Some couples just assume that, in the absence of any evidence to the contrary, everything’s OK. This often is fine until someone changes and needs more. Lots of things can make any of us feel vulnerable or that we need more support and affection than usual. For example, losing a parent, the kids getting to an age where it feels as if they’re a little more independent or maybe a job feeling like it’s not going well. And looking after kids, while lovely lots of the time, can also be exhausting and mean that we end up too tired to concentrate on being a couple. I don’t know if any of this sounds familiar to you, but to me it does feel as if you’re like ‘ships in the night’, just missing each other but close enough to realise that if things aren’t resolved, your relationship may be on a collision course.

I think counselling could help you both. For a start, you’d get the chance to talk openly about how you’re feeling. It strikes me that perhaps neither of you is really asking each other the right questions. Perhaps you’re worried that, if you do, the answers will be painful – it certainly sounds like you’re lonely and scared about what his behaviour towards you might mean. But even if this is the case, your counsellor will help each of you to look at what you each bring to the relationship and figure out together what might need to change.

But here’s the other advantage to counselling. Often when we’re really worried about something we start assuming that we ‘know’ what things mean. You say you think he’s just waiting for a time to go. But there may be lots of other reasons why he may have changed towards you. As I’ve said – perhaps it’s you who has changed and now needs something different from him. Counselling could help banish all those assumptions and missed opportunities to talk.

Get your courage in both hands and book an appointment. Whether he joins you or not, at least you may get some clarity about a way forward for yourself, and that’s rarely a bad thing in my experience.

Why do people cheat?

When someone’s cheated on by their partner, they’re often left asking: why?

How could someone they trusted and loved – and who they thought loved them back – betray them in such a shocking and hurtful way? There’s usually not only a sense of anger and upset, but also total disbelief.

The reasons people cheat are varied, but there are a number that crop up time and again in the counselling room. If you’re currently struggling to understand why this has happened to you, you may find it useful to think about some of the following.

Disconnection

One of the most common reasons for infidelity is the feeling that you and your partner have drifted apart. In this case, cheating can feel like a way of finding something new and exciting when your relationship has become predictable and familiar. A sense of disconnection from one’s partner can happen for a variety of reasons. There may be a lack of proper communication in the relationship (talking about specific issues or just generally keeping in touch about how you feel). Or life may have become dominated by work or looking after kids, so time together has become more functional than loving.

Feeling unloved

In counselling, we often use the term ‘love languages’ to describe how people express affection to one another. Some partners communicate more verbally by saying nice things, whereas others might prefer to express affection physically by cuddling or kissing. If your love language is different to your partners, that can leave you feeling unloved – and potentially more open to the affections of someone who seems to understand you better.

Imbalance

If there’s a lack of balance in a relationship, one partner can begin to feel a bit like a parent and the other like a child. For example, one partner may feel like they have to be the responsible one, making all the decisions, organising the home, managing the finances and so on, while their partner doesn’t pull their weight. An affair might then be tempting in order to feel appreciated and equal. Equally, the partner in the ‘child’ position may feel criticised and as if nothing they do seems to be enough, meaning an affair might feel like a way of reclaiming some sense of independence and authority.

Fear of commitment

Sometimes, affairs occur at times when you might assume people would be the most secure in their relationship, such as after getting engaged or when someone is pregnant. But worries over commitment can be very destabilising. Sometimes, people can sabotage what they have, consciously or unconsciously, as a way of rejecting feelings of responsibility.

Issues related to self-esteem

Affairs can also arise from personal insecurities. Low self-esteem can cause people to be very dependent on the attentions of others—and in some cases, the attention of just one person isn’t enough. It may also cause someone to feel insecure in their own relationship, so much so that they might cheat as a way of rejecting rather than being rejected.

Sexually addictive behaviour

Affairs can commonly be linked to problems with sexually addictive behaviours. This is where someone habitually engages in sexual activity as a way of satisfying desires and relieving negative feelings they find hard to control. These desires can be compulsive in the way that a drug or alcohol addiction might be. For some people, this can mean they end up engaging in affairs repeatedly or in multiple relationships. For more information on sex addiction, visit the NHS choices page.

So what now?

As hard as it might be to believe, an affair doesn’t have to mean the end of your relationship. If your partner truly regrets what has happened, is willing to end the affair and you’re both prepared to put the work into finding your way back, there’s no reason why you can’t save your relationship. Of course, many couples come to the conclusion that their relationship has run its course—with the affair being a symptom of what was wrong, rather than the cause.

Whatever the case, trying to examine the issues together is your best chance to make sense of things. The person who has cheated will need to take responsibility for their own their behaviour as wrong and not make excuses and—although it can be very difficult for the person who has been cheated on—both partners will need to acknowledge their responsibility for what was wrong with the relationship prior to this happening.

In terms of next steps, our article on what to do if your partner has had an affair also has lots of useful information. Beyond this, it’s likely you’ll need some form of help to process what’s happened. Relationship Counselling can help you talk about the affair and what caused it in a safe and confidential environment.

Your counsellor won’t take sides – they’ll just listen and help you to make sense of what made your relationship vulnerable to an affair and fully explore your feelings and the impact of the affair.

I feel insecure in my relationship

Feeling insecure in your relationship can be really painful and upsetting. It can manifest itself in all kinds of ways. You might feel like your partner is about to break up with you all the time. You might have trouble trusting them to not cheat on you. Or you may feel like your connection has been getting weaker and weaker for a while, and that the foundations are beginning to fall away.

Feeling like this can make it really difficult to have much faith in your future together – and can sometimes leave you wondering whether the easiest solution would be to break up. It can also begin to have really negative effects in other areas of your life. Your self-esteem and confidence can become undermined and this can make it difficult to feel able to address any problems.

Where does insecurity come from?

A sense of insecurity in your relationship can stem from a number of different places.

If you and your partner haven’t been communicating effectively about issues or making an effort to maintain your connection, you might start to feel like you’re drifting apart.

Insecurity can also stem from changes in your relationship. For instance, if you’ve moved in together or recently married, you may be feeling all kinds of new strains and pressures. If you aren’t able to discuss these together, you can start to feel less confident in your ability to work as a team.

It can also come from issues surrounding self-image or self-esteem. For example, if you’re feeling particularly low after a series of disappointments in your work life or less happy with your physical appearance after putting on weight, this could make you worry about your relationship.

We can sometimes carry feelings from past relationships into our current one – including ones with family members. If we didn’t have very secure or loving relationships with our parents or primary caregivers when we were younger, we might carry this feeling with us as adults. Past romantic relationships where your trust was broken can make it difficult to trust someone else. You may find yourself looking for ‘patterns’ or assuming that history is going to repeat.

What can you do to address insecurity?

The first port of call is talking things over together. This, of course, can be tricky – particularly if you haven’t been talking properly for a while or you feel hurt or angry with your partner.

However, if you do feel able, you may find the following tips useful:

  • Keep things relaxed. Hearing the words ‘we need to talk’ can make even the most laid back person feel defensive! Framing things more positively can get things off to a better start. You might like to try something like ‘I’d really like to talk about our relationship together when you have a chance’.
  • Pick the right moment. Try to talk when things are going well, not badly. Bringing things up in the middle of an argument is only likely to create more conflict. If you introduce the topic when you’re both feeling good about the relationship, you’re more likely to move in a positive direction.
  • Say how you feel, not how you think they make you feel. If you’re both simply trading blows and blaming each other for everything, you’re not likely to get anywhere. To keep things under control, it can useful to use ‘I’ phrases (‘I sometimes feel worried that…’) rather than ‘you’ phrases (‘you always make me feel worried because…’).
  • Listen. Even if what your partner has to say is difficult to hear, try to stick with it. A conversation has to go both ways for it to work. Try to start by acknowledging their perspective may be different to yours.
  • You could even plan. It might sound a little clinical, but it can be useful to think beforehand about what you want to say. That doesn’t mean preparing a shopping list of grievances, but just gathering your thoughts on what you want to talk about.
  • Come back to it. These things are rarely solved in one chat. It takes time and effort to work on relationship issues, so you may need to revisit things in a month to see how you’re each getting on. After a while, this kind of conversation will seem much less scary!

How we can help

  • If you feel like trying any of the above would do more harm than good, you might like to consider Relationship Counselling. A counsellor would take an objective view and help you both talk about things that you might find it difficult to express.

I’m bored with my relationship

When you start a new relationship, everything can be exciting. Those early flickers of attraction, feeling butterflies, your first kiss… it can be a rollercoaster of emotion.

But after you’ve been together for a while, things tend to level off a bit. The fizz and pop are replaced by a sense of partnership and familiarity. As the routines of life, work and living together begin to settle, your relationship might start to feel a bit more predictable.

And while there’s nothing wrong with not always feeling like you did at the start – after all, falling in love is only the beginning of building a long-term committed relationship – if being settled also means starting to feel bored, you might soon start to wonder whether there’s anything more interesting out there. You may even start to question if you and your partner were ever that compatible in the first place.

But looking for solutions elsewhere is rarely the best place to start. It’s much better to begin by thinking about what’s happening in the here and now.

Keep talking

Boredom can be linked to bad habits when it comes to communication and maintaining your connection as a couple.

If you aren’t regularly talking openly and honestly about the things you like and don’t like about your relationship, or one or both of you are preoccupied with your own concerns and perhaps aren’t as emotionally or physically available as you could be, it’s easy to start to feel a little disconnected from your partner.

Try to express gratitude for the things your partner does that you like. Let them know you’ve noticed if they’ve made an effort and pay them compliments from time to time. These frequent positive interactions are important when it comes to feeling like you’re on the same team.

Likewise, don’t allow negative feelings to fester. If there’s something that’s bothering you, try to talk about it at an early opportunity – before resentment start to build up. If you’re feeling tense about your relationship, it can make you forget what it is you like about being with your partner.

Build in the positive beats

As counsellors, we often think of a relationship where one or both partners are bored as like a heart monitor that’s almost flatlining. You might get the occasional blip of activity, but for the most part there’s not a lot going on. For a relationship to be vital and interesting, you need to put in the effort to build in those positive beats.

This could be something as simple as a day or evening out together. You could try an activity together that you haven’t done before or just spend a few hours of quality time in each other’s company. It doesn’t have to involve spending money: you could just stay in bed on a Sunday reading the papers together. It’s about giving yourselves something to look forward to and taking the time to bond without interruptions (and that includes TV and phones!).

Likewise, boredom can be related to problems when it comes to sex. If you find you’re always doing the same things, you might like to try something new together.

Dealing with change

Sometimes, boredom can also be linked to difficulties or changes outside of your relationship. If you’re struggling financially, you might find that the only conversations you’re having with your partner are ones about money – and fraught ones at that. If you’re working all the time, you may be feeling tired and frustrated.

Or if your role in the family has changed – you’re at home all day looking after the kids, for instance – you might feel like you’re losing your sense of place in the relationship. Think about any external factors that could be causing tensions – and whether these could be at the root of how you’re feeling.

How we can help

If you’re finding it hard to talk about any tricky issues, Relationship Counselling offers a safe and confidential space where you can be open and honest.

We’ve just had a baby and we’re arguing all the time

Having a new baby can be such an exciting event. But it can also mean a whole host of new pressures on your and your partner’s relationship.

Establishing a feeding regime, changing nappies, adjusting to interrupted sleep patterns… New babies can be demanding as well as adorable, and in those first few months even the best prepared couples often find themselves feeling drained and over stretched. It’s not surprising that many find themselves arguing a lot more.

While this can be frustrating and worrying, especially if you’d assumed that the baby was going to bring you closer together, it’s perfectly normal for you to take time to adjust to your growing family. Conflict can be a natural part of adapting to change.

How do we argue less?

If you’re finding things difficult, you might like to think about the following:

  • Try to have realistic expectations of each other. Trust that you’re both doing the best you can under the circumstances and be aware of how your partner’s physical state and emotions might be affecting them. This will help prevent you taking petty squabbles too seriously and make you more likely to want to say sorry if you have been arguing
  • Work out how you can both get enough sleep. It could be that you could take it in turns to soothe the baby at night or that you rest together during the day while your baby naps
  • Try to maintain intimacy together. If you’re not too tired, you might like to use time when the baby is sleeping to re-establish your connection. It doesn’t have to be anything really active – it could mean cuddling on the sofa, rubbing each other’s shoulders, having a hot drink together or running a warm bath. When you feel relaxed, you’re more likely to start talking, sharing feelings and reconnecting as a couple
  • Make lists together. Being clear about what groceries are needed and which tasks have to be done helps prevent miscommunication. Highlight the priorities and tick items off as you go – it might also feel good to decide that certain things aren’t absolutely essential
  • Agree to manage visitors to reduce pressure on yourselves. If this means asking them to wait for an invitation or come a little later than planned, so be it. Don’t be afraid to explain that you’ve had a difficult night or that it’s taking a while for your baby to settle
  • Ask for help when people do come over. Perhaps they could grab some shopping on the way or pop out with the dog when they arrive. Those who really care will be happy to help and won’t mind taking out a few bin bags or hanging up the washing when they visit. Close family members might jump at the chance to change or bathe the baby while you both put your feet up
  • Talk to your midwife/health visitor. They will offer reassurance and have tips up their sleeves to help you through the first weeks of parenthood. They also understand the signs of more serious issues like postnatal depression and will refer you to your GP if you need further help
  • Understand that this time will pass! Babies don’t stay tiny forever and, like most children, yours will start to sleep through the night. The intensity of looking after a baby will ease and you’ll soon be able to look back proudly at how you managed to get through it as a team

My partner hit me… I’m devastated

Ask Ammanda Domestic Abuse

After 15 years with the love of my life, things have imploded. I believe my partner is either a functioning alcoholic or alcohol dependent, and things have been getting worse since her children left home for university. Two weeks ago for no reason during a row she hit me. I’m in my fifties, I have never been violent and am devastated by what has happened. We live in a house which is in my partner’s name so now I’m temporarily with my daughter and her husband so this is far from ideal.

Ammanda says…

The shock of being physically abused by someone we love and who we thought (or hoped) loved us back is devastating. Let’s not make any bones about this: what has happened to you is wrong. Any domestic abuse in any relationship is not OK and of course, it’s not just about the physical stuff either. Emotional, sexual and financial abuse all come under this heading.

From your letter it sounds like your relationship had been under considerable strain for a while. Stresses like children leaving home often result in relationships going through a difficult time because when children move on issues that have been previously ‘managed’ can suddenly get put under the spotlight.

You’ve also mentioned that your partner may have a relationship with alcohol. I don’t know if this is a point you both agree on or whether it’s been something that bothers you but you haven’t spoken about together. Perhaps you’ve found yourself in the role of making things ‘ok’ for her – something that often happens in in adult relationships (and in families too) where one person is drinking a lot. Depending on individual circumstances, this can mean literally mopping up the faeces and vomit, buying alcohol for a partner and lying for them to quietly feeling worried about the extra glass/can or bottle that seems to be making a more regular appearance.

Alcohol causes major problems for lots of people and is often present when domestic abuse happens. It’s not surprising that we’re currently devoting a whole week nationally to alcohol awareness and the risks of drinking. It’s not unusual for a partner to blame the alcohol for their abusive behaviour either but this really doesn’t wash and should never be accepted as justification.

I don’t know if you’ve had any discussion about what’s happened. Maybe you’ve tried to talk together, maybe she’s sorry for what happened or maybe (and very understandably) you’re too scared about getting into any sort of conversation with her in case the same thing happens again. I’m guessing you’ve gone to your daughter partly due to this worry and also to give yourself time to sort out in your own head what you want to do now.

I can completely understand how upset you are with what’s happened and how the ‘pull’ towards hoping it’s a one off (if it was) may be feeling very powerful. But this is not the answer. All relationships are complicated and the first port of call for making important changes is to sort out ‘what belongs to who’ emotionally. Sometimes Relationship Counselling can help with this as you can both explore what you each contribute to your relationship, what’s helpful and not helpful and find ways of dealing with problems differently.

Whether or not you access professional support, making changes often means accepting responsibility for certain types of behaviour. Domestic abuse and misuse of alcohol are definitely issues your partner will need to address for herself. You didn’t cause them and only your partner can address them. This is often a very tricky point for the non-drinking or non-abusive partner to take on board: sometimes it’s easier to accept the responsibility for our partner’s behaviour – especially if they aren’t inclined to work on resolving the issue for themselves.

I’m afraid there’s no easy answer to your problem. But what is good is you’re asking for help at a very difficult point in your life. There are a number of things you might want to consider doing from here. Firstly, recognize that it’s your partner who must address any alcohol related issues. Secondly, make contact with the CAB about your living arrangements. They will be able to advise you about any rights you may have regarding housing. Thirdly, think of being with your daughter as the safest way of protecting yourself at the moment. At one level, you may be feeling desperate to be with your partner, especially when from your letter, you’ve clearly had many good years, but things have taken a serious turn now. I’ve worked with many couples where alcohol misuse and/or domestic violence have been experienced by one or both of them. Sometimes, couples are able to recover from the legacy that both issues bring but usually not until each of them has received appropriate support and help.

Why The Family Test should be at the heart of government policy

Tomorrow Caroline Ansell MP will put forward a bill for debate in the House of Commons that calls for the government departments to give greater consideration to the impact of their policies on family life.

Her Private Members Bill calls for the Government to extend and embed its use of the Family Test during policy making processes to identify the impact policies have on families. The Bill:

  • Requires the Test to become a compulsory step in the policy-making process
  • Asks for a report on the costs and benefits of spreading the Test to the local level
  • Calls for objectives and indicators to be established to measure the Government’s wider progress in promoting family stability.

What is the Family Test?

The Family Test is a tool the government uses to assess how a policy proposal will impact on family life. Introduced in 2014, the aim of the Test is to introduce an explicit family perspective to the process of making policy.

This is not a ‘pass or fail’ test. By highlighting the range of impacts that policies have on families early on, the Test will allow government departments time to identify and take action to mitigate the impact of policies that could undermine family relationships. The test itself is comprised of 5 questions, which Relate was involved in developing.

This is a really useful tool that has the potential to achieve focus across government departments on the stability and quality of family relationships. However, to achieve this it needs to be implemented meaningfully, consistently, early on in the development of policies and in ways which are accessible and open to scrutiny. If we don’t know how the test is being used, how can we tell if it’s making a difference?

What is a Private Members Bill?

A Private Members Bill is a proposal for legislation that has been put forward by an MP or a Lord who is not a government minister. They rarely become law as it is hard to get sufficient time for them to be debated, but they provide an opportunity for an MP to raise an issue that is close to their heart.

Previous Private Members Bills have ranged from serious issues like banning smoking in the car where a child is present to and more unusual issues like moving the UK time zone forward an hour. Some raise controversial subjects like when Conservative (and later UKIP) MP Douglas Carswell introduced a bill to leave the European Union and the debate was dubbed ‘historic’ for the raising the question in the House of Commons.

When Caroline Ansell was chosen in the ballot to put forward a Private Members Bill she decided to use the opportunity to celebrate the introduction of the Family Test and to call for it to be used more effectively and extensively by government.

Friday’s debate

Caroline Ansell’s Private Members Bill aims to put the Family Test on a clear statutory footing, making its use compulsory. The Assessment of Government Policies (Impact on the Families) Bill, to give it its full name, also requires the Secretary of State to establish objectives to improve family stability and ways of measuring progress, and to report on the costs and benefits of applying the Family Test at a local level.

In a time of increased devolution and localism, applying the Test solely at a national level is out of touch with how the decisions that affect families are made. By applying the Test to local as well as national policies we can ensure that more is being done to support families across the country. By making the Test compulsory we ensure that government continues to consider the impact of policy on families even if it stops being politically popular to do so. These are real opportunities to increase the impact the Family Test has and ensure that government policies have family at their heart.

Although it unlikely that there will be time for a long debate tomorrow, we are really pleased to have the opportunity to raise awareness of the Family Test and are hopeful that the Bill will get through to the next stage in the long (and winding) road to becoming law. The Bill sets out the case for transparent and consistent use of the Test, taking us a step closer to ensuring that all policy makers carefully consider the impact their policy will have on families.