Forget fairytale endings and ‘happily ever afters’, because plenty of marriages hit stumbling blocks in the first year — as TV personality Vicky Pattison has found out.
The star has admitted she and her husband Ercan Ramadan are sleeping in separate beds after a ‘difficult’ first year of marriage. The 37-year-old faced intense backlash after ‘leaking’ her own deepfake sex tape as part of a Channel 4 documentary.
‘I don’t think it’s how anyone anticipates, their first six months of marriage, you know, it’s a very alien experience,’ she said on BBC’s Woman’s Hour,
‘I mean it has been difficult, I have been frustrated, I have been upset and I have been overwhelmed quite a lot. So even without thinking about, the deepfake itself, I haven’t been a joy to live with quite frankly and I do feel for my husband but he’s very supportive.’
Though Vicky’s story is perhaps a little niche, realising the honeymoon period has ended faster than you anticipated is not.
We asked Jo Coker, director of therapy and training standards at the College of Sexual and Relationship Therapists, to tell us some of the most common problems newlyweds raise in couples therapy.
The comedown
Focusing on the wedding – not the marriage – is one of the most common causes of early marriage breakdown, says Jo.
‘Couples have planned their wedding for a year, maybe more, and may have aimed for perfection, which may or may not have worked. There is then fall out about how near to perfection they achieved, and the postmortem,’ she tells Metro.
She’s heard coupes dwelling on ‘what went wrong’, even when it’s something out of their control, such as the weather. In other cases, the planning itself may have led to a disconnect.
‘They may well have lost each other and what their relationship is about, as such they can find themselves on honeymoon with little to say to each other,” she says.
‘In therapy we would work on resetting the relationship how and why the wedding became so big and took over, plus how to reconnect relationally.’
As a first step, try to think about why you first fell in love and what you enjoyed doing together. Build from there.
The family
For many, a wedding also symbolises the coming together of two families, but that can be complex – particularly if there are different cultures, religions or political beliefs to juggle.
‘If the marriage involved blending a family this too can be difficult. Just because you love your partner does not mean you love their child,’ says Jo.
In therapy, she would encourage couples to ‘work on understanding differences and respecting them while setting appropriate boundaries’.
‘With blended families you often have the relationships with the children, their parents and different sets of grandparents, so it can be difficult. We would try and help the couple work openly and positively with these relationships and encourage them to not automatically take offence and to keep expectations realistic.’
An example of this may simply be acknowledging that children can be difficult and it may not be because of you – don’t personalise it!
Sex
Sex may have been hot before marriage, but it may cool off in the months after for many reasons.
‘Workload, familiarity, or just the natural passage of time in a relationship’ are frequent topics of discussion in therapy, says Jo. ‘It can be that couples stop making the effort they made beforehand.’
To combat this, she recommends reflecting on your relationship history together. ‘Has sex changed, or has it always been an issue that has been ignored in pursuit of the wedding?’ Jo asks.
Reminiscing about the best sex you’ve had together might be enough to get the ball rolling, but don’t forget to address the true issues behind your dry spell.
Discussing how to revive a sexless marriage, relationship expert and author Lucy Beresford previously told Metro: ‘The right amount of sex is different for every couple, so start by having conversations about the current situation to find out how your partner feels and to state your own needs gently.
‘Make sure you have these conversations when you both have time to give each other space to state your needs and listen to each other, and keep the focus positive and with no judgement or blame.
‘Explore whether your partner feels the lack of sex is because of a non-sexual relationship issue. For example, if they feel you’re distracted, not making time for them, or not supporting them emotionally, you both need to work together on that issue first.’
Division of labour
Even if couples have lived together for a long time, the division of household chores is a common cause of conflict among newlyweds.
Jo spends a lot of time unpacking ‘who does what and who is resentful that they are doing more’ which often ‘impacts on sex and relationship functioning’.
The only way to solve this problem is better communication, which leads Jo to her final point…
Communication
Ahh, that old chestnut. You’re both saying your piece, but are you really hearing each other?
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‘Couples are often poor at this, and it often gets lost in the wedding,’ says Jo. ‘However, communication is the most vital skill for a relationship. [It’s about] how to articulate what you require and need without being aggressive or seeing a request as a negative.’
Couples therapy can help you both to develop these skills. For example, you might learn to use ‘I’ sentences to discuss your own needs, instead of placing blame with ‘you’. You can also learn to ‘listen actively,’ by checking what your partner needs and going back to them for clarification if you’re not sure.
Above all, remember the old saying: marriage is hard work. If the first 12 months feel easy, you’re the exception, not the rule.
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