Family relationships, friendships and intimate relationships with a partner can be a great source of love, pleasure, support and excitement. However, they can also be a source of grief and anguish if they go wrong. The issue is made more relevant for students by the fact that most people in a university are in a period of personal change, which can make them feel less sure of what they want or how they can expect others to react.
Relationship problems often arise not because we never learned what to do, but because we have lost touch with this instinctive good sense and become over-anxious about our relationships. This may be because we have lost our own self-respect and sense of our personal worth; it may be because we are in personal distress and so putting too much pressure on our relationships; it may be because we have had unfortunate experiences in past relationships and so have temporarily lost our ability to trust.
We may have been out of touch with our ability to make successful relationships for so long that we may doubt if we ever had it. However, most people seem able to recover these skills if they put their mind to it. Much work on improving a relationship can start with the individual. If one person is clear and reasoned about what they want and more consistent about how they ask for it, the whole relationship can begin to be put on a different basis.
Relate offers advice, relationship counselling, sex therapy, workshops, mediation, consultations and support face-to-face, by phone and through its website.
Rights of Women helps women through the law by providing free confidential legal advice on issues including domestic violence and abuse, divorce and civil partnership dissolution and issues relating to children.
Tavistock Centre for Couples Relationships provices Affordable Counselling & Psychotherapy Services For Couples.