What Is Divorce Coaching And Why Is It Important?

The American Bar Association lists divorce coaching in its dispute resolution section. The ABA defines divorce coaching as:

Divorce coaching is 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. Divorce coaches have different professional backgrounds and are selected based on the specific needs of the clients. For example, some divorce coaches are financial planners, mental health professionals, lawyers, or mediators who have experience dealing with divorcing clients.

A CDC Certified Divorce Coach^® helps the individual caught in the overwhelm of divorce to make the best decisions possible for their future based on their particular wants, needs, and concerns. A personal divorce coach supports their client in moving forward towards that future, one step at a time. To make the best decisions possible, the client may need to increase the effectiveness of the tools they have at their disposal, including:

• Decision-making practices
• Communication skills
• Conflict competence
• Emotional Intelligence
• Organization skills
• Resilience
• Credibility
• Future visioning

These tools are important for every step in the process of divorce.

A CDC Certified Divorce Coach^® can also help a client who hasn’t yet decided to divorce, who is grappling with the “should I or shouldn’t I” question, to understand the impact of divorce on all aspects of their life – approaching divorce from an “eyes wide open” standpoint to determine if the tradeoffs and consequences of divorce are best for decision for them and their family.

Many clients emerge from the divorce now as single head of household and often with the big question: “Who am I now? I don’t even know who I am after all these years as someone’s wife (or husband), someone’s mother (or father), and someone’s co-signer!”

While this question comes up as the person moves into their post-divorce life, it is also lurking underneath the question of, “What do I need as this marriage ends and I move on with the rest of my life?”

A CDC^® Divorce Coach recognizes that creating a new identity in the divorce process is part of letting go of the past and focusing on the next chapter. They understand that if their client doesn’t take charge of creating their new identity, they’ll be stuck where they are. And even worse, possibly destined to repeat the same choices they’ve made in the past – getting the same results.

In creating the next chapter, the client has an opportunity to let go of the hurts from the past, to remember the dreams that may have been stored away in favor of a new romantic relationship, and later because the demands and joys of marriage/parenthood occupied that space.

The advantage to having a thinking partner, a CDC^® Divorce Coach, who is trained and skilled at asking the questions which tease out the answers that are hard to focus on during the often-tumultuous divorce process, is that there is some continuity for the client in the planning process from the very beginning and well into the next chapter. And now equipped with their answers to these questions, the client is much better equipped to help the attorney or mediator understand what their needs are so that they can bring those priorities into the negotiations.

Personal Divorce Coaching fills a gap and works in a very practical AND transformative way with individual clients. The roll-up-your-sleeves kind of work that a CDC Certified Divorce Coach^® does helps the client in ways that are different from a Therapist, a Mediator, and an Attorney, and complements their work in helping the client to make the best decisions for their future based on their wants, don’t wants, and their needs.

This work has a good chance of empowering them to take the high road and change their experience of divorce – for the sake of themselves and their family and their community!