ABSTRACT
This chapter explores some of the seemingly intractable dilemmas experienced by certain patients in their adult couple relationships. It begins with a general description of some of the principal psychologically troubling aspects of the boarding school experience. The chapter then sets out and discusses one couple case in detail, showing the particular issues by which both partners were affected, and the diversity of the problems within the relationship which partly emanated from each of their involvement as children, his directly and hers indirectly, in the boarding school system. It illustrates how hard it is for a woman to relate successfully to a man from the background, particularly if her own childhood has been marked by it. It raises some of the issues concerning the boarding school child's experience. The chapter investigates hidden dimensions of the trauma in which most of these children have been involved, which often manifest on the surface of a couple's relationship as fairly ordinary problems.
