One in every two marriages in Britain now ends in divorce, according to last year's statistics. Add on those who ended relationships with boyfriends, and you have hundreds of thousands of people coming to the painful realisation that love is not always enough.

An increasing number of individuals no longer commit in the first place, living life as what the American couples' counsellors Maurice Taylor and Seana McGee call "scared singles": the once bitten, twice shy (or twice bitten, quadruple shy) phenomenon. Thirty years ago in Britain, 23% of 20 to 34- year-olds weren't married. Today, 63% are making that choice. In America, an increasing number of young couples are turning to counsellors to make sure their relationships are all they could be before things go wrong. Taylor and McGee (known professionally as the New Couple) see couples while they're still enjoying their honeymoon period.

"We want to catch them when they're still intoxicated with each other," says McGee. "We used to believe that if you really love someone then you will stay
happy for ever, but divorce statistics show that it isn't true. Young people are too smart to walk into the lion's mouth without education. The truth is
that love isn't enough. You also need skills." Today, in London, 50 people - couples and singles (some people go even before they have a relationship to
break up) - are attending the first intensive New Couple workshop in the UK. Judging by New Couple workshops abroad, it's likely to succeed.

David Reis, 34, and Amy Harris, 28, from Los Angeles, went to a New Couple workshop after just four months together. "Our relationship is more fiery than flat," says Reis, "so it needs fine-tuning." Three months on, the couple are engaged to be married.

Their book does not look like a manifesto and they look like models in an exercise gadget info-mercial, not activists with a global agenda. But secretly, that is what Seana McGee and Maurice Taylor, a husband and wife team, hope will happen when people read their book, The New Couple.''

The tools that Taylor and McGee teach their clients are emotional literacy (working out your baggage from past relationships and childhood, and learning not to project it onto your other half), deep listening and conflict resolution. They use a framework called the 10 New Laws of Love (see box, right). Many couples find the conflict- resolution skills particularly helpful.

Mark Koenigs, 35, and Vivienne Glyck, 40, worked with Taylor and McGee before they got married. "The New Couple teach you how to sort out recurring problems so both people feel resolved. I have never met a couple who have mastered this on their own. You look at couples who are still together at 60, and they haven't worked out their issues. It's just that one has given up and the other has power. That's a truce, not a resolution."

This is where Taylor and McGee live up to their title. John Gray's different planet model (Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus) might have stopped relationships breaking down, but its emphasis on the differences between the sexes doesn't make it a blueprint that many twenty- and thirtysomethings really aspire to.

"Mars and Venus was a necessary agreement between the sexes," says Taylor, "but we're talking about real peace. We're not just saying, 'Men are moody and go into their caves, and women are clingy - and you have to accept it.' We think that men and women are the same, and want the same things - what gets in the way of that is gender conditioning. We teach people how to resolve their differences."

Taylor and McGee outline three stages of a relationship: intoxication, when you can't get enough of each other; the power struggle (where most relationships get stuck or end); and then relationship nirvana, a state they call "co-creativity".

"Co-creative couples are happy, equal, liberated, interdependent, emotionally literate, good listeners, and basking in the fact that they still have a great sexual connection and are best friends," says Taylor. "Most of the married world is stuck in the power struggle, and it's either a stand-off, or guerilla warfare, where anger is expressed through criticism, silent treatment, sarcasm, judgment, acting pathetic or guilt tripping," says McGee. "The New Couple can deal with their anger. They know how to resolve trouble when it happens."

Workshops take place in seminar rooms, and although there may be as many as 50 thirtysomethings in a session, public confessions are not encouraged - couples work on their own. Talyor and McGee begin with an introduction before setting couples specific role-play exercises based on their 10 New Laws of love. One of the most important is the "deep listening" exercise: each person is asked to look their other half in the eye while listening to them talk for two minutes without interruption before swapping roles.

"My husband and I have been married for seven years and have two kids," says Serena Laurence, a New Couple devotee. "It was rare for us to sit opposite each other, look each other in the eye and voice our concerns, other than who pays the bills. Our relationship wasn't in trouble, we just needed a gentle prod."

Relate, the UK's biggest relationship- counselling group, is also in favour of couples seeking advice before disaster strikes. "It's easier to put in place preventive measures than it is to work through old wounds," says Denise Knowles, a Relate counsellor. "People take out life and household insurance. It would be great if they could also be that forward- thinking about their relationships."

To book a place on the second New Couple Intensive Weekend, September 21-23, call The Hoffman Institute on 01903 889990. It costs £250 per couple for the weekend session.