Pro Guides Aim to Pave Rough Road to Splitsville
If you’ve seen the new Golden Globe–nominated movie Marriage Story on Netflix, then you likely came away from it knowing three things for certain:
(1) The movie, starring Adam Driver and Scarlett Johansson, should have been called Divorce Story. (2) Divorce can be brutal, even for couples who aim to do it amicably. (3) Lawyers make everything worse.
Of course, the film offers just one perspective. Not all uncoupling couples will find their well-intentioned plans of a congenial split dragged down into the mud by ruthless attorneys happy to see them skewering one another’s characters in court.
But amid all the existential upheaval that comes from a marriage cracking apart, it does seem like handing over one’s precarious financial and emotional fates to a professional who benefits personally from litigation is an even worse idea than … well, than marrying that douche in the first place.
And that’s where the Divorce Coach comes in. The latest addition to the booming Coaching oeuvre, divorce coaches have sprung up to support individuals (not couples) who are running the long, painful, and often quite complicated marriage-dissolution gauntlet. They serve as sounding boards and strategizers to help overwhelmed clients navigate the process of divorce from deciding whether to even get one all the way through building a new post-divorce relationship with their exes.