For some couples, like Emily and her husband, there is no way back. With the help of mediation and counselling services, however, the negative effects of family breakdown can be lessened.

When their parents' marriage breaks up, children are forced to let go of a dream. When Emily, a mother of three children under 10, saw a separation counsellor marking those words up on a board during a counselling course, the reality of her own marriage break-up hit her.

Depending on their age at the time of a parental split, children may feel insecure and start to question their own grasp on reality. Behaviour problems, illness and school difficulties may also ensue as children see their world fall apart.

While it may seem a contradictory statement, in any marriage break-up the children have to come first. Most of the time, unfortunately, the children are left floundering in the wreckage. But this is not inevitable.

The Marriage and Relationships Counselling Service has come up with what it believes is the solution: separation counselling for parents before the actual separation. That's what Emily did and the result is that her separation is "amicable" rather than embattled, but no less painful. The children are being spared rows, court battles over access and the money worries of having the wolf at the door. They will still suffer, but not as much as if their mother hadn't taken the course.

The MRCS course is also suitable for parents to undertake while the split is being negotiated. It can prevent both partners becoming enmeshed in bitter power struggles played out through the courts.

Even when one partner is determined to punish the other through lawyers, the partner who wants a more amicable route can still influence the process for the better by taking the course, says Claire Missen of MRCS.

Much international research shows that it's not the break-up itself that harms children emotionally, so much as the rows and power struggles that occur during the break-up.

Last weekend, I sat down for a chat with Emily, who still lives with her husband and children in a family unit. With the help of her family, Emily has bought out her husband's share of the family home, her husband has recently purchased an apartment and the couple share time with the children - all without lawyers and their fees. Emily has been organising the pots, cutlery, sheets and furniture for her husband's apartment so that the children will feel secure and comfortable in their dad's new home when they stay there.

When Emily and her husband realised that they could not live together any more with any degree of contentment, they sensibly went to marriage counselling to try and solve the problems. They spent 10 months in counselling, on a weekly basis, yet the essential problem in their marriage could not be solved. Emily felt that she took responsibility for everything. She was miserable, while her husband couldn't see what the problem was.

Emily's husband has his own point of view, so we're not making any judgments here. The bottom line was that, for a few years, the couple have had separate bedrooms, separate social lives and the father has a new relationship.

"I don't want my children to see me living a lie," says Emily. "In the future, they will model their own relationships on that of their parents. I cannot let them believe that what their parents have is normal."

Instead of negotiating through lawyers, the couple went to the Family Mediation Service, who in turn recommended separation counselling with the MRCS.

The couple have all the fodder for heated battles if they were that way inclined: Emily's husband is seeing another woman, they have had to negotiate their property arrangements and they have had to learn to get along while seeing each other daily in their co-parenting role. Through it all, the couple kept up an illusion of normality so convincing that the children, and most of their friends, have to yet to be informed of the coming legal separation. While the children sense what's coming, the couple's friends will probably be shocked.

"It would be much easier for people to understand if it was clear-cut - if he was beating me, or drinking or if I was having an affair. The fact is we're good friends and we get along on that level... I don't want any bitterness," says Emily.

MRCS run separation workshops on a regular basis. Booking is heavy, so the next available courses will take place in the spring. For information call (01) 6785195