Context Context Context

There is no meaning without context. Everything is contextual.

So often we forget this, yet it is so important to look at things within their context.

Social Constructionists are all about context and language shaping our meanings.

Whatever is happening in your relationship that is difficult and affecting you, is not existing in a vacuum.

What is going on in the wider context of your relationship? Has this problem always affected your relationship, or is there something else going on? What has changed in your lives since the problem began?

How has the recession affected one or both of you? How have things changed since the birth of a child? Are your children about to leave home? How do you feel about turning 30, or 40, or 50? Or how do you feel as you are about to retire? Is there something going on at your partner's work that is stressing them out?

Everything is always in context of something else. Find out what the context of the issue is before attaching a meaning to it and reacting to that. You will always be able to understand a problem better, the more information you have, start with the context and you are halfway there.