Family Relationships

Family is where most of us learned what love, conflict and silence look like. When something goes wrong there, it reaches further than almost anything else.

A long row with a parent can shape every other part of your life. So can a sibling who has stopped calling, or a step-family that will not knit together.

You do not need the whole family to agree there is a problem. You can start on your own.

When family strain needs support

Every family has hard patches, and most pass. Support becomes useful when a pattern repeats and nobody can break it. Many people find they reach out when one of these is true:

• The same argument with a parent or sibling has run for years and nothing shifts
• You have gone no-contact with a family member, or they have with you
• A new partner, step-children or a second family has changed who belongs where
• You and an ex are raising children between two homes and cannot speak without a fight
• You are caring for a parent and old resentments have come back with the role
• A death, a will or a diagnosis has split the family into sides

None of these needs a "good enough" reason. Wanting it to be different is enough.

Estrangement and cutting off

Some families break rather than bend. Estrangement is more common than people admit, because it carries so much shame on both sides. In a 2014 Ipsos survey, 8% of British adults said they were estranged from a family member.

The person who left often feels guilty for years. The person left behind often feels punished without a trial.

Neither position needs fixing before you can get support. A professional will not push you to reconcile, and will not tell you to stay away. They help you work out what you want, and what you can live with.

Source: Ipsos MORI: estrangement survey

Blending, step-families and second families

A blended family asks people to love on a schedule they did not choose. Children arrive with loyalties to a parent who is not in the room. Adults arrive with rules from a previous household.

The strain often lands on the couple, when it started somewhere else. Adoptive and kinship families carry a version of the same thing, with a child's earlier history in the room too.

Support for a blended family looks at the whole system, not the person who is shouting loudest. Our couples page covers the part that sits between the two adults.

Co-parenting after separation

Ending a relationship does not end the parenting. Many separated parents find the arguments simply move from the kitchen to the handover. The children hear all of it.

Some professionals work specifically with co-parents, sometimes together and sometimes apart. The aim is not to reopen the relationship. It is to get two adults talking about the same child without the old fight starting again.

If you are worried about how a child is coping, our help for your child page lists services for them.

Decisions about having children

Some family strain is about a family that has not happened. Wanting children and not having them is a grief with no funeral. Friends often do not know what to say.

Not knowing whether you want children at all can be as isolating, especially when a partner has decided.

Both are things a professional can sit with. Neither needs a diagnosis to count as worth talking about. If loss is the larger part of it, our grief page may be the better place to start.

What family therapy looks like

The NHS lists problems in your relationships among the things counselling can help with. Family therapy goes further. It brings people into the room together, not just one side.

The Association for Family Therapy describes it as helping people in close relationships understand and support one another. "Family" means whoever matters to you, not only blood relatives. Sessions tend to be longer than an individual hour, and spaced further apart.

You will not be asked to agree on what happened. The therapist works with the fact that each of you remembers it differently.

Our diagrams compare ways of working with families:

• Family and systemic therapy explores the links between people's responses.
• Structural family therapy looks at roles, boundaries and exchanges in the room.

These names describe how sessions work, rather than which family member needs to change.

Sources: NHS: counselling, AFT: family therapy

Working on it alone

Family therapy often starts with one person. You may be the only one willing to come, or the only one you can safely bring. That is a normal starting point, not a lesser one.

An individual therapist or counsellor can help you see the pattern you are caught in and your part in it. Some use emotionally focused therapy, which looks at the attachment needs underneath a family fight. Others use systemic ideas alone with you.

Ask how they work with family relationships when you first talk.

Who to look for

Look for a professional who names family relationships, estrangement or step-families in their profile. Ask whether they see people alone, in pairs, or together. If you plan to bring a parent or an adult child later, say so early.

Helplines for family worries

Sometimes what you need tonight is a person on the phone, not a therapist next week. These services answer family questions a therapist cannot.

Coram Family Lives

Parents and family England Wales

Any family or parenting worry, including step-families, separation and conflict with teenagers or adult children. No diagnosis or referral needed.

Weekdays 9am to 9pmWeekends 10am to 3pm

Call

Children First Supportline

Parents and family Scotland

Scotland's equivalent, and where Coram Family Lives sends Scottish callers.

Weekdays 9am to 9pmWeekends 9am to noon

Call

Family strain rarely fixes itself by waiting. Tell us who is involved and what has changed, and we will find the right person.