Divorce Coaching/Court Support

What is divorce and/or the loss of a significant relationship?

It is the second most traumatic experience in ones life, next only to the death of a loved one. What many of us who are or have gone through a divorce or loss of a significant relationship do not recognize is that we are living through a grieving process, much like that of the loss of a loved one. This process is denial and shock, anger, bargaining, guilt and depression.

I dont know about you but I certainly did not go through the litigation process well while experiencing these emotions. I learned a lot of the do's and don'ts through both my personal experience, my professional experience and my training experience.

Why do relationships end?

The most common reason for the dissolution of a relationship, whether it be a marriage, common-law union, same-sex union, or any other type of relationship, is lack of communication.

It is at this resulting end that many couples tend to give up on the prospect of ever being able to communicate on any level and make that fateful call to the nearest family law lawyer.

What happens when you begin the litigation process?

Once you have embarked on this process you have affectively turned your future over to another person to make major decisions that you will have to live with long after you walk out with your agreement, while he/she has moved on to the next client.

What you will have accomplished is to agree to "settle" on what the lawyers think is in the best interest of your family, not what you, or your former partner for that matter, believes to be in the best interests of your family.

The question you and your partner need to ask yourselves is this;

Who knows our family better than we do?

What will the litigation process offer you?

The litigation process will offer you the opportunity to not have to communicate with your former partner. It will further the divide between your children’s parents, creating an almost impossible situation for ongoing mutual parenting. What it will not provide for you is the opportunity to take responsibility for your choices, your future and the future of your new family dynamic.

What does Coaching Offer You?

Most courtroom divorce lawyers orient their lives around what happens in court. They spend their working days in the courtrooms of divorce judges, dealing with adversarial divorce. Their expectation is that most divorce cases will settle in the corridors of divorce court ("Heartbreak Hall").

But if you're like most people going through divorce, that's not where you make your best decisions. You make your best decisions when you can think things over, check figures, bounce ideas off your accountant, or your friends, or even your mother, and generally stay in control of your decisions. Coaching, part of a larger concept called unbundling, helps you do that.

The fundamental idea of coaching is that most people don't need somebody to do their negotiating for them.

What they need is good sound information that they can use to negotiate on their own.
What they need is a full exploration of the available alternatives when they're stuck on a particular point.
What they need is a good solid understanding of the advantages and disadvantages of a proposal somebody is suggesting.
What they need are some suggestions for how they might negotiate with their spouse or their spouse's lawyer to get what they want.

A good coach can do that, offering you a leg up without charging you an arm and a leg. With most coaches, you'll pay for the time you actually use -- no more, no less. You'll pay on the spot, meaning you don't sign a retainer agreement. When you finish with the coach, you don't owe your coach any money, and the coach doesn't owe you anything.