It seems an unlikely statistic but counselling services report that they are most busy with requests for help  from couples early in January. 

We think there are probably 3 reasons:

• First reason: Every one was looking forward to Christmas - hopes were high. It was going to be so good having the family together. This would be the best yet. My Mum and Dad are staying over.... It’s the first time we’ve cooked the Christmas dinner.....The children are so excited..... we got them what they asked for and can’t wait to see their faces when they open their presents! Etc Etc. But perhaps it didn’t quite work out the way we imagined! Perhaps some things were a disappointment? Perhaps we ended up blaming each other and having a row! It’s part of life when our expectations, hopes and dreams come tumbling down. But don’t underestimate disappointment! It can really get under our skin and sometimes the person who gets the brunt of our hurt and anger is our partner!

• Second reason: Perhaps it all went brilliantly but someone overspent and now we are worried about the bills and blaming each other! This is a very common problem. Sometimes we get carried away with Christmas and other expenses can get overlooked. It’s terribly easy to blame the other person 'You always.......!' 'You never.....!'

• Third reason: Underlying strains in a relationship come to a head when we have more time. Over the holiday period having more time together can lead to us raising issues that we have shelved while we have been busy with work. Now that we have raised the issues, we are struggling to work them through. This problem looks worst of all,  yet it is probably really positive. All couples have issues that need sorting BUT we are so busy! There is never a good time to discuss it sensibly and so we put it off till later. Or we don’t want to “rock the boat”. We know our partner might get angry so we avoid the issue in the hope that it will just go away by itself. Actually the fact that we have argued can be  healthy. It’s a  very clear sign that we need to discuss and understand each other’s point of view.

Family Matters York helps couples to work through issues and build stronger relationships. We do not offer counselling but concentrate on practical solutions and effective communication tools.

 

Contact us for more information about how we can help.
www.fmy.org.uk or phone 01904 639767
 

Parenting courses translated for Farsi families.

I have been running a four-session course in Leeds this month for a Farsi-speaking church. Using an interpreter is very interesting, and it is a real challenge to use short sentences and to make things clear enough to interpret across language and culture. However, one of the things this experience has shown me is that the principles we are sharing in running parenting courses are true irrespective of language and culture.

Of course, there will always be differences in the way we work things out in practice.  This would be true of any group of families as all families are different and have their own ways of doing things, but the important principles of spending time with our children, catching them out doing the right thing (or not doing the wrong thing), saying positive things to them which raise their self-esteem and setting and keeping reasonable boundaries hold true for all families in all cultures!

It has been a delight to see the difference the course is making in the lives of the families attending. 

Over the holiday I read an autobiography by Sidney Poitier.   Although he went on to star in a number of film classics – such as “In the Heat of the Night” and “Guess Who is Coming to Dinner” – he had a very humble beginnings.   

He was brought up on Cat Island, close to the Bahamas, his mother and father tomato farmers; no running water, no electricity.   Money was always tight , often not enough money for even a single candle for a night light.  Somehow they survived.  All the family helping to fetch water to drink and fuel to cook by.  

Although they were money poor they were somehow family rich.   As I reflected on what Sidney Poitier had shared – it led me to think that in our advancing economies we were losing some of the enduring value of family.  

Rather than enduring relationships we are treated as short term consumers; valued not by who we are  but worth defined by what we have.    In this world of never enough  we lose the one commodity that is always just  24 hours in a day, 7 days a week – that precious commodity of time.  Time that we can spend with each other.   

Relationships are never easy,  and Sidney Poitier bravely reveals this in his autobiography.    To endure every relationship needs time.  Time to listen, time to hear of people’s hopes and fears, time to be there during the inevitable traumas we face in life. 

We also need time to celebrate.  Time to share in those humorous moments of life and see character lines form – revealing the enduring value of wisdom and experience.  Time in which we develop commitment, loyalty and respect even for those we disagree with,  qualities we see less of in our society.  Qualities we see less of in the way we are treated in our economy - spilling over in the way we are – perhaps less committed to our  neighbours, work colleagues or friends. 

Yet wasn’t it good to see these qualities spilling over as people came together in the aftermath of the looting and vandalism.  An enduring spirit of hope that lies dormant in all of us to give our time – to be there when it is messy – as well as when it is good.   Hope that we can all become time rich.  Hope, as we give time in this way, that all of us, all those around us – even our communities and nation - would be that much richer too.  

Putting things off.

Working as I do at FMY for just 1 day per week I find that I have to be quite focussed on what I aim to achieve on the day I’m in the office.  Sadly I don’t always manage to achieve what I set out to do! We often set out with good intentions but for whatever reason don’t always manage to achieve them so we put them off!  Is this a familiar picture? 

Coming into the office after a week’s absence it’s important to me to have a quick catch up with my colleagues Emily and Philippa about what has transpired during my absence!  There’s always something going on at FMY!  This keeps me up to speed with developments and keeps me in the loop. 

I usually have quite a few emails to deal with so I like to get those out of the way as quickly as possible, with these two tasks completed, the ‘focus’ of my day could be anything from salaries, invoices, donations, dealing with insurances, liaising with our accountant etc etc.  However, as my colleagues will testify, my ‘focus’ over the last few months has been to send our ‘gift aid’ claim to the Inland Revenue.                                                      

Every week, for what seems forever no doubt to my long suffering colleagues, I’ve been saying “I must do the gift aid’ form today.  Well a week ago I came in to the office with a new determination to complete the aforesaid form – well hurrah, fly the flags – I’ve actually done it!!  And do you know what?  It wasn’t nearly as onerous as I thought it was going to be!  Emily on hearing of this ‘feat’ cried “thank goodness” you’ve been talking about it for the last 5 years!   A slight exaggeration but I take her point!

Another ‘focus’ faced and conquered!   Mmmm... wonder what the next one will be?  

By Marie Platts, Office Manager and Charity Administrator

As the couple worker for FMY, my work is very varied and interesting. Some weeks are hectic; others leisurely in comparison.  Last week was a hectic one...
Monday: a visit to London on Monday working with When2Pray: a group who send out weekly e-prayers from the W2P web site to encourage Christian couples to keep on praying together. We were planning our contribution for National Marriage Week 2012 (February- look out for links on our website nearer the time).
Tuesday: FMY had a very significant partnership meeting with agencies around the city for our new course Building Family Bridges. Philippa, our development manager, successfully secured lottery funding to train 12 facilitators and run 3 pilot courses. Tuesdays’ meeting generated a lot of interest and anticipation. Simon Pellew inspired us with the facts, figures and research behind the new course and it was my responsibility to deliver a couple of sessions to illustrate the course content. (Simon is C.E.O for Time for Families: the charity who both designed and who deliver the course in many prisons across the UK and have now adapted it for community delivery.)
Watch our web site for more news about this new course.
Wednesday: - I had chance to catch my breath and follow up enquiries on the web site for  couples in crisis.
Thursday: Travelled to Lowdham Grange prison (Nottingham) to deliver day 4 of the Building Stronger Families Course for Time for Families. (I work as a trainer for them alongside my husband Rob who works full time as their Regional Manager in North Yorkshire). There were 7 couples, some partners had travelled 3 hours to get there and they will complete 6 full days by the end of the course - that’s real commitment!
Friday: Travelled to Durham to deliver the same course at Durham prison for 6 couples.
Saturday: Family Matters York helped deliver 'Walking in Another’s Shoes'- a day conference in partnership with St Michael le Belfry Church: This was a relationship skills day designed to cover all aspects of relationships whether in work, between friends or in the wider family. I was delivering 3 workshops and other FMY colleagues were delivering another 3 to contribute to about 12 different workshops delivered throughout the day. A resources pack was made available to enable people to use the content of sessions and use them in other contexts.
Sunday: FamilyTime: a family lunch with both grandchildren and great grandma in attendance. Great fun was had with a step ladder in the afternoon harvesting the apple tree in the garden after lunch- a bumper crop.
Family is important to us all and the fun moments with our own family are treasured.