The summer holidays are often imagined as a time for families to relax, reconnect and enjoy being together. Yet for many couples, particularly those with children, the reality can be rather different.

In my work with couples, I often find that the end of the summer brings a moment of reflection. After weeks of disrupted routines, childcare, travel, family commitments and very little time alone together, couples may arrive in September feeling exhausted, disconnected or more aware of difficulties that have been quietly building between them.

Sometimes a couple has argued throughout the summer. Sometimes they have barely spoken about anything beyond the practicalities of family life. And sometimes there has been no obvious crisis at all. Instead, one or both partners have simply reached the end of the holidays with a growing sense that something in the relationship is not quite right.

The return to school and work can bring relief, but it can also create space to notice what has been lost or what has become difficult.

This can be an important moment. The pressures of family life don’t necessarily create relationship difficulties from nowhere. Rather, they can bring existing emotional patterns into sharper focus.

When the usual structure disappears

For many families, the school year provides an enormous amount of structure. There are routines, timetables, work commitments, school runs and established expectations about who does what.

This structure is often disrupted over the summer.

Children are at home for longer periods, childcare arrangements change, parents may be trying to work while looking after them, and the family may be spending considerably more time together. Holidays themselves can bring their own pressures: travel, planning, money, different expectations and the desire to create a positive experience for everyone.

The practical workload can become significant.

One partner may feel that they are carrying the mental load of organising the holiday, remembering what the children need, arranging activities and anticipating problems. The other may feel that their efforts are overlooked or that whatever they do is not enough.

Small disagreements can become disproportionately intense.

A disagreement about where to eat, who should take the children swimming or whether to visit family can suddenly feel much bigger than the immediate issue would suggest.

This is often because the argument is carrying an emotional meaning.

It may be less about who is doing the washing and more about whether I feel valued by you.

Less about whose turn it is to deal with the children and more about whether I feel I can rely on you.

Less about how we spend our evening and more about whether you still want to spend time with me.

Psychodynamic couples therapy is interested in these deeper layers of experience.

The arguments beneath the arguments

Couples can become caught in familiar patterns.

One partner feels neglected and becomes increasingly critical or demanding. The other experiences this as criticism and withdraws or becomes defensive. The withdrawal then confirms the first partner’s fear of being unimportant, leading them to pursue the relationship more intensely.

The more one partner pursues, the more the other retreats.

The more the other retreats, the more anxious or angry their partner becomes.

Over time, the couple can feel trapped in a cycle that neither person consciously chose.

Both may be able to describe the pattern perfectly. They may even know what the other person is going to say before they say it. Yet knowing the pattern intellectually does not necessarily make it possible to change.

A psychodynamic approach seeks to understand what gives these patterns their emotional force.

We may begin to explore questions such as:

What does it feel like when your partner withdraws?

What do you fear might happen if you stop pursuing them?

What does criticism mean to you?

What does needing someone mean?

What happens when you feel dependent, disappointed, ignored or rejected?

These questions can take us beneath the immediate disagreement and towards the emotional experience of the relationship.

Why having children can change a relationship

Having children can be deeply meaningful and rewarding, but it can also transform a couple’s relationship.

There are new responsibilities, new demands and often less time for intimacy, spontaneity and privacy. The couple who once had time to talk, travel, sleep and make decisions together may find themselves organising almost every aspect of life around their children.

Over time, partners can begin to feel more like co-managers of a household than a couple.

The summer can intensify this experience because children are present for much more of the day. There may be little opportunity to have a private conversation, spend time together as partners or simply be alone.

Some couples discover that when the children finally go to bed, they are too exhausted to talk. Others find that the only conversations they have are about what needs to happen next.

The relationship can become highly functional while becoming emotionally distant.

This can be particularly painful because the couple may remember a time when their relationship felt very different.

There can be grief for the relationship they once had, alongside guilt about even having those feelings.

A parent may think, How can I complain when we have a healthy family and so much to be grateful for?

But gratitude and dissatisfaction can coexist. Loving your children deeply doesn’t mean that you can’t also miss your partner.

The emotional impact of the “mental load”

One of the recurring sources of tension between couples is the unequal experience of responsibility.

It’s not always simply about who does more practical tasks. It can be about who is constantly thinking ahead, anticipating needs, remembering appointments, planning meals, organising activities or monitoring how everyone else is coping.

When one person feels they are carrying this responsibility alone, resentment can build.

Yet resentment can sometimes conceal more vulnerable feelings.

Behind “You never help me” there may be “I don’t feel cared for.”

Behind “You are always criticising me” there may be “I don’t feel that I can make you happy.”

Behind “You don’t appreciate anything I do” there may be “I am frightened that I am not important to you.”

These underlying feelings are not always easy to express.

Anger can feel safer than hurt.

Criticism can feel safer than asking for reassurance.

Withdrawal can feel safer than admitting that you are frightened of rejection.

Psychodynamic therapy creates space to begin to recognise these emotional defences and understand what lies beneath them.

The influence of earlier relationships

A psychodynamic perspective also considers the possibility that our experiences in earlier relationships can influence the way we behave in our intimate relationships now.

This doesn’t mean that everything about a relationship can be explained by childhood, or that one partner is somehow responsible for the other’s difficulties.

Rather, our early experiences can contribute to expectations about closeness, trust, dependence, conflict and emotional availability.

For example, someone who grew up feeling that their needs were often overlooked may be particularly sensitive to signs of distance from a partner. Another person who learned early in life that conflict was dangerous may cope by withdrawing whenever emotions become intense.

Neither person necessarily chooses these responses consciously.

They can become familiar ways of protecting ourselves.

When two people’s patterns meet within an intimate relationship, they can interact in complicated ways. One person’s need for reassurance may trigger another person’s fear of being controlled. One person’s withdrawal may intensify the other’s fear of abandonment.

The couple can then become caught in a dynamic that feels bigger than either individual.

Understanding this dynamic can be an important part of therapeutic work.

Why September can be a turning point

By the end of the summer, couples may find themselves asking questions they have been avoiding.

Why are we arguing so much?

When did we become like this?

Why do I feel so alone when we are together?

Why can’t we seem to talk without it becoming an argument?

Are we still a couple, or are we simply parenting together?

These questions can be uncomfortable, but they can also represent an opportunity.

A relationship doesn’t need to be at breaking point for couples therapy to be useful.

In fact, many couples seek therapy because they want to understand what’s happening before their difficulties become more entrenched.

Therapy can provide a space that is separate from the everyday pressures of parenting, work and household responsibilities. For an hour, the focus can return to the relationship itself.

What happens in psychodynamic couples therapy?

Psychodynamic couples therapy is not simply about learning communication techniques or finding better ways to resolve arguments, although communication can certainly improve as a result of the work.

The focus is on understanding the emotional relationship between two people.

We might explore a particular disagreement, but also consider why that disagreement becomes so charged? We might look at the sequence that unfolds between you: what one person does, how the other responds, what each person feels, and how the pattern develops.

Over time, we can begin to recognise recurring dynamics.

The therapist also pays attention to what happens within the therapeutic relationship itself. How each partner experiences being listened to, understood or misunderstood can sometimes provide valuable insight into the ways they experience one another outside the therapy room.

The aim is not to decide who is right.

It’s to create enough space for both people to become curious about what is happening between them.

This can allow feelings that have previously emerged only through anger, criticism or withdrawal to be expressed and understood differently.

You don’t have to wait for a crisis

Many couples worry that coming to therapy means their relationship has seriously failed.

It doesn’t.

Seeking help can simply mean recognising that the relationship matters enough to deserve attention.

Sometimes couples arrive after years of managing difficulties on their own. Sometimes a particular event has brought everything to the surface. Sometimes the catalyst is surprisingly ordinary: a difficult holiday, a series of arguments, a growing sense of distance or the realisation that they have stopped talking to each other.

The end of the summer can provide a natural opportunity to pause.

The children return to school. Work becomes more predictable. The familiar routines return.

And perhaps, for the first time in several weeks, there is enough quiet to ask yourself how the relationship is actually feeling.

If the answer is uncomfortable, it doesn’t mean that something is irreparably wrong.

It may mean that something needs to be understood.

Making space for the relationship again

Couples often spend enormous amounts of energy creating a good life for their children. It is understandable that the relationship between the adults can become secondary.

But the couple relationship also needs attention.

Psychodynamic couples therapy offers an opportunity to step outside the practical demands of family life and think carefully about the emotional world you share.

It can help couples understand the patterns they have become caught in, recognise the feelings underneath conflict, and develop a greater capacity to listen to and understand one another.

The goal is not to create a relationship without disagreement.

Every close relationship involves frustration, disappointment and conflict.

The question is whether you can begin to understand what happens when those difficult feelings arise—and whether you can find a different way of being together when they do.

For some couples, the summer is the point at which difficulties become impossible to ignore. For others, it simply highlights something that has been present for a long time.

Either way, noticing that something isn’t working is not necessarily a sign of failure.

It can be the beginning of paying attention.

And sometimes, after a long and difficult summer, that is exactly what a relationship needs.