Research into people who care for their partners

[Judith Research]

I hope this is the right place to post – and thank you very much to Wendy for letting me post on here.

To introduce myself: My name is Judith Fessler.  In my 20s I was a family carer, and I later worked as a care worker (mainly doing 24-hour live-in care).  I’m now lucky enough to be studying for a doctorate in counselling psychology, and I’m doing research into carers’ relationships.

My research is: ‘How do people who have become carers for their partners talk about staying in or leaving their relationship?’

The reason I’m researching this is that I know from my own experience, from care work, and from therapy clients, just how hard it can be to maintain relationships after one person becomes the other’s carer.  For some conditions (like brain and spinal cord injury) almost 50% of marriages break down.  I’ve found a lot of research into carers’ stress, and advice for therapists on how to help carers cope better with stress.  And of course there’s a lot of research into why non-care relationships break down.  But being a carer for your partner is a very different experience from a non-care relationship, and I’ve found nothing all about what it’s like to be so unhappy that you sometimes think about leaving.

Perhaps in any other relationship that was under great stress people would find it easier to say, ‘sometimes I think about walking away’.  But it seems this is much harder for carers to talk about.  I can make guesses about why that is - but there’s no information out there about it.  And with only guesses to go on, I could be completely wrong.

I’m hoping to turn my research into resources for therapists who work with carers – because I think this is also a difficult area for the counsellors themselves to talk about. 

So – I’m looking for people who would be willing to have an interview with me, who sometimes think about leaving their relationship.  It doesn’t matter if this is a thought you have once every six months, and quickly dismiss it, or if you wake up and think about it every day - all experiences are valid.    Interviews are anonymous: I change names, locations, careers, ages – anything else that might identify you. 

There’s more information on my website: www.carersleavingrelationships.wordpress.com.  Or if you have any questions you can contact me on here. 

Thank you so much for reading this far, and thank you again for letting me post on here.

Judith

[wendy]

in case anyone would like to help Judith