For one acquaintance of mine, Christmas Day was the day that she could no longer gloss over the fact that all was not well in her marriage.

In an attempt to provide a happy ending to a fraught year, she’d invited the extended family for Christmas. However, the plan for a perfect yuletide began to fray when her husband of six years went out for “a couple of drinks” on Christmas Eve. While she was at home entertaining his parents, he got caught up in the festive spirit and rolled in at 3am.

On Christmas Day, she spent the morning preparing a meal for 13 people. However, a mishap with the cooker – she’d switched on the grill instead of the oven – combined with the sight of her husband sitting morose and hungover in front of the television triggered a very uncharacteristic, and public, row. Even now, it’s still a source of deep embarrassment.

A recent survey of 4100 people commissioned by cheese-maker Jarlsberg revealed that the average family will have their first argument by 9.58am on Christmas morning – most commonly caused by parents trying to tidy up or disagreements over what to watch on TV. But while family tiffs are as traditional as tinsel, the holidays can be a particularly high-pressure time for couples. Can it be coincidence that more people file for divorce in mid-January than at any other time of the year?

Sue Maxwell, a sexual and ­relationship therapist with the counselling, mediation and support organisation Relationships Scotland, says she sees a lot of people for the first time after the festive period. “Most family mediation services will report that, after Hogmanay, people will be phoning up to say that they are in crisis and need to be seen straight away,” she says.

“Frequently, people will have had a couple crisis. It can be around money or alcohol but usually it’s trivia. You can get people who’ve had fights about who sat where at Christmas dinner. We know that couples are more likely to argue during this time and it is often down to old history, high expectations and the triggers around us.”

Ms Maxwell believes that the pressure people put on themselves and others is a significant factor. “They want everybody to have a good time. They have a recollection of something going amiss last year so there’s an intention to make it better this time round.”

Spending a concentrated amount of time together can expose tensions which are less obvious in everyday life. “Look behind the trivia to the meaning of the argument,” says Ms Maxwell. “For some people it’s about always having to be right; it’s about power struggles. You might have issues about competition, which are not actually about what kind of Christmas tree to get.”

This year, many families are also facing greater financial constraints. “There can be disputes between couples about how to manage money and it might be over things like what you give the children for Christmas,” says Ms Maxwell. “Many of the problems over Christmas are over practical or value-based things that suddenly are made more complex by lack of money.”

A recent UK-wide survey for The Body Shop At Home suggested that people are planing to spend no more than £300 this year – down from £604 last year and £706 in 2007. To keep costs to a minimum, 53% of us are cutting back on gifts and 43% are cutting back on food, drink and entertaining.

In Scotland in particular, alcohol is one of the key triggers for arguments, says Ms Maxwell. “The classic is Christmas Eve: you have people round for drinks or you go to the pub. Before you even get to bed, it’s simple things like ‘I didn’t like how you talked to my best friend’ or ‘So-and-so gave you a kiss under the mistletoe: how dare they?’”

Getting together with family and friends at Christmas can also mean couples don’t have enough time (or energy) to even think about getting intimate together, Ms Maxwell adds – especially if they have children to keep entertained, too.

She thinks the reason these issues escalate is often the lack of a successful method of debate between couples. “Some people believe that relationships are about never arguing. Actually, all relationships are about finding a way of arguing where you can both get your points across equally without attacking the other person.

“Discussion is the starting point but a lot of couples start with arguments and they never get to the point where they hear the other person’s point of view. Or there’s one person who always drags up things which have happened in the past.”

Having different opinions is not necessarily a recipe for disaster. “The reality is, if you’ve got different thoughts and different ways of being, it is better being in a relationship where you can explore the differences,” says Ms Maxwell.

Thecoupleconnection.net, an online service which provides relationship advice, says that while some arguments are not healthy, there are also ways to argue better.

It has released a new online guide in time for Christmas on how to argue better, pointing out that arguments don’t always have to lead to screaming matches. Indeed, they can be part of a healthy communication process when carried out in a productive and constructive manner. So, for those who find themselves in a cauldron of bubbling tension, how can they take the heat out of the situation during the emotive festive period?

“If you’ve got a problem, don’t wait,” says Ms Maxwell. “Discuss it now, preferably outwith children’s earshot. If that means getting somebody to look after them while you go and have a coffee, do it.

“If it’s a difficult discussion which lands up as an argument every time you have it in the house, go somewhere neutral where you’re not going to be shouting and bawling. And try stepping out from the discussion and saying things like ‘When you talk like that it makes me feel angry,’ instead of just being angry.

“Often we suggest to couples that they have a timetable so they get some of their own needs met and don’t feel they have to spend 14 days completely together – which is an unusual situation for many. Doing it in your own home can feel very oppressive.”

A technique she uses with clients is to find a compromise which works

in the immediate future, in order to allow couples to move beyond the crisis before trying to establish a longer-term solution.

“Your opinion is based on who you are and all your learning from the past, so opinions matter. If your partner has a different opinion, celebrate it, but if there is a difference of opinion you need to think about how you are going to manage that and then you are into more in-depth discussion.”

Visit www.relationships-scotland.org.uk or call 0845 119 2020.