Feeling depressed, lost and suicidal because of your failed marriage? If you need to access our free volunteer counsellor service, please email me at gilbert@steadymarriages.com. Thanks for visiting!

I started this blogsite with the intention to provide a platform for people in difficult marriages to network and hopefully  find possible esources to iron out their differences with their spouses. However, it has evolved into a support site now for the divorced and single parents.

The reason for this is that there are many local sites that are trying to meet the needs of those who are married but none for those who have ended their marriages and restarting their single life again. Don’t take me wrong – I am not advocating divorce here and wish that our divorce rate will decline. However, I have met too many divorced people these days to know that this  trend will only go up in the near future with devastating consequences.

One in three marriages in Singapore will eventually break up and at least 7000 families will end their relationship with each other yearly. If  each family has at least one child each,  we are looking at 21,000 people facing life without the warmth of a happy family each year. Even though most women will have custody of their children, life is not the same again in a broken family environment. Most children from dysfunctional families also find it tough to cope on their own either in school or later in society.

People growing up in dysfunctional families face issues of various kinds. For children, the impact is greater when their idealistic dream of a happy family is fatally dashed once their parents decide to go their separate ways.  It is well documented that children growing up in dysfunctional families often turn into juvenile delinquents as they face the challenge of growing up in a single-parent family setting. Many internalize their frustrations and have deep seated self esteem issues. All this affect their ability to fully realise their potential while they are gtowing up. Some even experience similar marital difficulties not unlike what their parents have faced before when they were married.

Enough of all the negative news here.

This site hopes to accomplish the following:-

1. A place whereby people in broken marriages can network and exchange notes.

I have known many people who told me that theydo not know where to seek help when they are facing marital problems. They are not ready to see a counsellor yet but want some quick answers to their problems.

I have seen many marital websites but none so far writing from an Asian perspective. Though these foreign websites are very informative, I feel that they may have fail to address some of our problems seen from an Asian perspective.

I will use some of my own marital experience to help our readers here and on hand I have a team of qualified counsellors who will try  to provide their expertise if necessary by way of online/face to face counselling. Hopefully, we can help meet a growing need here to assist our troubled marriages.

2. On line counselling support

We will want to harness the power of the internet to provide support to people in brken marriages. As an Asian myself, I find it very difficult to seek help from someone whom I do not know. There is also the cultural male ego within most men who will shy away from opening up their private lives to a stranger.

I only seen a marriage counsellor in Sydney last year when things were really going bad for my marriage. The male ego and the feeling that I am not in control make me hesitate to seek help for my marriage though we are  hurting inside us for many years. I am married for 16 years and the last seven years  of my marriage have been choppy at best.  Differences, unresolved anger and unforgiveness have not allow us to really enjoy our relationship.  The fact that I was jobless for 18 months during 2000-2001 also did not make the situation easier for the family. There were many times that I wanted to throw in the marital towel but strangely I did notb mainly because of my daughter and my faith. When my wife gave me the ultimatum last year, I realised that unless I did something drastic to keep the marriage, I will be single again!

Going to see a counsellor together was very effective for our marriage as there was the concerted effort to make things work together. When two hands clap together, the only way to go for us is UP. The counsellor merely acts as a a middle man here and nothing he does have cause us to believe that he has taken any side. Many people fear that the counsellor will take side and lay blame on one party when professionally speaking, he can only guide and facilitate by allowing us to talk out our issues logically. The couple finally still has to do their part in ensuring that the marriage is heading at the right direction.

I want to also demystify the role of counselling here.  Many people go for counselling at the stage 4 of their marital cancer, expecting the counsellor to save their marriage when it is almost gone.  I believe many divorces can be arrested if couples humble themselves and seek help at stage one or two of their marital cancer. I have heard that more often than not, one party (often the woman) will want to seek help whereas the other party will not support the idea. I am fortunate that my wife is the one that wants to seek help and when I readily agree to the idea though at the very last minute and  the relationship was saved as a result.

I am not saying that all marriages will be saved by counselling (at least 40% may end even after counselling more likely when the couple sees the counsellor too late), but giving it a fair shot when things are not going great seem reasonable. If we can see a doctor when we are sick, seeing a counsellor when we have a problem in our marriage seems logical. This is easier say than done of course and I am sure that readers will want me to revisit this issue as we go along.

3. Surfacing common divorced problems

I will also use this site to surface out some common divorced problems faced. As I spoke to some couples who are either divorced or face marital challenges, the issues that they brought up seem universal and common.

For example, once a couple has a new addition to their family, problems such as lesser time spent together and also more seriously lesser sex have poised difficulties to any typical relationship. Many couples have managed to overcome their problem after a while but there are some couples that unfortunately have let the issue goes unattended for many years. After a while, as the relationship goes south, many of such families face the challenge of a third party (usually initiated by the man for sexual need) and the whole marriage turns very choleric after that.

I hope that you will enjoy the site and try to contribute by emailing me at goh_gilbert@yahoo.com if you have any other suggestions to improve the site.

Gilbert

Site Administrator