Catholic marriage counselling at record level

The Catholic Church's marriage and relationship counselling service recorded the largest amount of sessions last year since its…

The Catholic Church's marriage and relationship counselling service recorded the largest amount of sessions last year since its inception in 1969.

Accord's director of counselling, John Farrelly, said the average profile of those using the service was couples aged between 30 and 40, married for 12 years with children.

Some 30,000 counselling sessions were delivered by Accord's 400 counsellors at 58 centres.

"These clients represent ordinary couples who face life challenges brought about by: having children; both parents working outside the home; less family quality time due to increased working hours and time spent commuting; and, in trying to reconcile family budgets," Mr Farrelly said.

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Accord identified a number of consequences caused by pressures on a marriage including: partners being critical, insulting and unable to resolve conflict.

The sharing of domestic tasks and childcare, were also identified as common problems, according the services annual statistics.