The chronic malaise of marriage, in the experience of those at the MRCS, is that partners too often feel misunderstood. The bickering sessions, minor explosions and ruthless comments are all based on one thing: an inability to communicate. Men and women are different. Very. Which doesn't make things easy. According to Yvonne and Ruth, it's quite common for spouses in fragile marriages to feel the need for a professional negotiator to help them get what they want and, unfortunately, Senator George Mitchell isn't available. Faced with marital angst, men and women are escaping into work, where it's easier to feel a sense of belonging and to get positive reinforcement. In this feelgood environment, work partners can become bed partners. "Maybe this is because it's easier to be intimate at a distance, when there's no shared, everyday reality like who's going to get up at night for the baby," says Yvonne. Intimacy at closerange is too traumatic. "Having both partners working is a major stress on marriage. Work itself is not the problem, it's the sharing of the housework and childcare and feeling under pressure so that feelings of resentment build up," says Yvonne.
So what's the answer? Ask women to return to full-time home-making? It's too late. As men take more responsibility in the home, the resentment can flow both ways. Women have become as selfish as men, expecting personal fulfilment at all costs. While we're willing to sacrifice certain personal needs and ambitions for our children, we're reluctant to sacrifice the same for our spouses. We want to believe that it's possible to have a relationship without one party being a doormat. But how? We are breaking new ground. "Before you have children, you naturally have a lot of time together but once the first baby comes along, you have to renegotiate everything," says Yvonne.
People who seek marriage counselling are middle-class and highly educated, according to the MRCS survey, but with all our education, we still haven't learned the skills of negotiation - at least not where it really counts. It's about more than negotiation between partners, however, since no one couple can change the system which puts them in the unbearable position of having to raise children while running the family home by remote control. "We need to recognise that working in the home is a choice that should be there for women and for men too," says Yvonne, who is also a member of the Commission on the Family at the Department of Social Welfare.
"We pay lip service to the family. We tell ourselves that the family is the fundamental unit in society, but this is almost a myth. How many men are willing to tell their employers that they need an hour off to take a child home from school?"
Men are changing, however. One hopeful and quite stunning feature of the MRCS survey was that the largest growing proportion of people seeking marriage counselling are men under 30. Their number grew by seven per cent.
"If we do believe that families are important, then that commitment has to start with two adults in a two-person family. If they can take time to look at what would be a deeper, more meaningful existence for them, then their children are going to benefit," says Yvonne.
But who has the time? We're all too busy making money.
MRCS can be contacted at (01) 872 0341; sessions cost £5-£35, depending on income.