In the past emails, I have written about some of the changes in modern relationships - the load many couples are carrying, and the impact of a highly sexualised culture on intimacy and expectations. There is another layer that also impacts relationships: health and...
In the last email, I wrote about the load couples are carrying, and much of this also applies to singles. There’s another pressure shaping modern relationships - one that is less openly discussed, but hugely influential. Sexualisation Before I go on, as this is...
Over the past weeks we’ve talked about safety.How it grows. How it erodes.How repair becomes possible.How intimacy shifts when understanding grows. As we get to what relationships are becoming, there’s something that needs to be named: the load.Not just who empties...
After erosion comes a choice. Not a dramatic, yet a significant moment where one decides to call out the rupture or disconnect. To go first. To try again instead of pulling or pushing away. Most couples, when things get hard, start questioning compatibility. Are we...
There’s rarely a big moment when a relationship stops feeling safe (although sometimes there is). Usually it just sneaks in. A hesitation before you say something.A joke that lands a bit wrong.You decide something is ‘not worth bringing up’.A sharper tone. Nothing...
Last time, I wrote about safety not being something you earn — but something that allows growth, repair and connection to happen. So how does safety actually grow?Not in theory or in perfect conditions, but in ordinary, everyday relationships. Safety...
After the last email (this is the 6th of a series), I found myself thinking about how often people believe safety is something you get to or arrive at — once you’ve done enough work, understood enough, healed enough. As if safety is the reward at the end. In reality,...
I want to slow things down a little before we go on. Over the past weeks, we’ve been talking about why relationships feel harder right now — even when people care deeply and want things to work. I notice that for many, this brings a mix of recognition and frustration....
In much of my work, I see people who care deeply about their relationships and still feel stuck. What’s often missing isn’t love or effort, but skills that were never modelled: how to repair after conflict, how to stay present when emotions rise, how to hold both...
Despite the growing emphasis on independence, and the very visible ways people step back from relationships, most people haven’t stopped wanting connection.What has changed is how — and under what conditions —people are willing to connect, commit, surrender More and...
One truth of modern relationships is this: as expectations for emotional closeness rise, unintegrated stress and old survival patterns become more visible. Many people assume that if intimacy or communication feel hard, something must be wrong with them or with...
I’ve been noticing the same theme coming up again and again — in counselling sessions, mediation work, everyday conversations, and of course in the wider narratives circulating through (social) media. Relationships are changing. Not because people suddenly care less,...
