In a candid conversation, Zoe Willis and Sarah Woodward dissect the often-painful realities of divorce, offering listeners insights into the emotional and logistical complexities that arise.

They emphasize the significance of adopting a growth mindset, which allows individuals to find silver linings amidst their struggles. Sarah, drawing from her own experiences as a divorcee and as a coach, highlights how the journey through divorce mirrors the grieving process, marked by stages of denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and ultimately acceptance.

The chat also sheds light on the rising phenomenon of grey divorce, where individuals in their later years reevaluate their marriages. Importantly, the episode underscores the impact of divorce on children, urging parents to adopt a child-centric perspective in their decisions.

This episode serves not only as a guide for those currently navigating divorce but also as a preventative measure for couples seeking to fortify their relationships before reaching a breaking point.

Welcome to the Real Life. Real Kitchen Podcast with your host, Zoë F. Willis, English mother-of-many, Mum Mentor, and your host at this weekly gathering of real talk, real food, and real family life.

👤 About Sarah Woodward, Divorce Coach

Sarah is a qualified coach and an accredited Breakup and Divorce Coach, working with clients at every stage of the divorce process - whether they’re questioning their relationship, in the middle of a breakup and struggling to cope, or already out the other side but unsure how to move forward with their life.

With a background in senior corporate roles in finance and now years of experience coaching clients one-to-one, she offers practical tools and straightforward support to help people manage overwhelm, reduce stress, and start to rebuild their confidence, so that they can thrive after their divorce.

She works closely with family lawyers and complements that process by helping her clients stay focused, make clearer decisions, and feel more in control of their next steps. She’s here to help you fast track through the process and make it the best thing that’s happened to you… even if that feels impossible right now.

🌐 Where to Find Sarah Woodward

1. Website: https://sarah-woodward.com
2. Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/sarahwoodward_divorcecoach
3. Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/sarahwoodwarddivorcecoach
4. LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sarahwoodward2/

🧰 Links & Resources Mentioned

📝 Command the Chaos – The Mum Life Management Planner

https://shorturl.at/bbzm7

💌 Join The Kitchen Correspondence – my weekly newsletter with episodes, reflections & family food wisdom

https://realliferealkitchen.myflodesk.com/socials

☕ Support the Show – help keep the kettle on and the podcast going

https://the-real-life-real-kitchen.captivate.fm/support

❤️ Share the Love

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🌍 Where Else You Can Find Zoë

All the links are here ⬇️! Come say hello.

1. 🥰 https://realliferealkitchen.myflodesk.com/socials

Takeaways:

1. Divorce is a complex emotional and practical challenge, often requiring a growth mindset to navigate effectively.
2. The communication between partners is paramount; open discussions can prevent misunderstandings and emotional disconnection.
3. The trend of grey divorce illustrates the shifting dynamics of marriage, especially among those over 50 seeking independence.
4. Divorce affects children significantly; thus, maintaining a collaborative approach between parents is essential for their emotional well-being.
5. Therapy focuses on past issues while coaching emphasizes future solutions, highlighting the different roles each plays in personal development.
6. Recognizing contributions beyond financial roles in a marriage is crucial for understanding and achieving equitable resolutions during divorce proceedings.

Foreign.

Hello, everybody, and welcome to the Real Life Real Kitchen podcast. This is a podcast for curious mums who are looking for a better way in in this crazy modern world in which we're living.

This week, I have the wonderful Sarah Woodward, who is a divorce coach. We live in times where Alasilaq. So it's about 50% of marriages, isn't it, Sarah?

Or maybe 42% in the UK.

Yeah, 42% in the UK of marriages sadly, sadly end in divorce. So I've brought Sarah on because this is going to.

Might be directly affecting some of the listeners, but I don't think there's a family in the land who doesn't know of others who have gone through this. So one of the reasons I've asked Sarah to come on is just to have a chat about how these.

How divorce kind of comes about, how to survive it, if that's something that you're going through or have gone through. Tips for prevention. I just have a lot of questions, but I'm going to start with Sarah. Sarah, how. Okay, how.

Tell us a bit about your background and how it is that you came to be specifically a divorce coach. Because I think people are familiar with life coaches or mentors and things, but a divorce coach. So sounds quite niche. How has this come about?

Yeah, so first of all, I kind of. I support people through the practical and emotional challenges of their breakup and divorce. My background is I'm actually a chartered accountant.

I trained with Pricewaterhouse and I worked in Sony electronics for 15 years, sort of managing and leading teams. And the part of my job that I always loved was coaching people and seeing them develop and leading them.

That's where I got the most satisfaction from. And even though I loved my job, I always felt there was something missing and I didn't know what I was supposed to be doing.

I had lots of therapy, but in hindsight, I was just going week after week going over the same thing, which was just keeping me stuck. And we can talk a bit more about that. When I left Sony, I qualified as a coach, a life and business coach, and I didn't know what to coach in.

I was like, that is what I'm supposed to be doing.

Because I knew it would have made so much difference to me when I was going through my own divorce if I'd had that expert, specific and tailored support and advice, really. And it, yeah, it just feels like I've found my purpose now, my passion.

I think that's really, that is a bit of a theme that I keep on, sort of keeps on popping up in this podcast. But actually how from personal suffering there can be so much purpose and service can come of it.

Absolutely.

And that's what the research shows as well, because I'm actually a positive psychology coach as well, which is the science of happiness and well being and helping people flourish in life.

And the research shows that as long as we have a growth mindset, that from the challenges we face in life, there are always silver linings and opportunities that come from it. Even even though you can't see it when you're, when you're in the midst of it, some good will come from it.

Can you define for me what is a growth mindset? What does that. Yes.

Yeah. So again, that's another term from positive psychology.

So that's kind of a person who thinks that they can always improve and they can learn things and they're prepared to develop, as opposed to someone who's got a fixed mindset who just kind of would think, well, this is just how life is. I can't do anything about it. This is my lot. So, yes, very, very different.

One is much more kind of empowered and positive and one is kind of more stagnant. And yeah, it doesn't take responsibility.

Yeah. And sort of says, oh, a little bit woe is me. Bit victimy. But a question with that. I presume that there is an inclination to be your temperament.

You're sort of more of a positive, uplifted person or a bit more melancholic. But can that growth be developed? That idea of saying, yes, I can change?

Yeah, it can. And also, interestingly, you talk about, you know, optimistic and 50% of our kind of happiness we're born with, it's genetic.

And again, this is something that if I had realized when I was going through my divorce, I think it would have made a big difference.

So 10% of our happiness is down to our circumstances, whereas I thought all of my unhappiness when I was going through my divorce was down to what was happening. And actually 40% happiness is within your control at any one time. So it just shows how much. Yeah. Power we have.

And actually just even telling some clients that information has been a bit of a light bulb for them and it just kind of motivates them to think, I can do something about this. It is within my control.

Yeah.

And like you said, it takes them out of that victim mentality.

Yeah, yeah. It gives people a sense of freedom and a bit more power. Big words, freedom and power. What is the difference?

Cause you mentioned when you had your divorce, you went to see a therapist, but you are a coach. What is the difference between that? Because obviously both somebody who's. Their marriage is breaking up and everything. Yes.

What is the difference in terms of the support that is given?

Yeah. So I have clients that also have therapy alongside coaching, and I have clients that have come to me after therapy and now they want to move forward.

So the best analogy I have for understanding coaching versus therapy is if you imagine you're driving a car. Therapy is looking through the rear view mirror and coaching is looking through the windscreen. So coaching is very much forward looking.

It's action focused, it's solution focused. Um, therapy tends to be looking at the past more.

You know, there might be going into your childhood to understand why you behave the way you behave and helping you understand yourself and sort of how you got to where you are. It doesn't mean we don't try, you know, if we need to, that we won't go back to the past in coaching. But it's a very different focus.

Like, clients will always, from coaching, come away with an action plan that helps them keep their momentum going.

Yes, you can acknowledge the suffering that you've gone through, what has happened to you, but it is very much the looking forward and saying, yes, how can I move on from that?

Because you can't change the past. It's about helping my clients accept what's happened.

That doesn't mean they're necessarily happy about it, but it's coming to a point of acceptance and thinking, okay, how do I move on from this? How do I take it as an opportunity to kind of reset my life? How do I bring happiness into my life again?

Because, you know, a lot of the women I work with, when I say to them what makes you happy? They've lost sight of it. They don't know anymore. They're so used to putting everybody else before themselves.

They don't know what their own needs are and they don't know what makes them happy. So that's a large part of what we do in terms of helping Them rebuild themselves.

Yeah, yeah. And that rediscovery of that joy as well.

Exactly.

After all that sadness and that grief, how does divorce come about? I mean, what is happening? That means the foundations, because people meet boy meets girl, girl meets boy, and they go, oh, you're rather fab.

I would like to spend the rest of my life with you. You seem like. It seems like a good fit and then off you go. But what has happened? What is happening?

That things seem to be crumbling more quickly, more frequently than in times past.

So I think the first thing is there's very rarely like one event that causes a divorce. It's something that probably happens slowly over time.

And that can be things like, you know, lack of communication, a lack of connection, especially for women, emotional connectedness within the marriage. Infidelity is obviously one of the reasons, but, you know, that can be often a symptom of what has been not right in the marriage for a long time.

And then growing apart is something. And what we're seeing in the UK and the States, actually in other countries is a rise of gray divorce. I'm not sure if you've heard.

Is that when they. Is that when they've stayed together for 30, 40 years and then they.

Over 50s? Basically.

So although the average divorce rates in the UK are dropping, the rates of divorce for people in their 50s and 60s are increasing significantly to the point where like 25% of divorces at the moment are for people over 50s. Wow. Yeah. So it's huge. And there's. For that, there's a lot of reasons for that. The first is kind of empty nesters.

So people stay together for the children. Sometimes they've made that a conscious decision, they'll wait until the children leave.

Sometimes when the children have left and all gone off and done their own thing, they realize they have nothing left in common, that they perhaps don't want to spend the next 30 years together. They want different things out of life. We're living longer. So people are thinking, do I want to spend the rest of my life with this person?

A big one is that women are more financially independent now, so they can afford to lead, they can afford to support themselves, which is a huge reason. And then there's not so much social stigma.

I mean, even when I look back to my own divorce, which was just over 20 years ago, things had changed significantly. I didn't know anyone else who'd been divorced when I went through it. So it was really isolating. I had no one to talk to that had been through it.

That Actually got it. And that makes a huge difference. You know, some of my clients say to me, just being validated and understood is a huge thing for them.

I'm going to come back to the gray divorce because, I don't know, the thing is, women, we're kind of good with a network. We can go out and we can, you know, be it if we're working or we can join communities. We tend to be quite good at having a network network.

And widows generally do better than widowers, which makes me think you've got a whole heap of divorced chaps in their 50s and 60s who have been amalgamated into a family social network that has gone, what is happening to these chaps? I mean, yes, you're going to get extroverts, sure, but. But generally they're sort of not. What does it mean for them?

A lot of them will end up in other relationships. And it's really interesting what you say about women and their networks.

The research on friendships show that women's friendships are based much more on emotional connection than men's are. And men can have really good friendships, but they will all be kind of surface level in terms of the conversations they have.

You know, what's happening with football. They won't even know anything about what's really going on in the other person's life.

So it's very true that women have much more of a support network and a lot of the women that I work with, and again, what we're seeing, the patterns are that people are. Women in particular are choosing to be on their own and they're not going to compromise just to be in another relationship.

But I think I read something in the Times a few weeks ago that was saying the rate of marriage for men over 65 is much higher than the rate of marriage for. For men in their 20s and 30s. So they are. A lot of them are getting married again.

Are they marrying someone younger? Do we know what?

No, it didn't go into that. No. Perhaps look into that a bit more.

No, no. It's really what's interesting. And I get. Come. I'm going to come back to the widows and the widowers. Having said, the widows do very.

Do very well, as well as you can. It's, you know, lost your husband. But I also have noticed a bit of a pattern that with a widower, or that they will.

The chaps will sort of in some ways bounce back and within a year or two, if they're going to get married, that's usually they found someone quite quickly, whereas a Widow is usually quite content. So it sounds like the divorce has a similar, similar psychology to it. Which brings me on to this. Sounds a lot like grief. Sounds like.

And it is exactly the same process.

And divorce is the second most stressful thing you can go through in life, second only to the death of a loved one, but you go through all the same stages. And I think it's really important for people going through a breakup or divorce to understand that.

And you know, something I certainly talk through in my coaching sessions, they can understand where they are in the process and actually what's going on with them. So they could be much more compassionate with their selves.

So, you know, the process that you go through is, is first of all, if it, if it wasn't your decision, you go through shock and denial.

Yeah.

And that's like, I can't believe this is happening to me. You kind of bury your head in the sand a bit, and I certainly did that.

And it's like your brain just gives you as much as you can cope with at that time.

And then you go into an anger stage where obviously heightened emotion, you can be angry at your partner or at yourself, and you can find that your anger might come out at things that aren't even related to it. You know, it just erupts. Then there's the bargaining where you might perhaps be trying to get the marriage back on track.

When your partner back, that's when you see people you know, go to the gym and trying to lose weight, all those kind of things. And then there's depression, which is obviously low mood. And then there's acceptance.

And what the important thing to understand is it's not a linear process. There's no set time for it. And you bounce between the stages as well.

So, for example, you could have reached the stage of acceptance, but then you, maybe your ex, you find out they found someone else, and you could be back into depression or anger. So. And you can be in more than one of those stages in a single day as well.

Yeah, yeah. Again, I'm just sort of making the comparison with death and the loss of a loved one. You're sort of pootling along, minding your own business.

And then you'll see something that reminds you. And it's like, I think of it like a sort of really painful crochet hook just go grabs you and you're back there again. And you're back there again. So.

And there is no. And you're saying there isn't. It's not like, give yourself a year

I mean, there is some research. Some research says, you know, it can take at least three, three and a half years, and that was certainly the case with me. So, again, it really does.

It varies. It varies on. Depending on how strong your relationship was, how long you were together, and other factors influence it as well.

But I think, you know, that if people try and rush it and distract themselves, then they don't heal properly. And that's when it comes back to bite you later.

Yeah, very much so. I could. Again, again, I make the comparison with. With. With a. With a death.

You just kind of, I'm fine, I'm fine, Crack on, everything's all right, and then it all comes tumbling out at a later date. Yeah, yeah. Gosh. Now with. You're also.

We were talking just before the podcast began, so people will come to you and you are helping them with the kind of. The practical and looking forward. But you also are working with the divorce lawyers.

Now, is that you are working in tandem with them or the client has you says, I just want to work with you, Sarah. And the lawyer side is separate and I'll tell you what's going on, or you're communicating with lawyers. What does that triangle look like?

So it's funny, I had this conversation with a solicitor this morning, actually, and I'm very much more of a collaborative approach. It doesn't happen so much at the moment. It's done in isolation. Like some, like, obviously, my clients will tell me what's going on.

They'll send me copies of correspondence and things.

I would much rather that basically the client had their support team in place at the start, which I always say is a solicitor, a divorce coach and financial planner as well, to help with the numbers and kind of. You set out the strategy at the start, but. But then, yeah, so I refer to solicitors and they. And they refer to me.

I have, like, trusted professionals that I use. I have. I have a lot of them. So I always, always match them up with kind of personality and, like, the intricacies of their case.

You know, what kind of solicitor they need, because the solicitor will set the tone of your divorce as well.

So I always advise clients to think about that very carefully from the start and also to find someone that they really trust and they feel comfortable with because it's very overwhelming. They're at one of the most vulnerable times in their life. So they, you know, they need to feel really safe and trust that person.

Yeah, yeah, very much so. And if you've got. If you've got children in the Mix. And you're trying just to keep the day today running. That is. That is a massive.

A massive element to it. I think your observation about the temperaments, finding that complementarity with the temperament is really important because if you've got.

If you've got somebody who just wants bish bash bosh, I want the clarity, let's get on with it. And then you have a sort of slightly fluffy, warm solicitor that's not going to work, and vice versa as well.

Somebody who needs the fluffiness and they're getting the bish bash bosh. That's going to be a huge clash and it's just going to add to the stress.

Yeah. And it's also whether you want.

Whether you have a solicitor that wants to find a resolution that works for both of them, or whether you've got a sister at the other end of the scale who's very much a litigator, prefers to go to court. Quite aggressive approach. And that can really set the tone.

Gosh, that would be. That's a terrifying thing, having to go. I mean, are the vast majority of.

Again, I'm just presuming, majority of divorces, are they sort of quietly handled between solicitors? There isn't the need to go to court and sort of bash it out.

I haven't got the exact numbers, but what we are seeing is that even though the divorce rate is falling, the sort of. The more high conflict ones are going to court. Having said that, the court issued something, I think it was, last year, that they're very much.

The court is completely overworked in huge backlogs, and they're very much trying to encourage couples to settle outside of court, like things. You know, there's loads of ways that you can settle that the layman wouldn't even know about.

You know, some people have heard of mediation, but there's arbitration, there's private hearings, there's lots of alternatives, and it's not looked upon you well by the court. If you haven't tried any of those methods and you just take someone to court, which.

Which is a good thing, especially, as you said, when there's children involved.

You know, there is research that shows that obviously divorce is going to affect children, but it's more how you handle it that has the bigger impact on it.

So, you know, whether they're subjected to high conflict, whether they're used as pawns in middle, et cetera, and, you know, it's not always best for the parents to stay together for the children, if it's, you know, Obviously, if it's an abusive relationship, it definitely isn't. But if there's no love or anything between the parents, you know, they're in separate rooms. If there's.

If the communication is only practical and logistical. You know, I always say to my clients that are thinking about leaving, you are the role model for your children.

So what are you modeling in terms of what they're going to expect from their relationship going forward? And I think a really powerful question is how would you feel if your child was in a similar relationship that you're in now?

And that's a really powerful question to ask yourself because it isn't always the right thing to stay for the children.

Do you have. You had people come to you and then they've turned their marriage around?

I have had a couple of clients. Yeah. So I do get a lot of clients that come to me that are questioning their marriage and thinking about leaving. And I'm very much.

If you're going to leave your marriage, you need to make sure you're absolutely sure and that you're leaving with no regrets. So we spend time going through, you know, what are the issues with the marriage? What are you not happy with? What are you compromising with?

And, you know, what would it take for your marriage to work, really, and what could you do about that? And, you know, sometimes they go away and have a time frame and they work on specific things to see if they can turn it around.

Yeah. What is fixable? So, sorry, I'm going to be slightly flippant here, but yes, he. I hate his choice of tea mugs in the morning.

He knows it's not my favorite one.

Yeah.

You're like, it's not about the tea mug. It's not about the mug.

Is that. Is that really something you can't live with? It's just a, you know, what are the deal breakers, effectively.

Yeah. Yeah. Yep. Yep.

And a person, you know, have. They have to. It has. It takes two people. You know, you can't change anyone, but the other person has to want to work on the marriage.

And it's about accepting. You know, a lot of people try to change a person. They get married thinking they could change them. They have to want to change.

And, you know, the best thing you could do in that situation is just to change yourself, and then they will. That will have a positive impact potentially on the marriage. But that's a big thing when people think they can change someone.

Yeah. Because it's also. That's the thing. We.

I suppose we live in a Time when we feel we can control everything, we can control our careers, we can control how much money comes in. And it's a. Yeah. We can B. B, B on our phone, control what we're having for dinner, blah, blah, blah.

Love is a risk, hugely risky thing, because you cannot control who you choose. You have children. That's a gamble. Was a wonderful gamble, but it's a gamble. Um. So, yes, within a marriage to.

You can't change a person, you can't fix a person unless they want fixing.

Exactly.

Cannot fix. You can't fix a person. That's not just marriage, but. But relationships in general. And I suppose the challenges.

Just thinking out loud, I suppose the challenge is to be at peace with the fact that somebody doesn't want help, somebody doesn't want to be fixed or can only. It's like, I will. I. I can manage this much, but I can't manage more.

And for you, it's that decision. Well, it's like, can I live with that? Am I prepared to accept that? And that's the bit you can control and you have got the influence over.

And then you make that decision, you kind of make peace with it instead of moaning at them and nagging them and going on and on all the time. Because it's not healthy.

Yeah. Yep. So the couples that. Or the clients who've come to you and have gone back and their marriages have been revived, what were the.

I suppose, what were the takeaways from that? What did they do? What happened that changed and saved their marriage?

Yeah. I think part of it is actually getting to the crux of what they're not happy with and what we just Talked about, really. 1.

Can it be changed by a conversation and working together, or is it something in the scheme of things that actually they could put up with and accept going forward? And I think, you know, a big question I always ask them is, do they still love them? Because I think that's, you know, that's fundamental as well.

Do they want the marriage to the work? Are both of them invested in the marriage?

I mean, I have a lot of women clients who come to me and they feel very disillusioned and disheartened with their marriage.

Quite often they're the main breadwinner, but yet they're still carrying all the emotional workload, running the house and doing everything, and they're like, actually, it would be easier to live on my own. This is not what I signed up for. It's not the partnership that I expected. And I hear that a lot Could

I be a bit cheeky and a bit trag. Would it not be easier to work part time and then the fella do most of the hard yards?

I guess that's their choice, isn't it, in terms of what brings them happiness, how they get their fulfillment. And I guess, you know, that's where the communication and talking about what the expectations are up front is really important.

In terms of, okay, we're thinking about children, how is that going to work? Yeah, yeah, but I could, I could flip it back to you and say, why can't the blokes stay at home and look after the children?

I've got friends where that happens.

Yeah, I know where that happens. And again, I'm going to be. I'm going to be a bit trading controversial.

I fundamentally, unless there is like a serious difficulty, for example, a death or an illness, small children in particular need their moms. This is just an anthropological biological attachment reality that in the modern world, in the west, we're denying they need their moms.

It's hard because we have been educated, we've got brains, we've got careers we want to work on, but the children need us.

I think it's about what makes everybody happy, what's best for everybody. And as we talked about earlier, it's about seasons as well.

It's like, okay, well, I'll stay at home until the children are this age, but this is what I want going forward. And I think it just comes down to communication and expectations, isn't it?

And having said, having put my judgment hat on and been sort of all terribly conservative and trad there, I think the seasons point is so important because I'm going to come back. There's a great writer called Mary Harrington.

She's got a substack floating around somewhere and she's written in a really engaging way about the realities of families as economic units historically until the industrial revolution, and that women would still contribute and that, you know, men are out in the fields plowing and doing the dangerous, hefty stuff and the women are spinning the yarn. I mean, I'm being very simplistic here, but the women were doing things that they could pick up and put down.

Make sure the cooking was happening, make sure the toddler was not dying in the fire, this sort of thing. So women were still contributing dinners, burning, the washings, multiplying and someone's crying. It could even be you.

If your evenings feel like survival mode. The command, the chaos mum life management planner is your first gentle step back to calm.

It's a printable 80 page guide and planner to help you reset your routines and breathe again without needing to become someone else entirely. Start your reset today. The links in the show notes. And then, you know, we're still, still using our brains.

It comes back to the community side of things as well, having those networks. But I think seasons is a really important point because when the children are particularly small and it is intense, they need, they need their mums.

They need their mums.

Yeah.

But later, coming back to, I suppose, conversations with partners, I'm just again, ideas out there. Conversations with husbands, maybe. Yes. The woman at an older stage, teenage kids. I'm going out for more of a career husband.

Could you do more working from home and going back in the hours? So it's still.

There is still the work happening, there is still the fulfillment, but there is also this realization that there are others who are dependent upon you and it might be the children, it might also be the marriage and there are times that people take steps back. So. Yes. So I'm not.

It's never 50 50, is it? It's exactly as you've just said. Yeah.

For people who aren't watching on YouTube, I'm doing a flowing gesture with my hand. So it's a flowing thing.

But that feeds back into communication, stronger relationship, finding time and space to actually say, oh, can we, can we, this isn't working. What can we do?

And checking in with each other. Exactly.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Really important because again, I think we've been led to believe that the only option is employment and in a career on a ladder to someone else's timetable. Whereas we could be so much more creative. We could be so much more creative

and we have the technology to help us do that nowadays. And Covid showed that, you know, we can work from home, we don't have to be in an office five days a week.

So things have changed significantly and it's like we almost need to catch up with that.

Yeah, yeah, I think so, I think so. I mean, is that something else? Because you were saying you were a business coach before. Do you give a bit of kind of careers advice?

I'm thinking more of the family that, you know, the clients who are coming to you pre breakup, actually maybe even

post, post, post, more post. So I haven't really. So I've not ever done business coaching.

I'm trained in it, but yeah, I have done coaching because, I mean that's the thing about coaching, you never know what's, what's going to come up and that's why I have have a breadth of qualifications as well as the depth in terms of divorce coaching. Because it's rarely just about divorce. It is.

You know, maybe the woman has stayed at home and looked up at children, but now she's going to have to go out and earn a living. And, you know, we do, we do look about. So things like that do come up quite regularly. And Yeah, I love that part of it because.

Yeah, I was just going to say.

And there's going to be a confidence element to that because if you've been at home and you're like, I'm an absolute superstar at all the wiping and the cuddles and the book reading and getting the school run done, which if you pull it apart and actually look at the skills involved. Huge.

I was going to say there's lots of transferable skills.

Huge.

That was helping them identify that.

Exactly. And because we have had a few decades of, oh, you're just at home. Denigration of the domestic. That's really important.

It is. And I hear that a lot in terms of.

If I have female clients and their husband has been the brain, the main breadwinner, he's like, you're not touching my pension. I've worked for that.

And there's no recognition of what the wife has done in terms of staying at home, giving up their career and bringing up the children. It's really common. You're not touching my pension because I've worked for that.

And no recognition of the part that they've played in it that's helped the man have the career and the children.

That's a. Excuse my language, listeners. That's a really prickish thing to do.

Yeah.

Really.

Oh.

And it shows that there is not an attitude of it being a team or a collaboration.

Exactly.

That you're not building something together. That you are creating a legacy, a building block of civilization, if you will. If, you know, if children are a part of it. Wow.

And when you look at it like that, it's hardly surprising that the marriage hasn't worked because as you said, where's that team approach, that partnership that we're building this together and the recognition that actually, I couldn't have done this without you. Oh,

I'm a little bit. I mean, in some ways not surprised yet at the same time, to hear you say that. Oh, it's a sucker punch, isn't it? Absolute sucker punch. Oh, yeah.

And I can't, again, I can't remember the statistics, but it's a really high number of women that don't get the financial settlement they should because they don't bring pensions into account. Wow. And it's one of the biggest assets, often the biggest asset in the marital pot.

Sometimes it's worth more than the family home and they don't bring it into the equation.

Wow. Why is that? Is that just because of the legal setup around it or what's.

Sometimes it's lack of knowledge. A lot of the time it is the husband saying, well, you can have the house, but you're not touching my pension.

They almost get rushed or bullied into making a decision. They want it over quickly. That, you know, it's lots of, lots of reasons. And maybe they don't have the right support.

So it's more, it's not that legally a spouse can't access the pension. It's more that it get not thinking about it. And it gets rushed over. And by the time it's done and dusted, you go, oh, hang on.

Then it's according to needs going forward, but everything effectively goes into the marital pot.

Yeah, but you gotta have the right advice. Yeah. It was interesting. I remember years ago, there was a lady I knew whose husband just again left her out of the blue.

And she was left with small children. And the next day she still had to go into work. She still had to go into work at the school was obviously in pieces.

The headmistress is like, come talk to me. And this, this, this lady told, told the headmistress what had happened. The headmistress said, you are going to a divorce solicitor today.

Today, because if you leave it, you will get less. Because she said, it happened to me. If you leave it, you're going to get less and less and less. If you go today, you'll get like 80%.

And if you're meant to reconcile in the future, fine, deal with that then. But for now, you've got to protect yourself and the children. Go now and do that now as, as practicing Catholic.

But at the same time, I'm like, yes, you have to protect yourself if you've got somebody who's just totally reneged on their responsibilities.

Yeah, it's really hard.

Yeah, really hard. Really hard. How do you, in these sorts of instances, with the experience you've had what are kind of the best ways to protect the children?

Because this is just rubbish for children, be they, I mean, obviously when they're small. But coming back to the gray divorce, that's gonna be a shock for the grown up kids as well.

Exactly. It still impacts adults. Yeah.

Shall we do. Let's do two bits. Let's go to for the smaller children, let's say, you know, 16 and under.

What have you seen that has made for the most successful, most successful breakdown of a family? I'm not, I'm not quite sure how to have words for it.

It's putting the children at the forefront of all your decisions. It's as simple, doesn't mean it's easy, but it's as simple as that. The children have to come first and, you know, all your decisions are led by that.

For example, is it better for the children to stay in the family home, if that's possible? It's making sure they have contact with both parents. It's never talking badly of the other parent in front of them.

It's never making them feel like they have to choose one parent over the other. It's sending them off to the other parent and being excited for them and asking them what they got up to, you know, when they got back.

It's not sending messages via the children and using them as pawn. So it is everything is done with the children at the center of all your decisions and all your behavior.

Yeah, yeah. Which to be honest, if we flip society ran full stop and children were at the center, what a very different world we would be living in.

Sarah, I think you've hit on a universal truth there, I feel.

So that's the younger ones, I mean your older ones, when your parents that you thought were rock solid, 35, 40 years marriage and then they go, actually, yeah, Nigel and Maureen are divorcing and

then it's still a shock, isn't it?

Yeah. What, how does one sort of.

Yeah, I guess it's difficult for the parents really.

I mean, obviously they can reassure them again, try not to involve them in the conflict even because they feel they have to choose one over the other and that's getting them support if they need it, if they need therapy or anything. And I kind of with my clients always try and help them to look long term.

And it's like your children are going to get married, you're going to have grandchildren. So kind of manage your divorce with the end in mind.

In terms of do you want to both be able to be civil with each other at the wedding, you know, even though you're. And another thing is, even though you're separated, the family unit still exists. And it's just.

And this comes part of, you know, setting the tone for your divorce. How do you want to play that out going forward? Do you still wanna celebrate birthdays together and things like that?

Do you wanna meet each other at Christmas? And actually thinking about that strategically before you start? And then all your behavior and actions happen with that in mind? Really?

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So again, it's actually in and amongst the sadness of the breakdown, it's putting that.

It's putting that sacrifice and love to the fore and saying, okay, we're doing this with the children so that we can have joyful times with our grandchildren. Yeah. Yeah.

Because you hear about people that you know are getting married and they have to choose which parent they want there because they refuse to be in the same place. It's just awful, isn't it?

Yeah. Really selfish. Judgment hat on. Sorry, Sarah. Judgment hat on. Yeah, I'm going to come back to one. One thing again.

We sort of had a brief chat about it before the podcast began, but one of the reasons that people divorce, or what builds up to it, is I don't feel the same way I used to. Where are the butterflies in the tummy? Where's the sexiness? Where's the flirtiness? Where's it gone?

You're just wiping all the time, or you're just at work all the time and, you know, where's it gone? Is it people forgetting they're not 21, 25 anymore? And there are times in life that. Yeah, it's just. I think seasons. Seasons is bad.

Absolutely. It's seasons again, isn't it? And, you know, people might be trying to get back to what their marriage was like or how it was when they first met.

And that's. That's not always realistic, especially if you've had children, you're both working now. Maybe you met at university and you had.

You didn't have any responsibilities. And it's just, again, I think it comes down to communication and expectations.

It's like, what are both of you, your expectations and what you want from the marriage now and what does it look like now? And making sure that you're aligned with that and having those conversations about it, because things change, doesn't it?

And you're not always going to have those butterflies like it was at the beginning, and that's not realistic. And love changes and it develops and grows over time in different ways, doesn't it? So I think it's just having that open communication.

And if you're not happy about things being able to voice that and feeling heard and listened to, because a lot of people that make the decision to leave a marriage, there's. There's evidence like they've been doing that for a couple of years, up to a couple of years beforehand.

And there's terminology that's coming out later that's called quietly quitting your marriage.

Yeah.

Which means you've. You've kind of disconnected emotionally. You're almost living separate lives, but you're married. You are still married.

But is that. So that's happening. If there is no intervention, as if there.

If there isn't somebody within the marriage saying, hey, come on, we gotta work on this, then you get that disconnect.

Yeah.

Okay.

And that's why sometimes it feels like a shock to the other party because the other person has been, you know, pulling back, removing themselves from the marriage, and you weren't aware of it.

Yeah.

And that's why they say, you know, they finally say something like, they're leaving, and that's why it's such a shock. And you're. That person is left trying to catch up with the other person.

Yeah. Because it's also. It's also not fair. I know that sounds. That sounds quite challenge. Not fair.

No. But.

Yeah, but you don't get a chance to. Okay. So clearly there are problems. Could we not work on this?

And that's exactly how I felt. I felt I never had the opportunity to fix whatever was wrong in my marriage.

And that's really hard in terms of reaching acceptance and closure and helping you move on as well. It's really, really difficult. And like I said, it's not fair to the other person to voice what you're thinking, what's not working? What's wrong.

Yeah.

I just want to say, because at the beginning of the conversation, we were talking about control and fixing people, whether they wanted to be fixed or not. That is a different thing to not even just knowing. Oh, I didn't know the teacups were really irritating you. And now there's grounds for divorce.

Why didn't you say so? I could have changed that. There's a difference there. And it also.

I don't know, it comes back in some ways back to that growth mindset, that positive mentality, that stagnant mentality, the kind of the. Again, I'm just putting my judgment hat on. So, Sarah, you know, knock me down.

But if you're not trying, if you're not trying and you've just gone, oh, there's no point. That seems a bit woe is me.

That's not what marriage is about, is

it takes work rather than, oh, this is a bit crap at the moment. I'd like a few more date nights and told I'm beautiful even though I'm wearing tracksuit bottoms all the time.

Exactly, exactly.

And that's what I want to hear. You may not believe it, husband, but I need to hear that. So, yeah, it just seems like a contrast in men mentality.

Oh, well, there's a lot to unpack here, Sarah. It's a lot for me to mull on and think about. It's. Yeah. Painful thing. Painful thing. I think a couple of things that sort of spring to mind.

Children at the centre. Children at the centre, better communication, you know, more time together. Because the world is so busy, both of you working.

We've got all the busyness with the school run and the activities and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

It's remembering that you're still a couple, isn't it? And like you say, you need that quality time together.

Yeah, yeah.

And you're a really important.

And there are seasons where you are sort of in the trenches, so to speak. Oh, no, no, I shouldn't use that term. But it's just. It is intense and busy.

But know that that will calm down gradually and that that all will be well.

Hmm.

Sarah, for the mums who are listening, the ladies who are listening, because it's mainly ladies, let's be honest, who are going, oh, yeah, things are pretty scratchy and not. Not great at the moment in my marriage. Or even they know of someone who's. Who's struggling. What. Have you got any kind of tips that you could give to.

Encouraged to help? Obviously, I'm all about prevention.

Absolutely. And even though I'm divorce coach, I am as well. If it's the right thing.

Yeah.

For them to stay together, then I would. Absolutely.

Yeah. Yeah. Again, abuse, you know, dependencies, whatever. Yeah, yeah. You need to be safe. Absolutely. But, yes. What.

In your experiences, both personal and professional, what would you. Yeah. What would you recommend?

I think it comes down to communication to start with.

Again, it's like having that open, honest conversation with your partner, you know, where you're quite vulnerable and you're voicing, you know, the things that you're not happy with. Perhaps things have changed in the marriage or, you know, what you would like going forward.

And I think even before you have that communication going a step backwards, it's Actually trying to work that out.

Yeah.

For yourself, isn't it? In terms of what we spoke about earlier, the deal breakers and. And what's not working for you.

And it's, you know, trying to, you know, if you feel like the spark has gone, it's trying to recapture that between you remembering what it is that you fell in love with. Because you can lose sight of that, can't you, in the. In the hamster wheel of life and everything that's going on.

You can sometimes lose side of that is having quality time together. Like we've just spoken. It's like remembering that actually you are a couple as well. You're not just parents. And that's really important.

And then I think get support as well if you need it. You know, an outsider. I think sometimes friends and family, they're often too invested in the situation. They're too close to it.

I think getting professional expert help can be really valuable. Although, you know, some of the things I heard by the. And what's a shame is by the time people go to marriage counseling, often it's too late.

Yeah.

It's just a last resort and it's actually recognizing that there are issues earlier on and talking them through and getting support if you need it.

Yeah. I suppose one of the things to consider is marriage counseling almost as a top up. Just, just kind of. We need just, just.

We keep on arguing over the teacups.

We can't get past what's really going on. What's really going on.

Yes. It's not about the teacups. So. Yeah. To look at that as again, it's having that sort of team trying your best to go together as a team.

Coming back to the spending time together and the busyness of life is finding again. I'm going to throw this out there, but it is finding the courage to say no to things.

In boundaries. Yeah.

Yeah. As also. Do you know what? We don't need to be doing all the school parties every weekend. We don't have to be doing so many activities at the moment.

Maybe I cut down to four days a week either side, man or woman, whatever. That's just so that we have a chance to pause and reflect because we need that time and it's recognizing that

before it's too late. Yeah.

Yeah. And just having that time together. Yep. Sarah, thank you. Thank you.

It's been great to speak to you. Thank you.

It has. Where can people find more? They've gone. Sarah. She's the woman I need to talk to.

So my website is sarah-woodward.com I'm on Instagram. It's a divorce coach and on LinkedIn and I also have a free resource make divorce the best thing to ever happen to you.

You know, even though when you're in midst of it, it's very difficult to imagine that.

But I do believe, you know, coming back to the growth mindset and everything, it's within your control and there will be some good to come out of it as well.

Yeah. This too shall pass.

Yeah, that's a really strong saying that I quite often say it's just a moment in time. It doesn't mean it's always going to be like that. And that can just help kind of center you sometimes, can't it? And just help you pause and think.

Okay. Get it into perspective.

Yeah, yeah. No, that's powerful. Thank you, Sarah. On that note, I shall say goodbye. And for anybody who's listening, please like share, subscribe.

If you're on YouTube, can you hit the notification button please and leave a review on Apple Podcasts. Let's get the, let's get the word out there. Thank you so much, Sarah.

Have a lovely day.

To all the listeners as well. Bye bye. Love the podcast and want to help keep the kettle on. You can support the show.

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