Why I became a Divorce and Breakup Coach

When you know, you know.

At times I felt hideously low. I thought I was never going to get through it, and, in all honesty, it would have been so much easier to stay, but I knew, no matter what, that life on the other side of this marriage was going to be so much better… and it is.

I’d been specialising in women’s health since 2001, working as a homeopath and reflexologist focusing on fertility, pregnancy, gynaecological, hormonal, menstrual and menopausal issues. Through my work, I began to notice, that for many clients, their symptoms started after a relationship breakdown, especially one that was difficult or abusive. And there’s a whole body of research that backs this up, so many stories, including my own.

Looking back, it all feels unreal, a horrid bad dream, a messed-up game of chess. I instigated the divorce, naively thinking it could be amicable but what came next completely blindsided me. I came to feel that I deserved it. I was the one who had put the bomb in the relationship. I was breaking up our family. It was my fault.

Of course, it wasn’t.

A lonely place to be

Despite the support of friends, family, colleagues and therapists, the months, and even years, after saying “I don’t” are one of the loneliest places to be. Mourning your relationship, dealing with someone you don’t recognise, struggling physically, emotionally and financially, all the while being the mother you promised yourself you would always be takes its toll. Hurt, devastation, humiliation, injustice, fear, resentment, just some of the myriad of emotions experienced. Little surprise then that this mental burden has a physical impact on health and wellbeing too.

Crisis point

Women typically instigate divorce, that’s a fact. In most, but not all cases, because their partner’s behaviour pushes them to it. Years of coercive control, affairs and abuse. “You’re going to regret this,” a client’s husband told her, “I’m a catch,” before doing everything in his power to make her stay. For most women, the decision to divorce doesn’t happen overnight, it takes years, and still, many are ‘absolutely blindsided’ by what comes next. Post-separation abuse is real. The statistics are horrifying. It takes real strength and willpower not to go back.

What I wish I’d known

They say divorce is the second most stressful thing you can go through after the death of a loved one but having lost both my dad and grandad within eighteen months of each other, I’d say they’re equally excruciating.

I was not prepared for what hit me when I initiated the end of our marriage. Had I known then, what I know now, I would have done things differently. I would have put measures in place before saying I was leaving. I would have armed myself with knowledge and understanding of what was to come. I can’t go back, but I can help others and that’s why, as an accredited divorce coach, I now support people through separation especially from difficult and toxic partners. I help them deal with the emotion, provide practical tools, and use my years of homeopathy experience to lessen the impact on physical and mental health