Two Chairs Counselling

According to a survey, by Florette Fruit (the former PR in me knows this makes sense but still…random!) has discovered that two-thirds of British women are “completely bored” with their lives. These are women like you, they have great jobs, families, social lives, gym memberships etc, but apparently they don’t have enough to keep them from mentally flatlining.

It seems that a lack of variety amid the daily routine, not enough of a social life and too many pressures at work are the main bones of contention for the nation’s women.

Well, I’m here to venture something. In psychotherapy circles, it’s often said that boredom is powerful defense mechanism. I remember a supervision session back when I was training and, as a group we spoke about what’s going on when the therapist feels bored in session with a client. There’s no hard and fast rule, of course, everyone has their own unique experience of what’s happening but I thought about it and applied it to a session I had had recently with a client. I had definitely felt bored…disengaged and struggling to really connect with the client. I realised that some of my own stuff was getting in the way of the work. I was allowing the boredom to defend against some painful things that I wasn’t fully aware of as they were coming up in the session.

Of course, I took this to my supervisor, explored it and moved the block the boredom was throwing up. The result was at the next session I had a powerfully moving session with the client, I became a better therapist for acknowledging the boredom and taking the time to figure out what it meant for me.

What is your boredom telling you? Is it a defense against engaging in life, jumping in and accepting that life is unpredictable, scary and anxiety provoking?

You might be thinking that’s not the sort of thing a therapist should be saying, but actually I say it to all the brave and courageous women who make the leap to start working with me. I can’t cure you of life. No one can. Life will continue happening to you whether you’re engaged with it or not. Absolutely the worst thing you can do is to retreat from it, to try and build in measures of safety and security AKA duty. Living a dutiful life is the absolute opposite of living an authentic life. It’s a life that’s mapped out, that’s full of shoulds and oughts and have tos. Sounds…boring.

I would hazard a guess that the boredom going on in this situation is a defense against what it takes to live with courage. It’s masking a warning bell that’s sounding somewhere in the background. You can’t hit the pause button, you won’t get a second chance, that boredom is defending you against a sense of anxiety that you’re not living a life that’s really authentic, that’s as “you” centered as you can make it, a life that’s totally aligned with your values.

Don’t waste another minute with that type of boredom, listen to what it’s telling you. If you’re not sure and you want to explore it some more, book a free complimentary 30min exploration session with me today.

Apologizing is uncomfortable, at least if you are doing it right, but it is the pain of cleansing a deep wound so that it can heal properly. Here are a few suggestions on how to make a good apology:

Seven ways to apologize:

1. Avoid defensiveness. “I don’t have anything to apologize for!” Really? Think about it.
2. Be humble. You may even consider groveling if your transgression was extreme, like an affair. In that case, expect to grovel for a long time, but not forever.
3. Make it from the heart. Mean it! I mumbled, muttered, under-your-breath “I’m sorry…” isn’t going to cut the mustard.
4. With chocolates and flowers. Gifts may be used only to open the door after the apology has been accepted, as a thank you. Do not expect treats to substitute for sincerity. No, not even a diamond tennis bracelet.
5. Face to face is best. Maybe because it’s the hardest. A phone call comes in second.  A hand written letter might work. Any form of writing needs to be carefully thought out when the advantage of voice and body language is absent. Email or direct message works for an apology, but only if there is seriously no other way. Be aware that privacy cannot be guaranteed. Texting an apology? You’ve got me there. Maybe for a fourteen year old? I’m not sure about this one, it may be a generational thing. I wouldn’t recommend it.
6. Stick to the issue at hand. Don’t apologize for all the sins of the past. That can smack of insincerity. If all the sins of the past is the issue, one apology won’t cover it. You probably need a mediator.
7. Say you’re sorry once. Genuinely said, with all the sincerity you can muster. Then let it go. Like a message in a bottle, send it off, be patient and hope it lands in receptive hands.

Receiving an apology isn’t easy either.

Accepting an apology is like accepting a compliment – best done with grace. I’m sure you’ve been in the position of having to apologize for some major balls up, mustering up the courage to do it is hard and no doubt once you’ve worked out what you want to say and how you want to say it you want it to mean something to the person you’re apologizing to. Other times, you’re the wronged party and you’d like an apology…here’s what I appreciate from the person I’ve hurt:

1. Be direct with me. Please. There is nothing in this world worse than a cold shoulder, or finding out from someone else. “You should know what you did!” is a hopeless statement. For that reason I really appreciate directness. Tell me you are angry, why you’re angry and as soon as possible…not 3 or 4 months after the fact. Give me a clue and the opportunity to make amends. If you don’t, you allow resentment to build up and it really is a poison that slowly kills off relationships. You owe it to yourself to clear up upsets as soon as possible.
2. Don’t beat me over the head. The opposite of being direct could be stewing or nagging endlessly. Once you’ve been direct, and assuming an apology is justified, wait for it patiently, it will come. If it never does, that’s a kind of answer too. What you do next can be informed by that.
3. Have an open heart. There are usually two or more ways to look at what happened. Hopefully, once the white heat of anger and hurt burns out a bit you can poke around and see if you had any part in the problem. Try seeing it from your transgressor’s point of view. Compassion doesn’t replace the apology, it does make it easier to hear.
4. Accept the apology when it’s sincerely given. You can tell the difference. If it wasn’t given honestly there was no apology, thus nothing to accept. I’m not in favor of flip phrases like, “Oh forget it”, “You don’t have to apologize”, “It was nothing.”  It’s too easy to go there when everyone is clearly uncomfortable but when you do this, you undermine yourself and how hurt you felt. Remember, you’re always teaching people how to treat you, know that you deserve the apology, accept it with grace and move on.  A simple “Thank you,” usually works best.

Giving and accepting an apology with grace is just that. It’s a blessed state for you both. For the one doing the apologizing – because you chose to allow yourself to be vulnerable rather than get defensive. For the one who accepts the apology – because you used your power over a vulnerable soul with generosity of spirit instead of twisting the knife. Now the healing can begin.

What a relief!

But what about forgiveness?  For most if us humans, forgiveness is another matter, involving trust, and that takes time to regenerate after a bad hurt.

Tamarisk is the founder of Two Chairs Counselling, a niche practice that works with women who feel that their lives are great on paper but suck in real life.

You’re getting married! You and your combination of true love, soulmate, and, hopefully, best friend, have talked it out and decided to commit to each other forever. He got down on one knee. You’ve announced your engagement, celebrated with the important people in your life, perhaps put up with some joking (and maybe some not-so-joking) questions about why you would do such a thing. You’re sure. You’re going to make it official. A year from now, or maybe less, you hope to be standing in front of family and friends, exchanging vows, and starting the next chapter of your life.

Read the wedding magazines of a generation or two ago, and it’s as if the groom’s only job was to look good in a tux. The groom left the wedding planning to the women in his life and looked forward to a stag party. That may seem like a great idea to the guy, but couples who turn the whole thing over to professional wedding planners or their mothers miss an important opportunity to grow as a couple. Yes, it’s great to have other people do so much of the work that all you have to do is approve the flavor of the cake and show up. But working on a shared project of the magnitude and importance of your wedding day is a chance to find out about yourselves and to learn how to make mutual decisions. Planning your wedding can be an important rehearsal for how you will deal with each others’ relatives and friends, how you will manage finances, and how you will work as a team. It also sets the tone of what the two of you will expect of each other in planning other important events and milestones to come.

• Relationship with the in-laws – Some people are lucky enough to immediately feel comfortable with their future in-laws. Most have to work at it. Is your future mother-in-law so passive you don’t know what she really thinks? Or is she someone who, given a chance, will take over? Is your future father-in-law someone who is so afraid of stepping on toes that he rarely steps at all? Or is he the type of guy who is used to having his own way? Whatever their style, it is your job to find a way to make friends with them as best you can. Yes, make the first move. Yes, make allowances and be willing to bend a bit until they get used to you. Even if they’re not your kind of people, you can be polite. By providing each person who loves your partner with a role in the wedding, you are affirming that they have a role in your life together. Your future in-laws will feel included and cared about. Your partner will appreciate not being asked to choose between you.
• Relationship with each other’s friends – The people we choose as friends are some comment on who we are or who we wish we could be. People who compete with their partner’s friends or who simply don’t like them are people whose relationship is at some risk. A marriage needs the support of friends in good times and especially in the not-so-good times. When friends approve and support a marriage, they are part of the glue that holds it together. Working to understand why the people in your partner’s life are important to him and finding a way to get along if you don’t naturally click is an important part of becoming a couple. Who you agree to include in the wedding party and put on the guest list is an affirmation of those friendships and a statement that you each respect the other’s relationships.
• Money, money, money – Make no mistake: Weddings are an industry and millions of pounds are spent on weddings every year. Function halls, photographers, DJs, caterers, dress and tux boutiques, jewellery stores, printers, and myriad other services want you to spend, spend, spend. What they don’t want you to do is think too hard about it. A couple that sets – and keeps – a budget, figures out who will pay what, and keeps their priorities straight in the midst of pressures to overspend is a couple who will manage money well in the future. 30 percent of couples now pay for their own wedding. Only 17 percent of parents these days foot the entire bill. The remaining 53 percent of couples share the costs with family and friends. Whatever the financial situation, figuring out how to negotiate with each other and others about money is an opportunity to become financial partners.
  
• A question of taste and style – Perhaps you are a couple that easily agrees on questions of style. Part of what drew you together was that you both liked the same music and had the same idea of how to spend a Saturday afternoon. Or maybe you and your true love are a case of opposites attracting: She wants a bridal dress for her and a tux for him; he’d be happier if they could get married in jeans and lookalike T-shirts. He wants the wedding to be at a fancy hotel; she would love to have it in her family’s garden. Whatever the case, planning the wedding will bring those similarities and differences right to the center of discussions. The easiest thing to do when there are differences is to give in. But the healthier thing to do is to use the countless decisions about your wedding as an exercise in learning how to give and take and how to compromise.
• Planning a wedding is making a marriage. Nowadays, a wedding is a statement about the two of you. Planning it, whether it is a small, intimate gathering at home or a pull-out-all-the stops extravaganza, is a project with significant implications for how you will operate as a couple. Sometimes it will be stressful. Sometimes it will require taking a timeout on a decision and coming back to the issue later. Sometimes it will mean making trades (you get the kind of cake you like; I get to choose the music for our first dance). And sometimes it will be a pleasure to find that the two of you are seemingly thinking the same thing at the same time without even speaking about it!

Marriages don’t happen with the magic words of “I do.” A marriage happens as a couple takes on challenges and works them through. Managing the details of a wedding will show you and your partner the strengths and, yes, the weak spots in your relationship. Solving the problems that come up between now and your special day will help you build a solid foundation for a lifetime of good teamwork.

PS. If you’re planning a wedding and want some great ideas, check out this fabulous website – www.beforethebigday.co.uk

Tamarisk is a therapist who specialises in working with women who feel their lives look good on paper but suck in real life. Her practice is based in London Bridge.

This post is just a bit of a rambling collection of things I wanted to share with you. They are just some things that I believe are important if you’re going to move along a path to a more contented life. Life will always be unpredictable, it will always be unsafe, you’ll never be able to make it secure. Trying is a fools errand. Facing life the way it is takes courage but when you do face life as it is, you start to live life with a sense of urgency and vitality. These are some random things that I felt didn’t warrant full posts on their own:

1. The relationship you have with yourself is the most important one you’ll ever have. All other relationships mirror the type of relationship you have with yourself. I’m a big believer in the maxim than the way a person treats other people is a good indicator of how they treat themselves. It’s why you’re often given the advice on a date to pay attention to how your date treats the wait staff!

2. Filter all the decisions you have to make through your core values (if you don’t know what they are, sign up for my newsletter to get the free gift I’ve made for you and get started on what your core values are around work…you can extend this process to your core values about life). If there is a disconnect or something feels out of alignment, spend a bit of time reflecting on why. Would taking that job compromise something that’s really important to you? If something jars, figure out what you need to do to move back to a place of ease and effortlessness.

3. Crack down on critical self-talk. Pay attention to whether or not the conversations you have with yourself are positive, negative or neutral. Remember – you teach others how to treat you by how you treat yourself. So while you think you may be being cool, off-hand and low maintenance with your new fella, consider that you might be signaling to him that it’s OK to treat you coolly, in an off-hand manner and that you/your relationship does need regular maintenance.

4. Become your biggest cheerleader. If you believe you can do it then you will do it. Tell yourself “If someone has to do, why can’t it be me?”

Tamarisk runs a niche counselling practice for women who can’t shake the feeling that their lives look good on paper but suck in real life.

This article ran in The Times, it’s by Philippa Perry who’s been a therapist for 12 years, she’s just published a graphic novel called Couch Fiction which I have a copy of…naturally!

It addresses some of the myths and preconceptions lots of us have about counselling and therapy and I thought it would be great to share it with you:

1. It’s all your parents’ fault

It’s a bit simplistic to say this, but there is something in it. I believe that we learn to communicate with others through our relationship with our first carer and if that carer was unresponsive, abusive, inconsistent or depressed it is likely that there will be psychological problems to overcome later in life. When a parent consistently fails in understanding or gives up trying, his or her child will have to adapt and compensate for that. Sometimes these modifications can end up forming the child’s world-views, which will not serve them well later in life.

But apportioning blame isn’t particularly useful: most parents do their best, even if they made serious mistakes or found themselves in a dangerous environment when rearing their children. If you are having problems communicating with others, therapy can be useful in making you more aware and reflective about your responses so that you have more choice about how to be. Therapy can be about raising consciousness and, to do that competently, understanding our personal histories helps.

Tam’s bit – a couple of great books that can help understand this more are Families And How To Survive Them and They F**k You Up.

2. Talking about yourself is self-indulgent

It may be self-indulgent to talk about ourselves. However it is not self-indulgent to seek to understand oneself; there is a difference.

If we react rather than reflect we are often susceptible to projection and transference. Projection happens when, instead of having pure contact with another, we project a part of ourselves on to the other person and relate to these own projected parts. Transference occurs when we make subconscious assumptions about the person before us based on our experience of people we have known in the past. Of course, we are all going to use experience to colour our expectations of new meetings a little, but the danger comes when this makes us less flexible and our preconceptions become baggage that is likely to weigh us down.

If we can become more aware of these projections we are less likely to project our “shadow side” on to others. It is very common to see ourselves as good and the other as bad, and when we do this we are often projecting our own bad side on to the other. Psychotherapy helps you to own the insecurities, fears and aggressive drives that hold you back.

3. In the end, it all comes down to sex

Your sexuality is part of who you are and so it is possible that to understand yourself you might need to look at your sexual development and your sexual behaviours.

Sex plays a part in all relationships. By sex I don’t mean sexual intercourse but the connection and energy we feel with other people. I believe that this warmth between two people is necessary for the emotional growth of either or both of them. After all, we don’t pop out of the womb being able to fully relate to others. We learn how to relate by being in relationships with our earliest carers and we carry on developing in relationships with others all our lives. For psychotherapy to work effectively, the relationship you have with your therapist needs a certain warmth: a type of energy that goes back and forth between you that feels alive.

Tam’s bit – really and truly, it isn’t all about sex. BUT, it is about intimacy. Your relationship with your therapist will be intimate, you’ll tell them a lot of stuff you might have told anyone else, it’s trusting and close. That in itself can be a very healing experience.

4. Most therapists are mad anyway

There is something in that statement. Often therapists got so much from overcoming their own psychological hang-ups that they feel inspired to train in order to help others face and work through their issues. I’m not sure that a person with perfect genes who experienced a trauma-free, ideal environment for early development and subsequent growth would be sufficiently interested in psychology to make it his or her profession.

Tam’s bit – therapists are people too. Life happens to them as well. They don’t have all the answers to life…no one does. But the process of being a therapist means we take care to attend to our own emotional well-being to be able to be there as fully as possible for you, our clients.

5. It costs a fortune and will take for ever

Therapy does cost a lot and not only in money. It costs in time and effort. Psychotherapists do not do your work for you, they only facilitate you to do the psychological work that needs doing so how long it takes and how much it costs depends on lots of things: how embedded your neuroses are, how complicated your relationships have been and how willing you are to modify learnt behaviours. The author and therapist Robin Shapiro offers a good rule-of-thumb guide to how long individuals might expect to see a therapist in her blog (traumatherapy.typepad.com).

But if someone says that she can turn you around in six weeks without giving you any assessment first, don’t trust her.

6. Depression is a chemical imbalance and best treated with medicine

This is true of some types of mental illness: it may be useful to medicate a client before he or she can begin therapy, or some people will use the support of therapy while they come off antidepression medication. But sometimes talking therapy will reach the parts that the drugs cannot.

Tam’s bit – if your relationship is awful and you’re too demoralised to leave it, your friends are sick of listening to you talk about it so you don’t anymore, you suffer in silence and your job is a boring, soul destroying way of spending the vast majority of your week…OF COURSE you’re going to feel depressed. Who wouldn’t! You aren’t crazy or mad or weird. You’re struggling, you feel like you’re sinking but it’s likely you don’t have medical condition that requires anti-depressant medication.

7. There’s no point in raking over the past

There is no point in going round in circles, which is what people tend to do when they don’t have the support to tackle the source of their problems.

Sometimes I find it helpful to think of therapy like this: if we don’t face the origin of our pain and get to know what it is and where it comes from, we can condemn ourselves to a continuous low level of suffering by repeating the same self- sabotaging patterns. I think that a bit of digging will save us from too much raking.

8. Therapists fill you with psychobabble

Most psychotherapists are interested in specifics, not sweeping, blanket terms. But some terms from therapy have now filtered down into everyday language and mean different things to different people. So, if a client says, for example, “I’m feeling very co-dependent on my father”, I won’t pretend I know what she means by that. I will ask her to explain what her relationship with her father is like, how he makes her feel, how she behaves around him and so on. Generally, these pop-psychology terms aren’t that helpful.

9. Psychotherapy is just psychiatry-lite

Or psychiatry is psychotherapy-lite! Psychotherapists are trained to treat the person and not the illness. Whereas a psychiatrist traditionally treats the disorder, if someone comes to me and I suspect that they have, say, bi-polar disorder, I will want him or her to see us both. Therapy is not a substitute for anti-psychotic medication. In my experience psychiatrists and psychotherapists tend to work together.

10. Therapy will change my personality

This is something that people fear, but I’m not sure you can eradicate a personality. Psychotherapy is about looking at everything you’ve been told overtly and covertly and every experience that’s formed you. Then it’s about deciding which you want to take with you, and which you want to leave behind. Hopefully this means that you become more truly yourself instead of being a victim of environment, circumstances and influences. Some behaviour that we see as being very much a cornerstone of our personality — such as a joshing sense of humour — can be a means of defence and quite passive-aggressive. It can be a mechanism to stop other people getting close, so a therapist may suggest that a client explores this type of behaviour so that there is a choice as to if, how and when it is employed.

It’s moments away…the tension around the globe is building…flags are being waved…things are getting to a fever pitch. Who am I kidding, I don’t really care about the World Cup. Sure I’ll watch a couple of games, I might get a bit carried away in the moment as everyone in the pub surges forward to cheer but then I’ll buy Vogue on my way home and the balance of my world will be restored.

But, for a lot of the men in our lives, things are different. Very different. Let’s take a look at just how different. The key to understanding your fella’s reaction to the World Cup, or in fact, any sport they’re into is testosterone. Long before birth, this particular hormone is shaping and honing the male brain, in fact, it’s actually killing off the female parts of the brain so that this bouncing baby boy will be born ready to grow up into a man who seeks out gorgeous girls…and penalty shoot outs.

Researchers have found that leading up to a competition; men’s brains become flooded with testosterone.  This is the same whether they are competing or simply watching.  The testosterone gives them that sense of excited anticipation, but it also gives them a belief that their team cannot lose, whether it’s England or Arsenal. That probably sounds familiar to lots of women out there!  Given that the human brain has evolved over millions of years, it’s easy to see why such excitement and confidence could give men an advantage.  Going to hunt or war is going to be more successful if fuelled by excitement and self-confidence.

Now, here’s something strange. Researchers have also found that if they, or their team, should win, their testosterone levels fly through the roof.  This is a natural high, not dissimilar to cocaine, and it’s addictive.  The natural high these elevated levels of testosterone give them makes them behave with a cockiness and self assuredness that can drive women bonkers (sometimes good bonkers, sometimes bad bonkers, I reckon!).

We have a testosterone rush with sport too, but with only about 10% of the testosterone of what men get, even the keenest of us isn’t going to view the World Cup in the same way as her football mad boyfriend.  So as a result, it’s unlikely we’ll ever “get it” to same extent that men do.

We’ve all seen (or been subjected to, depending on how you feel about it) this sort of behaviour at the pub.  The excitement and confidence make the menfolk wear silly hats and face paint and they bond with their fellow fans while bellowing football chants.  It’s basically the modern equivalent of hunting the wild boar.  If the team win … happy days …testosterone soars and they party on the high.

But what if they lose?  The final whistle is blown, the mood goes flat.  The game is over.  All hope has gone.  They’ve lost.  You might watch your boyfriend silently finish his drink and mooch off home feeling despondent, often for days at a time.  It is as if his emotional world has just collapsed.

Why is this?  Well researchers have found that if their team looses, testosterone levels also collapse.  As a result, the fuel for the natural high dries up, making your bloke sullen and unresponsive.  They experience a mild depression and self doubt. They can even lose interest in sex.  This is, literally, a hormonal crisis for men.  A sort of male PMT.

What can you do if/when this happens? Give your boy some space. Don’t pressure him into talking about it. A lot of what’s going on for him is neurochemical, like it is for us when we have PMT and over the next few days balance will be restored. Let him go to his metaphorical shed and try to remember this important point – it’s not about you!

Tamarisk is the founder of Two Chairs Counselling in London Bridge. Two Chairs Counselling specialises in working with career-orientated women whose lives look great on paper, but suck in real life.

Criticism. We’ve all been on the receiving end of it…sometimes, we’ve even sought out feedback because we knew we needed to improve on something and then felt devastated once we’ve heard it. So, how can we process negative feedback better?

Firstly, it’s important to remember that criticism relates to a specific behaviour, it’s not an attack on you as a person. So while it may sting to hear something less than glowing about your behaviour, it’s helpful to hold in mind that the negative feedback is not about the very core of your being. Once the initial shock of the negative feedback has dissipated, it might be helpful to ask for some more precise feedback – so the comment “you’re very sloppy” may actually just mean that you make grammatical errors in your emails and is not a comment on how you present yourself at work.

Engage with the person who’s offering the criticism, it will help you feel like you’re part of a two-way conversation. It’s far more empowering than just sitting there feeling overwhelmed and it will help you regain some control over the situation. Questions like – “do you think I did such-and-such?” or “how could I have handled that situation differently” will help you to turn the conversation around into a learning experience and at the very least, allow you to leave the conversation knowing you handled the situation with some grace.

If you’re feeling very grown-up and magnanimous, you can take things one step further and acknowledge how difficult it is to offer criticism. If you’ve ever headed up a team or had to run appraisals, you’ll be familiar with how hard it can be to offer less than flattering words. A comment like “I know this is as difficult for you as it is for me” can be a very smart move, it shows empathy and allows you to be the person who makes both of you feel better! It’s going to be hard for you to come away with anything positive if all you can manage to do is weep into a disintegrating tissue, so keep in mind that much of the time criticism isn’t designed to hurt you, it’s usually meant with your best interest at heart.

So, now that you’ve accepted the criticism with good grace, what do you do next? I’d say pop out for a coffee or a walk around the block before going back to your desk. Give yourself some time to process what you’ve just heard so that you can decide what you’d like to do with the information. If you’re giving the negative feedback, suggest to the other person that they might want to do that and offer them the chance to schedule a follow up meeting if they’d like. You might want to take it on board or you might decide it was unfair and you want to schedule another meeting with you boss to chat about it further. When it’s constructive, criticism can be much beneficial than bland platitudes and it also shows that the person offering it cares enough about your growth to share the feedback with you.

Here are a few take-away tips for your next appraisal:

• Try not to cry, you’ll feel like you’re losing control.
• Don’t feel under pressure to give an immediate response. If you can buy yourself a few minutes to process the news, you’ll be in a better position to respond in a way that contributes to your growth.
• Always try to remember that it’s a behaviour that’s being criticised, not the whole you.
• Learn to distinguish valid feedback from throwaway remarks and shrug off the latter.
• Be big enough to acknowledge valid criticism that you receive. There something satisfying about being able to say “You’re right, thanks for mentioning it!”

Tamarisk is the founder of Two Chairs Counselling in London Bridge. Two Chairs Counselling specialises in working with career-orientated women whose lives look great on paper, but suck in real life.

There’s been a lot about this around at the moment with various UK celebs getting busted for having flirty text messages etc found on their phones (hello Vernon Kay! We see you over there!). But is it OK to go through your partner’s phone?

I’m a person-centred counsellor at heart and that means I practice a non-judgmental approach in my work with clients. If you want to go through your partner’s phone, truly, I am much more interested in why you want to do that. So, suspending judgment, I turned to the internet – what do other people think of this?

On the forums I browsed through, similar topics came up -

Privacy – lots of people felt you should respect other people’s privacy and that includes text messages.

Reasonable Doubt – there’s a large voice out there that feels that you should respect someone’s privacy until they give you reasonable doubt to not. So if you begin to suspect your partner of cheating then reading their messages (and emails and I’m assuming Facebook messages etc) becomes totally fair game.

Coupledom – a few people seem to be saying that if you’re in a couple, then you’ve become one and then everything is up for grabs, so it should be normal and acceptable behaviour to read all missives whatever the mode of communication because you’re now a unit.

Of course it’s tempting. No one could deny that. Last year, I stole my boyfriend’s phone to get a hold of the numbers of his best friends to arrange a surprise party for him. Hiding in the loo at 2am, I realised I could just flick through all those messages if I wanted to. But, for me, it simply wasn’t something I was prepared to do. I respect his privacy and I expect him to respect mine.

Is it possible you might find something you didn’t want to see? More than likely. Hunting around online around this topic, I read about a girl who’d gone through her boyfriend’s phone only to discover he was about to propose and had been consulting friends on it. Surprise ruined, romance gone.

If you feel very strongly that your partner is giving you reasons to pursue a sneaky peak at his (or her) text messages, ask yourself what I’d ask you – what are your fantasies about what you’ll find? What will you do if the news is bad? What will you do if the news is ambiguous? How is this behaviour aligned with your values (and if you don’t know what your values are, sign up for my newsletter and get my 4 Steps to Finding the Career You Love, you’ll go through a very powerful process around your values).

I’d also be curious about what this behaviour says about the quality and quantity of communication between you and your partner. If you don’t trust him to the point where you feel you have to go through his phone, I’d be curious as to whether or not you trust him (and yourself) enough to have a conversation with him/her about your worries and concerns.

So while I’m not coming down on either side with a definitive answer, I do think that wanting or needing to go through your partner’s text messages in and of itself raises more important questions and it’s those questions that really need to be answered.

Tamarisk runs Two Chairs Counselling in London Bridge – working with career-orientated women who struggling with issues of self-confidence, self-esteem to live happier and more rewarding lives.