Psychologist issues warning to couples as shocking trend that happens after every Christmas revealed

Christmas is once again looming with all its joys and stresses, but now a psychologist has shared one impact that the festive season could have on couples.

While Christmas is a great time to get together, sometimes it can be extremely stressful, and cracks in relationships which have remained hidden through the year might buckle under the stress.

Psychologist Rod Mitchell has drawn attention to the challenges that the season can bring for a relationship, including a rather concerning trend.

This happens not so much during the Christmas period itself as in the following weeks, when the festive glow has faded, and we're all facing the depressing grey trudge that is January.

Mitchell is a registered psychologist who founded Emotions Therapy Calgary, and spilt the beans on a worrying trend he notices each year.

Christmas can be a tense time of year (Drazen Zigic/Getty)

The trend is that the post-Christmas period is a hot spot for couples to start booking marriage counselling sessions.

The pressure of Christmas, not to mention things like looking after family and little ones, and possibly increased alcohol consumption over the period, come together to make for an unfortunate mix.

And Mitchell suggests that while this may not cause the problems to begin with, it will bring existing problems to the surface.

"'We're roommates who have sex occasionally, not partners.' I hear this exact phrase in my therapy office every January," he said.

"I've seen this pattern for years: couples therapy inquiries spike 200 percent every January. The holidays don't create problems - they reveal them."

Research has shown that around 22 percent of married couples in the US seek out or plan couples therapy around holiday tension.

But this year, there's one additional factor which has brought this yearly reckoning forward.

Many couples end up looking into therapy in January (Andrey Zhuravlev/Getty)

This is a polar vortex, which is impacting parts of the US this year during Thanksgiving - another stressful time.

"This year's polar vortex is forcing that reckoning three weeks early," he said. "And based on what I'm seeing in my office right now, most couples aren't ready."

It's not that Christmas itself is inherently bad for relationships, Mitchell explains; it's that it's a period of sustained stress.

There's dealing with Christmas shopping to get presents, physically travelling home, spending time cooped up with people you may not see very often, and may not even get along with that well.

That's before you get to sorting out the day itself with the food prep.

All that makes for a lot of sustained stress, and sadly, it's then often the people closest to us that we might lash out at.