Case Studies

Monica had been married to her husband for 13 years.  They have 3 wonderful children, all boys, ages 12, 9, and 7. Monica had been unhappy in her marriage for about the last 7 years.  Rather than communicate effectively with her spouse, she has spent hours, even years, blaming herself for her discontentment.

Though Monica is a professional woman in HR with lots of potential, she missed some key opportunities in her career because of her hyper focus on her family’s needs.  Monica also followed this pattern in her marriage, mostly putting her husband’s needs, opinions, and desires above her own.  She was ‘overfunctioning’ for her entire family, and in return, she expected more from her husband, rationalizing that it was no more than she was willing to give.  Through the years, Monica continually felt let down by him, frustrated in her attempts to create the kind of marriage she imagined everyone else had.

A year and a half ago, Monica learned that her husband was having an affair with someone who worked for his organization in another location.  Up until that time, Monica had felt attached to her husband, and she wanted nothing more than his love and attention.  In fact, many of their arguments revolved around his lack of attentiveness to her and their children.

Since confronting him about the affair, Monica ironically felt increasingly distant and emotionally detached from her husband.  Initially she was angry and sad about his infidelity.  But, as time passed and they talked with a marriage counselor, Monica had to admit that she hadn’t been happy with or interested in her husband for a very long time, even before learning of his affair.. She had stored up anger over the years, which she wasn’t aware of.  Her husband’s affair created the perfect storm for her to release those feelings.

After she acknowledged those buried feelings of anger and resentment, Monica felt indifferent toward her husband and the marriage.  She found herself praying that she could love her husband again, that she would respect and trust him again.  Especially for the sake of their children.

As she started to care more about herself, and trust her own feelings, things started to change for Monica.  Monica slowly grew to see that her husband’s infidelity was simply a symptom of his tendency to minimize her needs, and prioritize his own.

Monica started to accept that she was not going to rebound in this marriage.  She hit the lowest point in her life when the reality of this was no longer deniable.  Energetically, spiritually, and emotionally, Monica had left her marriage.

Though divorce was not in her plans, she found herself thinking of nothing else.  That’s when I met Monica.  She was awake and aware, but scared and confused about how to make her life right again.  To end the dead marriage and start over was terrifying to her.

Monica and I worked together to help her understand how she got to the place in her marriage where she felt such despair.  She was able to talk to her husband about her feelings, and shared that she wanted a divorce.

Monica and her husband decided that a collaborative divorce was the best for their family.  They both hired collaborative attorneys, a child specialist, and a financial neutral as their professional team.

It took about 7 months for the collaborative divorce team to complete Monica and her husband’s divorce.  Today, they live within 5 miles of each other, and share parenting responsibilities and for their 3 children.  Their collaborative divorce child specialist helped them to create a parenting agreement that fit the family’s culture, putting their children’s needs first.

Mike and Alyssa have 3 young boys, 6, 4, and 2 year olds.  Married for 7 years, they got pregnant on their honeymoon.  Mike and Alyssa realized that they had some serious differences in communication styles, and approaches to life.  These differences soon created a gulf between them, and after a year of therapy, Alyssa decided that it was no longer viable for her to remain in the marriage.

As many young and progressive people do, Alyssa did her research and learned about Collaborative Divorce.  She interviewed and retained a collaboratively trained attorney, and Mike was willing to do the same.

I met Mike and Alyssa as a professional member of their collaborative divorce team – the Child Specialist.  My role with their young family was to help Mike and Alyssa define their family structure and culture, which was the basis for their children’s current health and well being.

Mike and Alyssa had both been full time professionals, co-parenting successfully, with each responsible for a fair amount of child care.  Because of this, Mike and Alyssa wanted to create a parenting schedule and allocation of parental responsibilities with shared decision making, responsibilities, and generous parenting time for each.  They were not traditionalists, but wanted their children to have the experience of both parents, albeit in two homes, raising them.

With some guidance, Mike and Alyssa were able to put aside the animosity that had developed in their marital relationship and focus on their children’s needs.  There were many decisions to be made in their work with me toward a parenting agreement.  Once we finished the work of determining how their lives would work as co-parents after the divorce, we put it into practice.

Alyssa rented a home near the current family home, and they implemented the parenting schedule.  After 3 weeks of this schedule, we noticed some discomfort for both of the parents.  Their weekends were not long enough.

Due to the ages of their children, Mike and Alyssa had started off with a 2-2-2-3 schedule with the children.  Though the research supported that the children, at their young ages, would benefit from  frequent and brief visits with the parent they didn’t reside with full time, they were having frequent and brief visits with both parents because they didn’t reside with either full time.

After making some minor modifications on the parenting schedule, Mike and Alyssa are much more satisfied with everyone’s ability to settle into parenting time.  They each have 3 solid overnights every other weekend, and 2 static overnights with the children each week.  The couple decided to share decision making in all areas of importance – education, medical, religion, and extra-curricular.

They continued to check in with me for 60 days after the final prove up of their divorce, to iron out the wrinkles.  I’m happy to report that things are going well for this family.

Sandra is a successful professional woman who married in her early 20’s, just out of undergrad studies.  She then went on to get her MBA, while working full time for a financial firm, and starting her family.  After 11 years, and two beautiful daughters together, Sandra describes her marriage as “loveless”. Sandra is a high achiever, and she sees her husband as an underachiever, not living up to his potential.  He has tried a couple of business ventures and not been successful.

Sandra’s husband has not worked in 7 years.  Sandra works hard, long hours and she relies on her husband to keep their home running, and their children physically cared for.  Though her husband makes meals for them, and drives the children to their school and activities, Sandra sees him as emotionally distant from the family.

As a writer, and an introvert, Sandra’s husband thrives on spending hours alone immersed in thinking and writing.  His writing is not about people, but is high-tech science related.  Sandra notices that her husband doesn’t seem to have an ability to empathize with emotional issues – including hers or their children’s.  Though she knows that he apparently loves them, Sandra sees her husband as emotionally cold.  Sandra sees herself as the emotional, spiritual foundation for the family.  Her children share their experiences, fears, and hopes with her.  She is the one who uplifts and encourages them.

When I met Sandra, she was running on empty.  Her energy was going in too many directions, and each of those directions needed more of her energy than she was able to give.  She was feeling defeated and confused about how to remedy her life, which felt like chaos.  Sandra had always had the answers to her problems – go back to school, take another job, climb the corporate ladder, join a church … this problem confounded her.

The idea of divorce had crossed her mind many times over the course of their 11 year marriage.  But the idea of that only seemed to create more chaos, and less support, for Sandra.  Sandra had to take a good hard look at her priorities and values.  She was making excellent money, but the cost of her career – at least the way she had designed it – left her feeling locked into a loveless marriage.

She knew she could be happier, and she was finally ready to start working on this and made the decision to hire me as her divorce consultant.  I worked with Sandra on alternative solutions to her current career path, first of all.  She enjoyed her work, but it left her very little time or energy for mothering her two young daughters – something which brought her deep satisfaction.

Sandra poured herself into developing a side business, offering consultation to companies in her industry.  Sandra was so effective that news about her expertise spread fast.  Within 6 months, Sandra was earning almost as much in her consulting role as she did in her full time position.

The hours during those months were grueling, but Sandra reached a predetermined income goal in her consulting business, and decided it was time to leave her full time position.  When she approached her directors, she was surprisingly offered a consulting role with the company!  Sandra realized that she was meant to be doing this kind of work, and had just missed the signals that had been there all along for years,

With the freedom now to be more involved in her girls’ lives, and less dependent on her husband for caretaking them, Sandra felt confident that she could approach him about her feelings and the desire to separate.  We talked about a plan for this, and Sandra executed it.

There was – and always is – some push back on the idea of separating, when it comes from only one of the partners in a couple.  In spite of her husband’s reluctance, Sandra was able to take the lead in getting things started.

She initiated intro meetings with several mediators.  After together mapping their ‘big picture’, Sandra decided that mediation would be the optimal method to use to dissolve their marriage.  Because they had two minor children, there would be financial decisions to make as well as a parenting plan that would have to be developed.  Finding the right mediator and child specialist, with cooperative attorneys to hand off the agreement afterward, is crucial.

Together, we found an attorney who mediated the financial part of the MSA, or marital settlement agreement, and who partnered with a Child Specialist to help write the parenting plan.  This duo of professional expertise is very helpful in writing a plan that is sustainable, and open to possible growth and change within the family.

They saw their family as existing in two homes, but still one family that supported their daughters.  Both Sandra and her husband, working together, found that they could creatively write a plan that would minimize opportunities for conflict as they coparented their daughters.  Likewise, they had created decisions for an MSA that represented a division of their assets which was law-based but also creative in meeting both of their needs.