Are you a POCO? (published 29/12/05)

During this quiet bit between Christmas and the new year it is perhaps worth taking a moment to reflect that not everybody has a whale of a time in the festive season. Some people approach the whole thing with a sense of utter dread. I am thinking in particular of the POCOs, the 'paired off but cheesed off'. There's an old saying about how the loneliest people are often the ones in a crowd or, in this case, the ones who are paired off.

These are the people who live a life of outwardly sound respectability settled into a marriage or partnership that may have gone on for years and years, but now want out. Usually the desire to get out starts slowly at first and gathers intensity over a period of perhaps many years, until something happens, some spark or little incident that seems nothing much on its own, but finally causes the whole thing to unravel. Courage is summoned up, and the couple split.

Why do I mention this depressing subject at this time of year? Well, it is a fact, whether we like it or not, that these 'family' occasions are often precisely the times when strains like these show and so often reach breaking point. For most of the year it is not so difficult to get by with an understanding, usually unspoken, that a couple share that they will keep out of each other's way. But at times like Christmas this breaks down in a frenzy of enforced cheerfulness when folk feel obliged to be together for appearances' sake and the whole thing just can't go on any longer. Emotional dams burst and the new year begins with a resolution to start all over again.

At Wilsons we see a lot of this. We have noticed over the years a definite trend towards the number of enquiries from people enquiring about the consequences of such splits going well upwards just after holiday periods. The dams seem to be bursting left right and centre at this time of year, and we are here to try to give advice and help mop up the aftereffects.

If you find yourself in this position, we are open 10-4 every day throughout the holiday period. Just call for a chat. There's no charge just to pick up the phone and talk, and it could be the start of the rest of a new life for you.

Happy New Year.