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Collaborative Divorce

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Collaborative Divorce For You And Your Family

If it is time to end your relationship, remember that the way you divorce is the first step to a good post-divorce life. I can go through options with you and help you decide which is best for you. I am a huge fan of Collaborative Divorce.

Collaborative Divorce is the Least Combative, Most Supportive Way to Divorce

Divorce is an emotionally complex process. Most people going through divorce will tell you that it is the most emotionally challenging experience they have ever had.

Your marriage started in love, perhaps even a spiritual union.

You can divorce in a way that continues to honor who and what you’ve been. When you separate your lives from this place of honoring each other you keep conflicts at a minimum protecting your assets and your family going forward.

Don’t leave it to a judge to decide what is best for your family.

Collaborative Divorce keeps decisions about family, finances, and your future within the hands of the couple and their team – not in court, attorneys, or judges.

Divorce is a legal, financial and emotional process (not necessarily in that order). The Collaborative team is made up of two collaboratively trained attorneys (one for you and one for your spouse), a collaboratively trained coach, and a collaboratively trained neutral financial expert, to support the legal, financial and emotional aspects of your divorce.

The Collaborative Divorce Team

You and your spouse will have your own attorney who will advise you on your legal decisions: Should you keep your home, buy your partner out, or sell it? How will you determine market value? Do you need a business evaluation? How will maintenance (formerly known as alimony) and child support work? And many other things.

My role in the Collaborative process is a Collaborative Divorce Facilitator (CDF). I am a neutral presence in the room, guiding the process, maintaining the emotional equilibrium, supporting communication, calming conflict, holding space for your future goals, helping with parenting related needs.

The financial professional (FP) will meet with both of you individually to learn about your overall financial picture and compile your figures into a working spreadsheet for the team. As things progress, the FP will suggest options to meet your needs and goals, and will run the numbers to show you possible results of different scenarios you are considering: How can you best divide your assets with the least financial impact? What are the tax consequences in different scenarios? How can future bonuses or retirement accounts be best divided? How will spousal maintenance and child support be taken care of?  And more. If one of you has more financial expertise than the other, the FP will work with the partner with lesser knowledge so you can both come to your important decisions on balanced footing.

I have worked with Jeannine on several collaborative cases. Jeannine is very good at initially assessing clients for their ability to work in a collaborative manner, and in determining the relational and personal dynamics they bring. Jeannine works with clients at the table and in private sessions helping them stay focused on their stated goals and providing support for the emotional experience that is divorce. She also helps clients develop their parenting plan.

~Bert Dempsey, Collaborative Divorce Attorney ~ Boulder, Colorado

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My Role

As CDF I help you define your future needs and goals.  How do you want your future to feel? Why do you want what you want? Knowing your goals allows us to meet them in creative ways. I want to know not only your family’s needs, but the traditions that are important to your family, the parenting schedule you’ve developed so far and how it is working for you, and what your daily schedules are like. I will check in with how your children are doing and provide both support and education on ways to reduce the impact of divorce on your children, including how to tell them of your divorce if that is needed.

As CDF I help maintain the emotional equilibrium in the room, including any the professional team might be challenged with. Overwhelm can show up quickly and we don’t want those to hijack the progress being made. Before our first meeting, you and I will design a plan to utilize your strengths and manage any shortcomings. Everyone has them, we want to make sure they don’t get in the way.

There are many ways I support the relational and communication challenges you arrive with. I am not a therapist. My role is not therapeutic. I am a systems coach with many tools to support the two of you in the areas your relationship communications has failed you. I will be the positive communication bridge between you. I will reframe the things you want to say in a positive way so you won’t trigger each other.

Sometimes relational dynamics that are not serving you are best worked with in a 3-way meeting with the two of you and me, separate from the team. This is more effective, less confrontive and saves you fees because you are not being charged by the att0rneys or the financial expert. This isn’t their area of expertise anyway.

Your Next Step:

Call me to learn more about the Collaborative Divorce process or my services as a divorce coach. You can use this link to get on my calendar. I’m glad to answer your questions and also speak with your spouse so you both understand the benefits of Collaborative Divorce.

Divorce is tricky. Nobody divorcing for the first, or even second, time is (or should be) an expert. Professional help is invaluable.