IF the breakdown of a marriage is arguably life’s most stressful experience, then Jackie Walker has more than enough on her plate.
She is currently trying to deal with ten collapsing marriages, trying to ease either one or both partners through the emotional pitfalls.
As Scotland’s first “divorce coach” she is on-call around the clock to clients looking for a shoulder to cry
on. It’s not unheard of for the phone to ring at her Colinton home at 10pm. But if the strain is getting to her there are precious few signs.
“I’m not stressed,” she says firmly, when asked about the pressures of her new career.
The 48-year-old mother-of-two used to work for the Chartered Institute of Management Accountants, organising events, dinners and training, but switched careers after her own divorce. She started 18 months ago, inspired by divorce coaches in the US.
With nearly 13,000 divorces in Scotland last year, there is clearly a vast potential market for her services.
But taking on the work is not for the faint-hearted. Clients often cry down the phone during their weekly, hour-long phone calls, which often over-run. Jackie’s coaching work – it is not, she insists, counselling – is done over the phone as her clients are spread across the UK.
Each client gets four pre-arranged, hour-long phone calls a month, plus access to her “emergency” evening number. Each one is so absorbing that she has to limit herself to ten clients at a time.
“The worst calls tend to be the first two or three,” she says. They tend to be in tears. Often they’ve been bottling it up.”
She calculates that she spends three full days a week on one of her three phones. “But I switch it off at night,” she says. “I have to have a private life. I’ve taken emergency calls at 8/9/10pm, but people tend not to abuse the system.” She was inspired to train first as a life coach after undergoing life coaching herself during her own divorce three years ago. She gained a qualification in neuro-linguistic programming, which involves trying to change people’s behaviour patterns by making them more conscious of their own behaviour and questioning their values.
She is reluctant to talk about her own divorce, although she says she occasionally opens up to clients. She will only say on this occasion that she was married for nine years and has two children.
Her doctor’s response to the stress she felt was to advise her to climb a hill and scream – an attitude which convinced Jackie of the dire need for specialist divorce help. She says: “I believe there are thousands of men and women in Scotland experiencing sadness, anxiety and anger, as much as two years following a divorce or separation.”
Jackie operates a self-devised, six-step process, and some of her techniques – such as banning dating for the first three months – seem unorthodox.
“I can’t enforce it but I advise it,” she insists. “If they jump into something too soon they will get hurt again. It’s to get them out of the rebound cycle or they will keep making the same mistakes.”
Like the rest of the country, she has watched in horror as the most high-profile divorce of recent years very publicly unfolded between Sir Paul McCartney and Heather Mills. Her advice to couples going through a similarly embittered break-up? “To try to minimise upsetting the children,” she says. “Make sure children know they are loved by you when you have them.
“It’s key that parents make every endeavour to be respectful of their ex, because the ex remains the parent forever.”
Of course, while the term “divorce coach” may be new, there are well-established organisations offering help to relationships in crisis.
Relationships Scotland, the new charity created by the merger of Relate Scotland and Family Mediation Scotland, offers services at any stage when a couple’s relationship is in difficulty. Relationship counselling is usually weekly.
Gay Hickey, the charity’s head of public affairs, says couples are more likely to stay together if they receive counselling early on. “After counselling they will often go on to separate but in a better way, with more self knowledge,” she says.
Jackie acknowledges what the good counselling can do, but says her service works in quite a different way. “I do a lot of therapy and coaching with clients,” she says. “Counselling identifies where people are stuck and they have to go forward from there. I help them find out where they are stuck, get rid of the reason for it and then build them a new life.”
Jackie’s clients pay £500 a month for a minimum course of three months.
This year she has dealt with 15 clients, from people coming to terms with divorce to a civil partnership in difficulties, but she has not yet saved a marriage.
“The happiness of my client is my measure of success,” she says. “I say I can help you and then you can choose if you want to save your own marriage.”
For more information on Jackie’s service see:
www.thedivorcecoach.co.uk. For more information on Relationships-Scotland see:
www.relationships-scotland.org.uk TOP TEN POINTS TO CONSIDER BEFORE YOU TIE THE KNOT..TO help young singles tying the knot defy the statistics and enjoy a lasting marriage, Jackie has drawn up this top ten checklist of things to ask yourself before you take the plunge:
1. Do you feel confident you have a fulfilling life apart from each other?
2. Do you know what you need to feel loved?
3. Are you relying on your partner to save you from something you fear, such as loneliness or poverty?
4. Can you set boundaries with your partner without having fear of rejection?
5. Are you confident about making your own decisions?
6. Can you see challenging points in your partner and be honest about them?
7. Have you discussed your attitudes to key long-term lifestyle issues: sex, money, family, children, security, communication, religion and spontaneity?
8. Can you identify the standards of respect you require to be fulfilled?
9. Do you have joint goals you plan to work towards?
10. Can you be totally honest with your partner?
Jackie advises all couples to do a regular relationship “audit” and refer back to these questions to ensure their marriage stays happy.
The full article contains 1099 words and appears in Edinburgh Evening News newspaper.
