Verbal abuse, anxiety, stress cause problems in 80% of marriages

Verbal abuse, anxiety, and stress led to problems in almost 80% of marriages last year while reports of physical violence have decreased, figures show.

Accord, the Catholic marriage care service, which operates 60 centres across the island, said there has been an increase in demand for its two key services — marriage preparation and marriage counselling — in the past year.

Accord delivered more than 50,000 hours of counselling in 2012 — up from 43,627 in 2010. The number of counselling cases in 2010 was 6,185, while this rose to 6,536 last year.