There is a dignified way to re-define your family, co-create a do-able Parenting Plan, and respectfully raise your kids together so that they adjust well to the inevitable changes and challenges.
Although your marriage is over, you’ll be parenting together for awhile yet.
Coaching offers you empathic support while all of you balance many needs: yours, the other parent, and your children. You can develop healthy, productive ways to communicate during and after separation. Creating a plan for that now will save you trouble in the long run and insure your family is taken care of.
You may need a collaborative lawyer , possibly a financial advisor, or a mental-health professional to help you settle the business of divorce and take care of your emotional well-being. I’ll help you create a vision of your new family so that you can begin to draw up a plan to manage your family affairs. If you’re in the Waterloo-Wellington area, collaborative lawyers are available to help you.
If you’re still going through the business of divorce, I highly recommend Collaborative Family Law (CFL). CFL sees Divorce as a problem to solve, not a war to fight. In CFL, two clients and their respective lawyers meet to explore issues and define them in their own voice. Lawyers focus on creating a settlement rather than posturing themselves for court.
The International Academy of Collaborative Professionals offers much information and support to divorcing parents. Here’s a video of a real-life couple who shared their journey though their collaborative divorce: Collaborative Divorce: A Safe Place
One of your first priorities is to take care of your children. This means taking care of yourself so that you may do so effectively.
You may be in various stages of shock, bitterness, or acceptance about your family situation. The process of CFL and coaching models effective communication, problem solving, and healing. A host of supportive professionals can be called in to support your emotional and financial well-being while taking care of the legal aspects of divorce. Children’s needs are valued and supported.
Let’s dispel the myth that families are ‘broken’ if they live apart. Perhaps this is the best possible solution and your lives will get better. With courage and commitment, your family can feel confident and secure during and after the divorce. Collaborative Divorce values respectful understanding and cooperation. Read a story and watch a video about divorce with dignity.
Compassionate Solutions Coaching will help you make sense of your emotions and identify your needs while going through the difficult task of separating from an intimate relationship. Take advantage of coaching early and often to help you through low points of negotiation.
You can create a do-able and flexible parenting plan to support your family through uncertainty. You’re in control of your divorce process.
A good place to start is to ask these questions:
- How will your relationship look after the divorce? Your relationship with the other parent will be new and different. You will be co-parenting for awhile yet. Ideally, what do you want from this relationship? What could you give to this relationship?
- What would you like your child(ren) to see?
- What do you hope your child(ren) will say about divorce, marriage, and family?
- How will your new arrangements support all your needs? How will you honour all your voices and values?
- How will you communicate with your partner so that your children’s needs can be met as they grow? How will you manage conflict? How will you and the other parent communicate changes and requests?
- What’s your vision of family?
- What family values do you share with the other parent?
- What is enjoyable and not enjoyable for you? What do you like to do? What role do you enjoy? What don’t you like to do? Have you thought about how you’re going to share parenting with the other parent?
- What’s important to you?
- What qualities do you want to see in your children when they are adults?
- What kind of relationship do you want to have with your children, not only now, but 10-20 years from now?
Compassionate Solutions Coaching and Collaborative Divorce is:
•Efficient: focus on interests, values, and a do-able actions
•Empowering: you can find security and confidence during and after the divorce
•Effective: create a plan you can realistically do based on your values and available resources
•Economical: get to the heart of the matter with deep empathy so that you’re not spending your money arguing in court
Coaching is driven by what’s important to you and your family. Once you’re ready to begin, the process generally goes like this:
- privately meet with the coach to see if a collaborative process is a good fit for you. Typically, each partner meets with the coach alone and then all three will meet to draw up a plan.
- sign a coaching agreement in which you agree that in the event of future litigation, the coach will not be called upon to testify in that litigation
- agree to meet to create and carry out your plan and explore your values
- share your responses to the above questions
- seek any emotional, financial, and legal support you need
- create a parenting plan together after exploring all your values
- do a test run of your parenting plan
- evaluate and tweak your parenting plan
- finalize your plan with provisions to revise it as your family changes
Here are parents who found a way to put their family first after they separated…
Divorced Parents host Birthday Parties Together!
Mom says she’s seeing someone else and she’s been thinking about divorce for a couple of years now.
Dad’s devastated. This is unbearable. How could he have been so blind? How could things go so wrong? Why didn’t she talk about this before? They could have done something a couple of years ago. But now…
The marriage is over. This is no surprise to Mom. This is a complete shock to Dad. Both dread dragging the kids through a messy divorce. Even if things turn around, the family will never be the same.
Even though the marriage is over, they’ll both be parents for many years. They call a coach to walk with them as they navigate this challenging time.
The kids are asking why Mom and Dad aren’t spending as much time together. Everyone feels awkward and tense. How can the parents break it to the kids that although Mom and Dad don’t want to live with each other anymore they still love them? This is draining. It’s hard to concentrate at work and at school.
Coaching helps Mom and Dad honestly answer these questions:
- What do you envision for your family?
- What do you like to do? What role do you enjoy? What don’t you like to do?
- What are the five to ten most important things for you?
- What qualities do you want to see in your children when they are adults?
- What kind of relationship do you want to have with your children, not only now, but 10-20 years from now?
- What would you like to be proud of 10-20 years from now?
Mom and Dad developed a do-able Parenting Plan that included everything they discovered about themselves and each other.
Before finalizing the plan, conversations stalled around the issue of spousal support. To explore the reasons why this was so important, we organized a Restorative Circle. Other family members were invited because their voices were needed to resolve the conflict. Each person shared how this situation impacted them and what they were looking for. After shared understanding and self-responsibility, an action plan was agreed on. Collaboratively, respectively, Mom and Dad created a Parenting Plan they could live with. Over the next few months, they tweaked their plan based on what worked and didn’t. Mom and Dad continue to learn how to communicate and find ways to support their values and co-parent their kids.
The kids are happy. They’re doing well in school. Mom and Dad host birthday parties together. Best of all, the kids love having a Mom, a Dad, and two other families now that Mom and Dad have new partners.
Email wendy(@)compassionatesolutions(dot)ca for more information.
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