The source of much of our unhappiness is the Failing or Failed relationships with those who are important to us: with our spouses, parents, children, friends and colleagues... their lack of conformity to how we imagine they should be.

Herein lay the problems most relationships will suffer during the course of their existence. It is not so much that the relationship is flawed; it is more that the individuals bring to the table a series of unmet needs and personality bruises that stand in the way. It’s not a couple’s problem. It is individual problems that were there long before the couple met that stands in the way... unfinished business from years ago.

The symptoms of unhappiness are widely variable and are often seen as mental illness. M Scott Peck makes the observation that most if not all human mental disorder is structured in an individual’s inability to face their legitimate suffering.

Most personality disorders are defence strategies gone sideways, but they become ways of dealing with life and they leave each of us wanting.