Could a divorce coach ease the end of your marriage?

Thousands of couples divorce in New Zealand each year and a new industry has sprung up to support those left picking up the pieces. Nadene Ghouri meets two divorce coaches (and a top divorce lawyer) and gleans some tips on the smarter way to split.

Saying ‘I do’ is one of the most hopeful things most of us will do in our lives. No one gets married thinking it’s going to end. But forever, according to Statistics New Zealand, is only 13.5 years long.

Of the 16,000 couples who marry in New Zealand each year, 7000 will separate or divorce (and that's not counting all the de-facto and civil union splits). And going through that divorce can be one of the most stressful – and expensive – times of your life. But some divorces are less painful than others and a new wave of divorce coach – a kind of wellness guru for break-ups – promises to take you by the hand and lead you to the promised land of an amicable breakup. Here’s what they want you to know.

Money can't buy happiness

With her immaculate manicure, coiffured locks and dazzling white teeth, founder of divorce coaching business Equal Exes Bridgette Jackson doesn't look like someone who's been dragged across hot coals, blindfolded and barefoot – but that's how she describes her experience of divorce.

Jackson’s divorce played out over five years and cost a whopping $500,000. But if her now dissolved marriage taught her one thing, it's that money doesn't matter as much as you might think.

Divorce coach Bridgette Jackson says her purpose is to help others avoid what she's been through. (Source: Supplied)

“On the surface, you know, it looked good," she says of the relationship. "We had money, we had four beautiful children. Lovely holidays, beautiful handbags, you know all of that stuff, beautiful cars. And I was really unhappy, and I was unhappy at my richest, basically,” she says.

These days Jackson lives and breathes divorces – other people’s. She reinvented herself from “Stepford wife” to one of New Zealand’s most high-profile divorce coaches. “My passion... and my purpose for life is to help other people avoid what I've been through.”

Divorce coaching is a relatively new phenomenon. Essentially, it’s someone who shepherds you through each stage of a marriage ending. Jackson and her team guide their clients through a series of steps: the decision to leave, telling family and friends, working through financials before going to see a lawyer – right through to confidence coaching to help them back into the dating game, after it’s all done and dusted.

Jackson’s office is based in a wellness centre in an upmarket Auckland suburb, next to a masseuse and an acupuncturist. That’s no coincidence. “Your health and wellness gets battered, black and blue actually. So a big piece for us is about that self-care. You lose yourself when you're in a relationship that’s not serving you well. You lose your identity, you lose your purpose, and you have to really find yourself again.

Get a good lawyer

A divorce coach can guide you through much that the process throws your way, but they can't provide legal advice, certify property agreements or complete the actual divorce. You need a lawyer or a Justice of the Peace to do that.

The power-suited no-nonsense Lady Deborah Chambers KC has a reputation that makes cheating partners quake in their pants. She doesn’t come cheap (at all) but she laughs off the notion that lawyers are the only people getting rich from divorce as “bollocks”.

Lady Deborah Chambers KC. (Source: Supplied)

“They married them, they shagged them, they had their babies," she says of a hypothetical client. "I didn't, you know. They didn't do their due diligence, not me. All I can do is try and fix it as much as I can.”

And as she points out, a good divorce lawyer needs a lot of different gears.

“You need to be adversarial and aggressive in some circumstances, you do. You need to be determined and pushy in some circumstances to look after your client's interest. In other instances, you need to be prepared to compromise. I can do all of those.”

Be your best self

It's not unusual for a divorce to turn nasty and, when it does, it's generally over assets or money or, sadly, sometimes it's about children too. You can see quite a different side of somebody you were married to for 20 years, says Kimberlee Sweeney, New Zealand’s first ever divorce coach.

Divorce coach Kimberlee Sweeney. (Source: Supplied)

Warm and engaging, Sweeney runs Degrees of Separation, from her suburban Auckland Beauty Salon. The two businesses are totally different but ,she says, both give her a unique insight into the human psyche and she can usually tell if her beauty clients are going through relationship troubles. "It shows in their skin."

Sweeney's approach as a coach is to work with clients to take the heat out of the break-up.

“I remind my clients to be their best self. And so as a divorce coach, we have lots of tools and exercises for them to do. We're trying to get them to understand the process, and give them the guidance to make the best decisions they can for themselves."

Sweeney asks clients, "What can you do to let some of that stuff go? What can you do to just make sure that you bring your best self to the table and not let your [ex] partner push your buttons? Because as soon as that button get pushed in, it's like an atomic bomb going off.”

Don't allow your ex to push your buttons. (Source: istock.com)

That things often turn nuclear isn’t a surprise to Chambers. “Most of the time there’s someone who’s been hurt, someone who’s been betrayed, someone who’s angry. Someone who’s threatened and frightened. And you're used to having the children living with you and suddenly they're not living with you all the time. And there’ll be fights over money because you're having to run two households instead of one. And the person who was your best friend, is now doing their best to make sure that they get more than you do and that they have the children more than you do."

But Chambers isn't there to mop up your tears.

Don't pay your lawyer to hear you cry

Chambers isn't there to get out the hankies. “I don’t really want to be dealing with the emotional issues of 'oh my God, I'm finding it really hard. I'm lonely, I'm miserable at night, da, da, da, da, da. Because that’s not my area of expertise and you're better to pay me for my area of expertise.”

That’s where the divorce coaches argue they can save you both time and money. As Kimberlee Sweeney puts it, "Your lawyer is not there to listen to you cry for $500 an hour, you know, so do that work with somebody like myself and then maximise your time and money with your lawyer to just get down to the nitty gritty of what needs to be done."

Do not weep on your lawyer's expensive watch. (Source: istock.com)

Get some distance

If you're still emotionally invested in your marriage, you're in a poor position to negotiate finances. Says Chambers, “If you are gonna have a fight over finances, you want your client emotionally ready for that. And you've got to pick your time because... you don’t want them still tied up, for example, trying to reconcile while you're negotiating their future financial position. You want them separated enough emotionally from that marriage so they can look back on that person who they once loved, they might have had children with, they’ve certainly had sex with. To be able to negotiate a deal with someone takes distance, and often time.

"If there’s a lot of emotional issues there, I always ask people have they seen a good counsellor, or a good psychologist before we move forward.”

Know where the money is

It’s “amazing” says Chambers, how many of her clients, particularly women, don’t know what they own.

“One of the first things I usually do is search the Land Office, the Land Registry and the Companies Office. And over and over again they will say, 'well I don’t know what that is, well what’s that? I didn't know we owned that…”

That happened to Frankie, a newly divorced mum of three who told Sunday: “I felt very stupid, because I'd been with this person for most of my life and not knowing these things. I wasn’t interested in them at the time because I didn't think that I would need to know all of these things. It’s not until you break up with somebody that you realise you do. That just adds to the stress of breaking up.”

In Frankie’s case it took a forensic accountant two years – and $100,000 in legal fees – to work out where her half of the money was.

Jackson says three quarters of the women she sees are in this position: “There’s still a lot of traditional relationships where predominantly the male partner is the one who works. The women are at home looking after the children, doing all the domestics, obviously sacrificing their careers to look after the family. It’s astonishing, I would say 75 percent of women that I see have no idea what they own, you know, which certainly puts them in a very precarious position."

Know what you own, advises Lady Deborah Chambers KC. (Source: istock.com)

Don't drag your kids into it

According to Bridgette Jackson, it’s amazing how often this happens: “Time and time again I see people who obviously haven't been working with us, who are telling the children that Mum or Dad had an affair. That’s not great for kids at all. There are things that children shouldn't know, and there are things that children should know.”

Avoid the 3am drunken Facebook rant

There isn't time to list all the reasons you might come to regret that act, not least this: social media posts can be used in court against you. And even if you have the presence of mind to delete it, someone might have taken a screen shot.

The drunken social media post: inadvisable. (Source: istock.com)

See the positives

Jackson calls it the five-year test. “You're in a pretty grim spot now, but in five years’ time you might have started a whole new life where you actually feel a lot better.”

Back at law school Chambers was taught that it takes two years to get an emotional divorce. But it seems we are tougher than that: “Well they’ve canned all that, because the research shows for most people it’s about eight months.”

You’re tougher than you think says the KC. “We’re built for resilience, we’re built not to kind of lie in the cage crying for two years, 'cause we’d starve to death. We’re built to get up and go, and that is what we do, we’re very good at it, you know through death, and divorce, and tragedies, we get up and go. “

Understand that men and women do it differently

Two thirds of heterosexual break-ups are initiated by women, but women still fare financially worse post- divorce, and often that’s down to gender.

“I don't want to generalise, says Kimberlee Sweeney but usually men are more worried about the asset split and losing half of everything and women are worried about losing their children for 50 percent of the week. For women, it's more about emotional heartstrings [while for] men it's more about the business.”

Be your best self, advises Kimberlee Sweeney. (Source: Supplied)

But who does Sweeney think is the most vindictive? “That comes down to personality type. I don't think it's man or woman. It really is across the board. But my mantra to my clients is ‘if you’re going to depart, do it with dignity’.

Don't rush into your next relationship

Bridgette Jackson has devised 60 questions she believes you need to ask someone before you marry them, with questions such as "Are you a spender or a saver" and, "Would you want your elderly parents to live with us?"

When is the best time to whip out the questions? "Third date," says Jackson without so much a blink.

It's fair to say if a 60-page questionnaire doesn’t put them off on a third date, they are probably a keeper.

For more on this story, watch Sunday, tonight at 7.30pm, TVNZ 1 or TVNZ+.