A Divorce Coach Can Save You.
You may have heard about divorce coaching, but did you know that a skillful divorce coach can save you and your family: time, money, and aggravation? Here’s how:
A Divorce Coach Can Help You Know What You Need. Many divorcing clients have difficulty sorting through the options and possibilities to pinpoint what is most important. It’s easy to get off track or feel overwhelmed by the sheer volume of issues that must be addressed. This can cause deliberations to go round after round in an unfocused, unclear way (costing you both a lot of time and money). Divorce Coaches are trained to help clients prioritize issues, set goals, and identify and evaluate possible options. This approach means less wasted time and leads to more sound decision making.
Experience is on their Side. Coaches provide helpful information, based on their years of experience working with couples and families, about what works and what doesn’t. So, while you and your spouse may think it is only fair to split parenting time evenly by having your kids stay with one of you for one week and the other parent the next, your coach may help you to see some issues you hadn’t thought of (i.e.- depending on the age of your children, a week without one or the other of you can be too long to endure). They might also present ideas, options, and creative solutions that may not have occurred to either of you.
They Can Help You ‘Find Your Voice’. Oftentimes one or the other spouse has done more of the talking and perhaps even more of the decision-making for the family. This can leave the ‘quieter’ spouse feeling less confident and less skilled when it comes to knowing how to ask for what they truly want and need (for themselves and for their children). Divorce coaches work closely with clients to help them define what is most important and to teach them the communication skills they can use to ask for what they need. They can also help the two of you learn how to cooperate, make decisions and collaborate when it comes to co-parenting your kids. Good coaching can help ex-spouses to learn how to work together in ways they were not able to before.
Divorce Coaches Can Help You Negotiate and Come To Agreement on Even the Most Emotional Issues. Sometimes divorce deliberations falter or stall out because the topics are just too ‘hot’ or painful to discuss. An expert coach can help you both get beyond the difficult feelings, sort out the issues, and create agreements you both can live with.
A Coach Can Help You Craft a Parenting Plan That Will Work For You and Your Family. Since divorce coaches are usually licensed psychotherapists, they have the training and expertise to really listen to your needs and to understand what will help you create realistic schedules and two healthy and happy households for your children to feel safe and thrive in.
Coaches Teach Parenting Skills. While you may have spent a lot of time and energy caring for and nurturing your children, you may not feel that you have enough of the answers you will need to face parenting them alone. As divorce can mean you will face many difficult moments and challenging parenting situations solo, a coach can be available for consultation, instruction, brain-storming or even just some extra support, whenever the need arises.
A skilled divorce coach can help you both identify and prioritize your goals, ask for what you need, and make sound decisions that will work well for each of you and for your children. When it comes to divorce, what could be better than that?
