Divorce Coach
Are you facing a possible forthcoming divorce, struggling with a current divorce, or still feeling devastated by a past divorce?
Are you feeling overwhelmed and needing to make big decisions at a time when you are emotionally drained?
Are you feeling confused and underconfident in these unchartered waters?
Do you need an action-oriented warrior to provide counsel, support, and guidance and to walk alongside you during this process?
The Divorce Coach is fast becoming an integral part of the Divorce Support Team (attorney, therapist, mediator, financial advisor, etc.)
What is a Divorce Coach?
As your divorce coach, I can support you throughout the divorce process.
From the very beginning until the post-divorce work is complete, and a new chapter is underway, I can assist you in making the best possible decisions every day.
Whether it is being the best parent you can be, being responsive to the requests for information made by those supporting the process or focusing on developing a new identity and new role as head of your own household, you are not alone.
How do I know if I need a Divorce Coach?
For most people, the prospect of a divorce is an overwhelming life crisis. You need to make big decisions at a time when you are emotionally swamped.
The demands and decisions are confusing.
You are exhausted just getting through each day.
Sometimes you feel like you have lost yourself in a fog and lost your sense of direction.
You don’t know what steps you need to take, how you can figure it all out, or how long it will take.
Just thinking about it makes you want to crawl under the covers.
If this sounds familiar, then a Divorce Coach might be able to help.
Why hire a Divorce Coach?
A Divorce Coach can help you understand one of the first and most important decisions you will have to make. You will need to decide which of the divorce process options available to you will work best for your family: a do-it-yourself divorce, mediation, collaborative divorce, or litigation.
The process you choose will dramatically affect every next step.
A Divorce Coach will walk the path with you, through the legal process you have chosen, to provide support and guidance when needed.
Often each spouse has their own Coach to “have their back.”
One of the first and most painful things you will have to do is to talk to your children about the upcoming changes in your family.
A Divorce Coach will help you (and often your spouse) structure and plan for this, telling your children what they need to know, without blame.
The Divorce Coach will also predict (based on research) how children might react, depending on their age and development. The Coach will help you respond to their questions and concerns in age-appropriate ways.
A Divorce Coach will help you build or strengthen skills to cope with your emotions, especially at meetings with professionals and your spouse.
Often the Divorce Coach may attend these meetings to help manage the pace and tenor of the meeting, calling breaks when necessary, and helping all of the professionals (and often your spouse) understand your perspective.
In addition, your Coach can help you develop self-care practices to help you feel more grounded and able to cope.
A Divorce Coach will help you begin to envision your life post-divorce, as a single parent and perhaps going back to work.
The Coach will help you set some goals and identify activities and interests. This vision helps you plan and may influence your divorce negotiations. For example, if you need re-training to enter the workforce, this can be discussed as part of your divorce settlement.
A Divorce Coach will help you develop skills for the negotiations, which usually come after the information-gathering stage.
With the help of your Coach, you will be clear about what is important to you in the final resolution. Identifying what matters most to you and where you can compromise is one of the challenges of divorce.
Your Coach will help you understand and think through the many decisions you will be asked to make. You will feel brave, confident, and articulate in expressing what matters to you without being hijacked by emotions. This makes the process more efficient and cost-effective!
A Divorce Coach will help you develop a comprehensive parenting plan for your children. The plan is tailored to the needs of your family, so every parenting plan is different. The plan includes a time-sharing schedule, but much more than that.
A well-developed parenting plan will help everyone adjust to the changes in the family as you transition to single-parenting. Best of all, the plan will reduce post-divorce stress and conflict.
A Divorce Coach can help you build a new kind of parenting partnership relationship with your spouse.
This usually means developing new communication skills and ways to minimize conflicts.
The methods you used in your marriage probably didn’t work, and a good post-divorce relationship is important for your (and your children’s) adjustment, recovery, and moving on.
A Coach can work with both of you, or with one of you, to establish good communication, boundaries, and strategies for dealing with issues that inevitably arise.
Because even though divorces can cause trauma and long-term damage, it doesn’t have to be that way.
There are skills and tools a Divorce Coach can offer you if you are committed to staying out of court.
Divorce Coaches who work with mediators or collaborative divorce professionals are more likely to have the right experience and credentials to get you through this difficult time without an escalation of the conflict.
The American Bar Association recognizes Divorce Coaching as:
A flexible, goal-oriented process designed to support, motivate, and guide people going through divorce to help them make the best possible decisions for their future, based on their particular interests, needs, and concerns.
