The Divorce Coach

Divorce Coaching – Finally Fulfilling an Unfulfilled Need

Divorcing people often need solutions fast - they may face losing their homes, their children, their spouses/partners and they may already have lost their jobs. Who can help them, fast? Lawyers help with the legal side, counsellors with the emotional side, but where do they find real solutions and answers fast to those questions like:

• Will she come back?
• Can I cope on my own?
• What do I tell the children?
• When do I tell my children’s schools?
• Might it mess up the children?
• What does the future hold?

In addition many couples are living very unhappily together under the same roof, but feel they can’t separate because of the well documented cost of litigation, or because they can’t see how they can afford to split.

Growing Through Divorce

Whilst divorce is undoubtedly miserable for those caught up in it, there are also those who did make the break successfully. They say things like ‘I should have done it years ago’ or ‘It was tough but I wouldn’t swap where I am now for where I was then for anything!’ These people have usually:

• Taken control again.
• Made a best possible split for themselves and their family.
• Gained greater self-esteem and confidence.
• Learnt to put the past behind them and move forwards.

As a result of the split they will often take time to understand themselves and their relationships better.

The majority of child psychologists agree it is not divorce per se that messes up children. It is how we handle it that really matters – and the fact is, we often don’t know how to handle it. Divorce professionals and people going through relationship breakdown are increasingly recognising that there is a huge disparity between the support divorcing people need and what they can find and as a result:

• People are increasingly saying they want and need cheaper ways to divorce and the demand for on-line divorce services reflects this demand, along with the first TV commercial for divorce services.
• People often leave it until it’s too late and then hire a lawyer to litigate through feelings of fear or revenge (often at huge cost).
• The word ‘divorce’ automatically spells doom and gloom - people go into it expecting a poor result and attract exactly that.

How does a Divorce Coach make a Difference?

Divorce lawyers are recognising that they aren’t necessarily the best people to deal with all aspects of divorce and that there are advantages for them and their clients if they concentrate on the legal side and leave others professionals, including coaches, to manage the ‘emotional divorce’, the ‘practical divorce’ and the non-legal issues around the children and the finances.

Divorce coaches can’t wave magic wands but can provide emotional support and a safe place to offload their worries, enabling them to progress faster through the process and get on with life. There are coaches who support people before break-up, through break-up and post divorce, people:

• In desperately unhappy marriages considering how to achieve a best possible split;
• Being divorced and wondering how they’ll cope on their own;
• Driving the divorce, looking for resources and support to help them see what’s right for them and their situation;
• Coming to the end of a divorce and wondering how best to forge a new life and in need of help to do so.

Services include 1:2:1 coaching and mentoring; downloadable eCourses; workshops; tele-classes and support forums designed to help people to:

• Find clarity in marital muddles.
• Learn practical solutions to obtain the best possible split.
• Share ideas and solutions with experts and others who understand.
• Learn new strategies for coping through separation and divorce.
• Be signposted to other sources of help e.g. legal, financial.

Testimonials and the growing support from both clients and increasingly other divorce professionals including lawyers confirm this is a much-needed service and one which complements the traditional help available.

Incidentally, couples don’t have to be married – the main issues troubling them will be similar whether they are married or not.

The Author

- Kirsten Gronning is founder of The Divorce Coach and a life and executive coach living in

Richmond

. Her expertise comes from having to meet her own unusually challenging needs through a litigious divorce and she specialises in creating the services people need to save time, stress and money through divorce.

www.divorcecoaching.co.uk

This article first appeared on the MarketingHelpForCoaches website Feb 2008

Children in Mind

Parent information Groups from the Institute of Family Therapy and Conflict Resolution

At our last workshop in our pleasant new Wimbledon venue we were delighted to be joined by Lorraine Schaffer, Director of the Centre for Mediation and Conflict Resolution at the Institute of Family Therapy. Lorraine is a key player behind a new initiative of Parent information Groups called Children in Mind to offer courses to separating and divorcing parents in the UK to highlight the challenges and changes which breaking up can bring for both parents and children.

The 3 hour Children in Mind course is for any parent whether facing, going through or post-divorce who is worried about doing their best for their children and wishing to help the family move forwards. Learn:

*         To talk to your children about separation and divorce;
*         The effects of this life changing event on children and adults;
*         Practical ideas on developing a co-operative parenting relationship with your ex- partner;
*         How to deal with less than ideal situations.

The Children in Mind course costs £40 at the Institute of Family Therapy, London NW1 and there are two dates to enable parents to attend at different times:

*         Tuesday 29 April
*         Thursday 1 May

Click here to learn more.Lorraine will be joining us again at our Wimbledon workshop on 12 July. The next workshop is on 31 May in Hampton. Book soon for both as places are limited.

"Our methods are out of date, expensive, uncivilised and inefficient."

First some amazing revelations from family legal professionals, which were pretty much obscured by the other gloomy headlines of jittery stock markets, falling house prices and the impact of the credit crunch.

"Our methods are out of date, expensive, uncivilised and inefficient."

These were the words of a family lawyer on behalf of Resolution, James Stewart, quoted in the Observer last month just before the announcement that the McCartney Mills settlement was made public. He goes on: "With more than 300,000 people divorcing this year, costing £28,000 per couple, more and more people are attempting to represent themselves in the court room.

Despite huge changes in family life and social attitudes, there have been few changes to the law in the 33 years between Ringo Starr's divorce in 1975 and Paul McCartney's divorce now. Our methods are out of date, expensive, uncivilised and inefficient."

No surprises there then to the many thousands of people who have struggled through divorce in recent years. But these are words from family legal professionals, not normally known for being so outspoken.

Read more here in The Divorce Coach April divorce newsletter

Recommended 7 divorce books

Why is the divorce book needed? Is it to:

1. clarify whether the relationship's over?
2. get through the divorce process?
3. move on after the process?

Imogen Clout's Which? Guide to Divorce is head and shoulders above the rest when it comes to getting through the divorce process. But those of us who have been through it know there's far more to divorce than getting through the divorce process.

These are my top 7 divorce books in no order:

1. The Which? Guide to Divorce by Imogen Clout - by far the best practical guide to the legal and financial divorce process;
2. Lost Children - A Guide for separating Parents by Penny Cross - a compelling and thought provoking book of how a parent can lose altogether custody of their children;
3. Growing Through divorce by Jim Smoke - a Christian counsellor's perspective of divorce recovery, which is upbeat, down to earth and available through The Divorce Recovery Workshops in the UK;
4. It's No Big Deal Really by Anne Cantelo - a parent's guide to making divorce easy for children. A common sense divorce approach to divorce - unfortunately one which in my view many people (and many of the 'experts') couldn't ever understand;
5. Anything by Suzie Hayman (Relate);
6. Anything by Susan Jeffers of the 'Feel the Fear and Do it Anyway' fame for pushing forward through fear;
7. Be Your Own Love Coach by Ariana Gee and Mary Gregory for finding (and keeping) the relationship you want;
8. Rosie Stahl: How to split up and stay in one piece - surviving divorce and relationship breakdown from experts.

Kirsten Gronning
Enabling divorcing people to make best possible decisions

'Present divorce law..hardly fit for purpose'

Keynote speech about the family legal process and family breakdown delivered by Mr Justice Coleridge at the Resolution conference on 5 April 2008

Far more members of the public are likely to be involved in the family justice system than any other part of the national court or justice system according to Mr Justice Coleridge. These are mostly ordinary and frequently tax paying people who now find themselves caught up in family breakdown.

‘…they turn to the system (which is paid for by their taxes) to find it overstretched to the point of collapse and acutely and chronically underfunded at all points. Delays are rife in every part of the system through lack of resources. And delay, as we all know, exacerbates all the problems and compounds the stress. And, just to make matter worse, the present substantive law of divorce, and financial division and the law relating to the property of unmarried couples (other than gay ones) administered by the courts is out of date, hardly fit for purpose and crying out for a thorough overhaul.’

Sobering words indeed but confirmation from top lawyers that the family legal process is in chaos with the blame being firmly attached to the governments of the last 30 years. People who have experienced family breakdown – and those who have been close to people who have – won’t be surprised. But what can they do to help themselves in an increasingly chaotic family justice system?

Mr Justice Coleridge proposed putting family breakdown and family justice at the top of the political agenda and deploying ‘very significant resources of manpower and money’ and making the reforms necessary to bring divorce law into the modern world. Read the speech by clicking the link to Resolution's media page here.

For those who simply can’t wait until the government brings divorce law into the modern world, and want and need more immediate action to alleviate their own, their friend's or familie's pain, or even their client’s very pressing relationship breakdown problems, they could participate in the One-Stop Divorce Workshop where they will be encouraged to stay out of court if they can; to work out what their joint needs are and those of their children and to save precious family assets and preserve emotional well-being.

How to split up and stay in one piece

Surviving divorce and relationship breakdown by Rosie Staal

I loved this divorce self-help book: masses of common sense advice and guidance from the divorce experts, but then as a fellow contributor I am bound to be biased :)

Whenever a  author/journalist/researcher contacts me, my first inclination is to help, but  increasingly I have to ask myself fast ‘What’s in it for me?’ Fortunately, my gut feeling that author Rosie Staal was absolutely sound has proved correct with the publication of this divorce self-help book and I’m delighted to have helped.

What is unusual about this book are the ‘stories’ and the divorce experts input, an approach which could prove popular with people in hard places who are likely to feel so much better after reading a ‘story’ which resounds with their situation and makes them feel less alone. If you are looking for guidance around:

• protecting the children;
• finnacial worries;
• losing your home;
• agreeing a settlement;
• getting emotional help

look no further. As the cover says 'Even when you're falling apart, the help of all the people within these pages will help you feel much better equipped to start putting the pieces back together again.'

Published by White Ladder Press in mid April www.whiteladderpress.co.uk