Laura Jones (not her real name) and her husband live on less than £16,000 a year, and have four children, one with autism. They’ve been arguing almost constantly, she says, and things are getting worse.
“I spent a long time convincing my husband that we needed relationship counselling, only to discover we were unable to afford it,” says Jones, in a report for charity Relate on the crying need for more affordable relationship services.
Jones’s experiences may seem light years away from those of comedian and mental health advocate Ruby Wax, but the two have one thing in common: a belief that talking about problems can help. Wax, who has been president of Relate for the past year, is fronting the charity’s new campaign with the British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy to get the government to increase funding for relationship support to ensure that everyone who needs it has equal access, regardless of their ability to pay. Charities like Relate offer sliding payment scales and subsidised or free counselling where possible, but want sustainable funding to expand counselling to all who need it, regardless of income.
The need is urgent. Being behind with household bills puts pressure on relationships. Austerity, and the misery caused by welfare reform, has increased the pressure. One in four British adults in problematic levels of debt argue with their partner about money at least once a fortnight, according to Relate, which also says that 7% of UK families blame debt for their relationship breaking down and that people who get behind with bills were over 60% more likely to experience relationship distress.
Wax, who has spoken many times about the need to talk openly about mental health issues, is a firm believer and advocate for therapy in relationships. “The reason my marriage worked is because I had a really good therapist,” she says. “Good therapy means I learned to break a lot of the patterns.”
The impact of relationship patterns learned from childhood is something about which Wax is passionate. Wax says she woke up today “paralysed” from a nightmare in which her parents were still alive. “It was mayhem,” she says. “My abusive father and hysterical mother who screamed all the time. I realised their marriage still haunts me. The template sticks.” The important lesson, says Wax, is to realise that everyone can get help – and acknowledging there’s a problem is a vital first step.
Wax says she tries not to take her own suffering out on her husband, Ed Bye. That includes her depression and the impact of her own dysfunctional childhood. “I joke that halfway down the aisle, I told him how old I was, and that I was mentally ill,” she says. “But that was important. My mother and father never realised that they had problems. And it means a kid thinks it’s their fault.” Wax’s advice to other families affected by mental health issues or relationship issues, is to get help. “There is a stigma. But not getting help is like saying you have cancer and not doing chemo,” she says. “You’re ill. You need somebody to help you.”
A YouGov survey for Relate and the BACP of more than 5,000 UK adults found that a fifth of respondents on low household incomes said mental health issues were placing pressure on their relationship, compared to 12% on higher incomes. Lower-earning respondents were also more likely to say money worries, debt, housing and physical health conditions were placing a strain on their relationship.
Wax says she has been lucky that her husband has been able to explain her own depression to her children, and support her through treatment and therapy. But she’s scathing about the lack of support for mental health issues. “More people suffer from mental illness than all other diseases put together. We need to wake up now to the impact of that and deal with it,” she says. “If you have a heart attack, you will be seen. If you’re suicidal, good luck with that.”
While not everyone has a supportive partner, Wax points out that Relate is not just about couples’ counselling and that the charity, which celebrates its 80th anniversary this year, supports people of all ages, backgrounds, sexual orientation and gender identity to strengthen their relationships. She says everyone needs unconditional, non-judgmental support at various stages of their lives. “If you’re a single parent, you still need a friend,” she says. “Relate is for families and couples, whatever gender you are. We all need to work together. When I was younger, I didn’t even know you could get help. If you have depression and you don’t do anything about it, it gets worse. You need support.”
This is also the thinking behind Wax’s Frazzled Cafe charity, which she set up last year. Supported by Marks and Spencer, it provides free peer support sessions in small groups of up to 18 people. The scheme runs in eight cities in England and is about to expand further, with support from Sky.
Wax, who is starring this autumn in a stage version of her book How to Be Human: The Manual, in which she talks of the need for mindfulness and compassion, and which also features monk Gelong Thubten and neuroscientist Ash Ranpura to help explain how the mind works, acknowledges she was fortunate in getting good therapy. She wants others to have that opportunity. The Relate survey shows that almost half of respondents with a household income of less than £25,000 had dropped out of relationship counselling or not gone ahead with it for financial reasons, despite Relate offering lower-cost options for some of its clients.
Wax did a master’s degree in mindfulness-based cognitive therapy at Oxford in 2010 and says a therapist’s job is to unload what is in people’s minds and create a compassionate space in which to hold it. Her philosophy is not about different techniques, but about helping people understand that their thoughts are simply part of who they are – not their whole identity. “Learn to watch your thoughts and understand the lay of the land,” she advises. “But shit happens. If it’s unbearable, seek help.” And her advice on sustaining a long-term relationship? “Never call yourself a ‘we’,” she says. “You’re not a we, you’re an individual.”
