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IT CONTINUES TO baffle me why people who hardly know each other go ahead and marry each other, hoping it will all work out.
Similarly, some of those who choose to cohabit somehow can convince themselves that, because they have not tied the knot officially, they are somehow immune to the travails of intimate relationships.
The decision to live together, married or not, is a serious one. Even more serious are the breakdown of the family unit and the impact of that breakdown for the adults and children. The latest census reveals that there are 629,116 family units in Ireland. However, 22.4% of that number is lone parent families with children under 20. Not all lone parents are alone because of a relationship breakdown but I would suspect, based on our client base, many are.
Sleepwalking into intimate relationships
The fact of the matter is that many of us sleepwalk into intimate relationships. A lot of us believe that we have that special relationship and we feel that the statistics don’t and won’t apply to us. However, it can affect all us at some point across our relationship.
For example the ‘dual career commuter family’ syndrome is causing huge strain. The time lost from family life just to get to and from work is fracturing many lives. For a lot of us commuting to and from work is debilitating, mentally and physically. When I work with couples in therapy, I reinforce that there are 168 hours in the week.
We then work out where those 168 hours go; work, commuting, household duties etc, I would say 100% of the couples are shocked at the real lack of time they have left for each other.
Money, sex and children
In my experience there are three main issues that arise prior to couples getting married; money, sex and children.
Our attitude to financial matters and how we handle this touchy subject can cause massive problems within our relationship. Who is going to control the level of spending? Are you a saver or a spender? Will you have separate bank accounts or a joint bank account? There is no one right answer and you must talk about what you are going to do.
Many couples will see having a joint account as proof of their trust in each other. You will be aghast when I say they will both want to check on what the other is spending, but that can happen when the money gets tight, hence the saying; ‘When money gets tight love flies out the window’. Getting married is about commitment but more importantly it is about trust. Lose that trust and you lose everything, so financial issues lie at the centre of a couple’s life. By tackling these issues ‘head on’ and being open and transparent we will avoid problems later on.
We need to get over our shyness
Every person is a sexual being. Our attitudes to sex can determine to a large extent whether our relationship will succeed or not. There are almost as many attitudes to sex as there are stars in the sky. Couples prior to marriage generally have a good sexual relationship. If they do not have a good sexual relationship, they think that getting married will improve matters; it will not.
This is why we need to get over our shyness and talk this issue out as soon as possible which is still not easy for most couples. We may not be sexually compatible. One may have a higher sex drive than the other. If that is so, what is the couple going to do about that? It won’t go away. When – not if – there are financial problems along the way and communication breaks down this could impact on the intimate relationship of the couple. The ‘sex issue’ for some reason is hardly ever discussed in any great detail. It seems to come way down the list of priorities when planning the future.
Preparing for marriage is about preparing for change
The other question is ‘Why do you want children’? More importantly where are you going to get the money to bring them up? How will you parent? What style of parenting will you use? Will it be based on your parent’s style or different? We have here two people brought up in two different ways, with two different histories and trying to merge those two styles together in a seamless fashion.
Couples answer these questions in a general way, assuming all will go along nicely as they love each other and they are nice responsible people. Maybe they are but preparing for marriage is about preparing for change. The more flexible the couple the better chances of success. Raising children is expensive, exhausting and increasingly difficult. To keep bringing in the money we need work, and that is in short supply – especially well-paid work. Couples must tackle this issue about ‘starting a family’ now. If one or both of them lost their jobs are they prepared to emigrate?
Unfortunately most of us now are running to stand still. When we look round we think that everybody else is doing ‘it’ better than we are. They are not! They are struggling just like us. With all the pressures we face it inevitably affects our intimate relationships. Too often, a bit like our health, if we seem OK we don’t take much notice of these issues. It is only when problems occur that we panic and want someone to fix things quickly.
Gaining any tools to help you on your relationship journey like a marriage preparation course will come in useful at some point. Failing to prepare is preparing to fail. Don’t do that – prepare to succeed.
Tony Moore is a counsellor for Relationships Ireland. Relationships Ireland is a not-for-profit organisation that offers confidential relationship counselling. It also offer 1-on-1 Marriage Preparation Courses. For more information or to book a consultation you can contact 1890 380 380, email info@relationshipsireland.com or visit www.relationshipsireland.com.
Split the €5.4m and give them 9k each. That would get them through a decent college course instead of whatever poxy fas type scheme they’re proposing
train them for what?? where are the jobs?? will end sending most money back same happened when Dell culled their workforce most money unused.
Am I missing something?
Retrain for what?
how to speak a different language when they have to immigrate
Damn you evil Europe. How dare you fund the retraining of our unemployed?!? Patently a scheme related in some way to bond holders
As for Sinn Fein welcoming it….there should be an An Phoblacht version of the Collins dictionary produced. Their definition of irony would be interesting.
Speaking of call centres I see there are 3 people on the Sinn Fein Journal monitoring post tonight…
Go to bed and stop worrying about SF.
The journal is covered in Sinners and lefties.
Going on these pricey gimmicky training courses is a waste of time right now…i have to go on them all the time with work…courses for motivation..teamleader..problem solving..lean..technical report writing…i have a folder full of lovely certs…all a heap of crap…divide the cash up and hand out to the ex employees…it puts much needed cash into the local economy…job done.
Now we know why you’re only worth two cents
Pathetic Paul…The term ‘My Two Cents’ refers to the analogy of I have an idea that I’ll throw in for discussion…
Ahhhhh, that’s what it means. You know, I would have never figured that one out. Thanks for clearing it up.
Your ‘no sense’ approach to developing yourself still makes you only worth two cents. Surprise you still have a job with that attitude.
invest the money in job creation, no point in being highly trained and being bone idle.
I love them words invest in ‘Job Creation’ no point lads…no one is spending!!
Basically it works like this.
A talk talk workers gets on some over priced course.
Waste of money.
I think ‘retrain’ are for those with no degrees or decent education. I think a lot of people were working there for years and that’s all they know and were trained for in life.
Shame in them. No excuse for laziness and lack of ambition.
Why I does every comment on here have to be so negative? I’d love to hear from some of the people affected and what they think.
There has hardly been a job announcement in this city since it closed over a year ago and that’s not an exaggeration. Where are these jobs going to come from.
I do see that cork is to get a new European head quarters for some US company and 30 more jobs being created in Galway.
What are they going to do train them to leave Waterford. No point in training people if there are no jobs for them. We were promised all the help we needed when talk talk closed but as seen from this article we most certainly are not getting it with an unemployment rate 4% higher then the national average.
Also the generalisation. Of the talk talk workers not being educated is disgraceful I happen to know plenty of people who worked there who had third level education unfortunately there was no work in the areas they had studied.
Whether someone goes to college or not shouldn’t matter. Some jobs do not require you to have a degree and a lot of companies offer great training programmes to their employees.
As one of the ex-TalkTalk workers, its incredible to see how many negative and pessimistic comments there are on here from the Irish public.
it’s good to talk talk
Great to see that the Irish public are as pessimistic as ever. This funding scheme has already been of great help to myself and many of my former colleagues at TalkTalk. It provides funding for both education and enterprise, in an area of the country which has suffered more from job losses and unemployment than anywhere else in the country. Some people that have commented here (Paul Lanigan in particular) would want to grow up.
That should pay for a few Safe Pass courses…
As an ex-Talk Talk worker, I’m making good use of the funding and so are a lot of other people I know. And no, it’s not on useless overpriced courses. Most of us have the cop on to use this opportunity for valuable and relevant training. It is OUR own lives after all so why wouldn’t we make the most we can of it?
I got my degree while working at Talk Talk by the way so I wouldn’t say I’m lazy or unambitious – I am so surprised at people’s reaction to this news.
As another former Talk Talk employee, I agree that some of the comments here beyond stupid, seriously people.
There should be more money spent in Waterford, helping to create jobs, get people back to work, bringing new businesses, retraining local workers and help people set up there own businesses. Education and Innovation are proven to be two of the biggest factors in getting an economy back on track and there has been very little investment in Waterford aimed at job creation in comparison to the rest of the country, its an absolute disgrace. Waterford is becoming a black hole for unemployment and if the Government don’t sort something out now will become a very costly exercise into the future.
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