A divorce coach will help you manage your emotions. He or she is a great person to vent to about what a jerk your ex is, and will charge you less per hour than an attorney, who is only interested in the legal aspects anyway.
Sometimes, emotions can cloud our judgment and lead to rash decisions. A Certified Divorce Coach will help you think and see more clearly, so you can get the best deal from your divorce. They will also help you deal with pressure from family members or from your ex.
Getting divorced requires a lot of paperwork and organization — tasks that can feel overwhelming when you’re going through emotional turmoil. A divorce coach can help you make sure you have everything you need to get it done.
Certified Divorce Coaches are highly trained to help in all areas before, during, and after the divorce process, including but not limited to:
- Co-parenting and custody issues
- Communication to reduce problems in the negotiations
- Healing from the relationship and moving on with your life
- Setting boundaries that stick before, during, and after the divorce process
- Conflict resolution
- Post-divorce transitioning
A Certified Divorce Financial Analyst® (CDFA®) helps couples and their attorneys achieve equitable divorce settlements using knowledge of tax law, asset distribution, and short- and long-term financial planning. Looking closely at your future goals, helping you with creative financial solutions to reach a fair divorce settlement.
A Certified Divorce Coach® is a trained mental health professional who works with you and shepherds you through your divorce. Certified Divorce Coaches have unique expertise in divorce, and will help you build or strengthen skills to cope with your emotions, especially at meetings with professionals and your spouse, help you begin to envision your life post-divorce, as a single parent and perhaps going back to work, help you set some goals and identify activities and interests that influence the divorce negotiations, and to establish good communication, boundaries, and strategies for dealing with issues that inevitably arise.
*Although Certified Divorce Coaches are (and should be) licensed mental health professionals, Divorce Coaching is not therapy.
Working with a Divorce Professional who holds both these designations will provide a broad scope of professional services to design your customized divorce plan.
Bottom line; working with this unique set of professional designations will:
- Help you gain clarity around your financial situation in divorce
- Provide you with strategies and scenarios that help you achieve your financial, parenting, emotional/peace of mind, and future goals
- Help you cut through the emotions, as well as the often-conflicting advice received from family and friends
- With the combination of financial analysis and coaching, you will make better decisions, and be empowered to advocate for what is fair
- You will save time, money, and energy!
- You will be prepared to move forward with your life post-divorce with confidence
The role of the financial planner (CFP®, PFP, RFP) is to help people achieve their financial goals regardless of whether they are divorcing or happily married. After determining the client’s goals, the next step is to take an inventory of current assets and liabilities, and then the planner looks at what needs to be done to achieve the client’s goals.
Conversely, an accountant (CPA, CA, CBV) typically looks at the details of the scenario as it is today and makes no future projections. During a separation, they are hired to calculate the tax effect of dividing property and the effect of spousal and child support for one or two years. They typically do not project further into the future. They may also be retained to perform an audit of account activity or to perform forensic accounting functions to help find “hidden assets.”
To best meet the needs of divorcing couples, you need a blend of these two ideologies; the CDFA® designation was created to fill this need. The role of the CDFA® professional is to assist the client and his/her lawyer to understand how the financial decisions he/she makes today will impact the client’s financial future based on certain assumptions. That way, the client can make informed decisions about his/her future.
- Creating a custom plan to align with your post-divorce goals.
- Ensuring that the action items in your divorce decree are wrapped up on time.
- Aligning you with the right professionals to take care of your post-divorce planning needs. (i.e. Estate Planning, Home Buying, Insurance, Therapy, Career Planning, Financial Planning, etc.)
Together we will work on setting boundaries that stick, negotiation and communication strategies, and co-parenting issues with high conflict former partners.
As part of my process I will connect you with the right attorney, forensic accountants and security specialists that specialize in high-conflict situations, should the situation call for it. I can also help you with communication techniques to help you keep .
I am armed and ready with tools and resources that give my clients the courage and confidence to advocate for themselves while keeping the conflict as low as possible!
Through the unique process I have developed, my clients develop clarity, confidence, and a defined plan to move forward, no matter which journey they choose to pursue.
As your personal divorce professional, I will provide support pre-mediation, and meet with you after each mediation session to review the outcomes, discuss/analyze new data or proposals, and talk through your options for negotiations.
- Age of the child;
- Physical custody; and
- Income of the payor, or in the case of shared or split custody, both parties.
While there are guidelines in place, determining the amount of child support can get tricky—actual income, allowable deductions and a number of other factors must be considered. For example, in the case of a payor who is self-employed or an independent business owner who can control their wages, determining income can be complicated. In this situation, it typically helps to bring in an expert, such as a Chartered Business Valuator (CBV), who can help determine the true income in accordance with the Guidelines.
In some cases, the guideline amount of child support may not cover all of the child’s actual costs—for instance, medical and dental expenses not covered by insurance, private school , post-secondary education tuition, or extracurricular activities. Speak to your lawyer about the possibility of increasing the guideline amount to cover any special or extraordinary expenses.
- Need. Do you have enough money to live on? This would include income from employment, earnings from investments, and other property.
- Means (ability to pay). Can the payor afford to pay what is needed and still have enough to live on to support a reasonable lifestyle?
- Length of marriage. A short-term marriage, without children, may not qualify for spousal support whereas a long-term marriage (20 years or more) may qualify for indefinite support.
- Age and health of both parties.
Again, no two cases are the same and there are a number of factors that come into play when determining entitlement, amount and duration. It is always recommended that you seek independent legal advice on this issue.