Some people might take the view that attending relationship counselling is an admission of failure - something we only consider in a final attempt to save a relationship that’s gone wrong. Another way of looking at this is to say that going for counselling is a sign of our willingness to be proactive and try to resolve problems rather than avoid them.

After all, it can take some courage to recognise when we're experiencing difficulties in our relationship and make the decision to pick up the phone and talk to a counsellor. The fact is that sometimes it can simply feel too difficult to cope with relationship problems on our own and on these occasions it's quite natural to seek counselling to help us to find a way through. Also, attitudes have changed over recent years with the development of social media and we're much more open to the idea of talking about our problems and asking for help than we might have been in previous times.

Increasingly, people have come to recognise that if we care about our relationships it's worth investing time and effort in making them work. We can also find ourselves needing help at different stages of our relationships and whilst it would be unwise to see counselling to be a cure-all - we still have to put in our own effort - it can certainly help us to improve things with our partner before problems develop into a crisis.

It's worth remembering that no issue is ever too small to discuss in counselling and we don't have to wait until things get really bad before we take steps to improve our relationship. Even when things feel really difficult couples can often be surprised how much counselling can help to get the relationship back on track.