You're invited to join a small group of women to walk a path together - six weeks of shared learning, conversation, and discovery. We’ll explore what boarding school syndrome really is, the survival patterns it creates, and how we can help the men in our lives open up and reconnect. There will be no more than ten of us, so there’s room for each story, each question, each moment of insight. I’ll be your guide, but we’ll make the journey together.
A six-week course for women in relationships with men who went to boarding school
If you're in a relationship with a man who went to boarding school, you might have felt a sort of block – even if you couldn’t name it.
Maybe he shuts down during conflict.
Perhaps he struggles with closeness.
He’s self-sufficient and finds it hard to ask for help.
He tells you he loves you, but he’s emotionally unavailable.
Or he swings between needing space and wanting you close – but never too close.
You're not imagining it. And you're not alone.
There are an estimated 400,000-500,000 women who are married to men who went to boarding school. Not all of them have problems in their relationships, but your experience is doubtless repeated across the nation in all sorts of homes.
How would it feel to meet some of those women and spend six weeks together working on the issues which arise in your relationships?
Sign up now or book a 15 minute call if you want to talk through the programme first.
This is the recording from a workshop I held on August 12th
"Working with Sorrel was a dream, she makes you feel at ease and listened to. She asks questions that really make you look deep into your soul and teases out hidden meanings."
Probably no one told you how the experience of boarding school might have affected your partner. But you may have noticed difficulties on his part in relation to:
💙 Emotional intimacy
📢 Communication
🥊 Conflict
🫸 Trust
🫶 The ability to feel and express love
Join the Bridge Back to Us and learn how his boarding school experience led him to be the way he is in relationships. And discover new ways of talking to him which will make it easier for him to respond positively to your need for communication and closeness.
"I came to see Sorrel following some anger issues I was having after a bereavement, and the work that Sorrel has done with me has been transformative, to say the least. I feel much calmer, in a considerably better place and certainly less angry than I ever did prior to the work that I started with Sorrel."
Click the button to enter your details and grab your spot on the programme
Over the six weeks of the programme we will cover the following topics:
Introductions - a chance for us all to meet each other and share our hopes are for the programme
Why boarding school is so damaging to the child's development
How boarding school impacts the child's 'relational brain'
The power of neuroplasticity
Your foundations: Safety, compassion, curiosity
The boarder's stress response: Fight, flight, freeze, fawn
Is he a complier, a rebel or crushed?
The levels of emotional shutdown
How that shows up in your relationship
Looking past the mask to the human within
How we fall out of consciousness when we're stressed
Communication strategies that get in the way of closeness
The five Losing Strategies - which of them are you using?
What you can do differently
Slowing down
A new tool: Deep Listening
The hidden link between his behaviour and your feelings
The predictive brain
Learning to distinguish between what's real and what we've 'made up' about a situation
Allowing him to take responsibility for his own experience
A new tool: The Feedback Wheel
Your chance to feed back about how you've been getting on
Trouble shooting
Creating your own best winning strategy
More on grounding and emotional regulation
What's next?
What do you need going forward?
Click the button to enter your details and grab your spot on the programme
"We approached Sorrel as we as a couple had reached a very challenging time in our relationship. We were apart, we had had a huge argument and the route back to the loving relationship seemed insurmountable. Sorrel's sessions provided us with the breathing space to witness our relationship, learn new methods for communicating and brought us into awareness about how our attachment styles were playing out"
The experience of boarding school exacts a dreadful toll on children which lasts well into adulthood. Many of us come out traumatised and emotionally shut-down.
For some boarding school survivors the trauma is obvious - memories of cold, hunger, bullying and abuse. But for others the trauma is more subtle and may be buried deep inside making it difficult to access the memories and emotions.
For men the process of burying emotions and denying fear or anxiety is just part and parcel of traditional masculinity. For the boarding school survivor it's simply masculinity on steroids.
Part of the cost of a boarding school education is the challenges we experience in intimate relationships - and even in relationships with our children. Very often it is the survivor's partner who really bears the cost, attempting - often fruitlessly - to get through to him and encourage him to open up.
"Just a short note to say I really enjoy receiving and reading your emails. What you do is so important. Thank goodness you are reaching and helping so many people be happier and more comfortable with themselves and their relationships. You certainly make me stop and consider the consequences of my thoughts and communications and how I can do better, things that I and I am sure many others don't often take the time to think about."
You don't have to do any preparation., However you may find it helpful to write down in advance any difficulties you are experiencing in your relationship. And obviously if you have a question write that down so you don't forget it!
There will be a recordings which will be available on the course portal. I aim to have them up within 24 hours. They will only be accessible to women on the course.
No it isn't. The programme is designed for women who are in relationships with male ex-boarders.
This course is for women only. Please do not sign up if you don't identify as female.
Hi, I'm Sorrel. I'm a trauma-informed relationship coach, working with people who have hit a road-block in their relationships.
I offer couples coaching and 1-to-1 coaching to boarding school survivors and their partners.
I'm certified as a Relational Life Coach with the Relational Life Institute which gives me the tools needed to work with couples.
After qualifying as an NLP Master Practitioner in 2017, I started coach training and qualified as a Certified Advanced CLARITY® Coach & Facilitator. I am also a licensed One of Many™ women's coach, bringing a more female approach to coaching. Before coaching I worked as an osteopath and retired in 2022 after 20 years in practice, in order to focus on coaching.
I have a BSc and an MPhil in Psychology, and in recent years I've realised that there is much to be gained by taking account of our spiritual nature - or what you may call the 'true self.' This is the source of our innate healing, enabling us to heal from the inside-out, leading to better mental health and more resilient relationships.