With increasing pressures chipping away at relationships, an international expert is urging those planning on starting a new family to decide on household responsibilities before entering into a union.

The second rule would be to agree on how to resolve disagreements, family lawyer Anne Berger told the Times of Malta ahead of a conference organised by the President’s Foundation for the Well-being of Society and the International Commission on Couple and Family Relations.

“In preparation for starting a new family, a couple should have very clear expectations about who is going to be doing what and how they are going to negotiate the problem of not agreeing,” Dr Berger said.

When it comes to those who are already in a relationship, she is a big believer in couple’s therapy.

Those preparing to start a relationship, including teenagers, should be encouraged to consider couple’s counselling as part of the process, she told this newspaper.

The conference ‘Couple relationships in the 21st century: evolving contexts and emergent meanings’, to be held between February 7 and 9, will among other things look at the impact children and the use of technology left on couple relationships.

The conference has been held for 64 years in sites around the world, and since Dr Berger started chairing the ICCFR in 2015, the events have taken place in Berlin, Trento and Boston.

An increase in non-traditional families

The National Centre for Family Research in the President’s Foundation said last month that technology made infidelity easier, according to Maltese couples who took part in a nationwide study.

The qualitative research about couples’ expectations and experiences also showed that self-centred behaviour, financial struggles and the inability to communicate were chipping away at local relationships.

Dr Berger has seen two emerging trends through her work which have changed the family composition and how the extended family works.

First, the overwhelming majority of couples are now made of two income-earners, and there is no longer a stay-at-home parent who takes care of children.

In the past, the financial burdens were borne by the primary breadwinner, while the other person in the couple was expected to be the homemaker.

But nowadays one of the partners – usually the woman – has to do two full-time jobs: provide financially and be a homemaker.

This is putting enormous stress on couples, with women turning on men and asking them to share the responsibilities.

The second trend, which Malta is also catching up with, has seen an increase in non-traditional families, including family units made up of unmarried parents, two mothers or two fathers.

Dr Berger hopes the conference generates a lot of cross-pollination, with people from different cultures and countries sharing their viewpoints in the discussion groups, which bring together people from different societies.

Log on to www.um.edu.mt/events/cr21c2018 for more information on the conference.