AS many men as women have been calling a new hotline for people having relationship troubles.
Experts running the new Relationship Helpline believe the confidential nature of the service will encourage more men to call to discuss their problems.
Launched yesterday, it aims to provide a supporting voice to anyone experiencing difficulty with any kind of relationship.
Staff manning the phones in pre-launch testing were surprised to find half of all callers were male.
Stella Gibson, chief executive of Scottish Marriage Care, the counselling charity running the helpline, said the fact that control remains with the caller could appeal to men.
"The helpline is a different way of doing things," she said. "You don't have to go off and see someone. You are just lifting the phone and it is really quite confidential.
"You have got control of the situation and you can hang up at any time."
The project has received a £150,000 grant from the Scottish Government and discussions for extending the funding beyond March 2013 are ongoing.
Mrs Gibson said the state of the economy and, in the shorter term, the intensity of Christmas means that families are currently under significant pressure.
The launch was also attended by Aileen Campbell, minister for children and families.
Between 3000 and 4000 phone calls are expected to be logged within the first year of the new helpline, which will be available on 0808 802 2088 from 9am and 8pm between Monday to Thursday and 9am to 5pm on Fridays.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article