A coach for your divorce

Alice Cairns talks to divorce coach Sara Davison about love, loss and the rise of the silver splitter

May 2018: the artist formerly known as Meghan Markle processes through Windsor to cheers and whoops from an enthusiastic crowd. She’s now a royal, the bride of the younger and funner Windsor brother. She’s also an ex-divorcée.

It’s fair to say that attitudes to divorce have undergone a seismic shift in recent years. And why not? Today, 42% of first marriages in the UK end in divorce, a figure which only increases for the second and third time around. 

And that’s where Sara Davison comes in. A renowned divorce coach with a practice in Ascot, she’s recently become patron of Berkshire based The Dash Charity, which works with victims of domestic abuse. If you want to come out of your divorce stronger, healthier and happier, Sara is the woman to see.  

She speaks from experience too. For it was after being blindsided by the turmoil and trauma of her own separation that she became a divorce coach in the first place. 

“I was absolutely broken,” she tells me. “Overnight I was a single parent. I actually worked with my ex-husband, so I lost my business too, as well as my best friend. Everything was gone and I had to watch as he moved on with someone else and, in a very short space of time, started a new family.” 

Despite having worked as a life coach for 15 years, Sara struggled to control her feelings of rage, betrayal and hurt. She looked around for help, but couldn’t find anything that addressed her needs. So she began to create her own programme, thinking up exercises and tasks to help herself move forward. 

“Then my lawyer, Fiona Shackleton, asked me to speak to one of her clients who was going through a tough divorce. Things just sort of spiralled from there. I realized that because I’d been through it, and I got it, I was in a unique position to help. I only teach what worked for me.”

So what exactly is a divorce coach? Not the same as a therapist, says Sara, although she believes that therapy does have a role to play.

“There wasn’t really much divorce coaching before I started five years ago. It just wasn’t known. But it’s perfect for people who don’t really want to go to therapy, but who want practical help and a list of things they can go away and do.” 

This hands-on approach has been as big a hit with men as with women.

 “About 40% of my clients are male,” reveals Sara. “And that’s probably because I’m a coach, so my advice is very practical. I think men like that. They’re more open to having a coach than having a therapist.” 

There’s certainly nothing intimidating about Sara’s clinic, which she stocks with tissues, tea and biscuits.

“When a new client comes, I make them a cup of tea and we take our shoes off, curl up on the sofa and chat.”  

Best known, perhaps, of Sara’s innovations is her break-up retreat – the first of its kind in the UK. Dubbed the heartbreak hotel by an enthusiastic press, it’s a weekend away with a twist; a place where the newly single can come together and process their feelings under Sara’s expert guidance. 

But wait: 15 newly single people discussing their divorces in a remote hotel? It’s one long misery fest, right? Not so, insists Sara.

“They bond as a group and they realize they’re not alone. We shift baggage, we make future plans, and they leave with hope and a toolkit of information that they can use to make life better.” 

On the subject of our spiraling divorce rates, however, Sara is sombre. 

“I think we have a very disposable culture in the UK,” she says. “And that extends to seeing a partner as a disposable item. But divorce is actually the second most traumatic event you can go through, next to the death of a loved one, so it’s not something to be rushed into.” 

We should have reasonable expectations of our partner, warns Sara, rather than burden him or her with all our hopes, desires and romantic dreams. 

“We don’t expect a friend to do everything. The one you party with till three in the morning isn’t necessarily the friend to whom you tell your deepest secrets. 

“But then, with a partner, we expect them to be the best parent, the best lover, the best businessperson and the best advisor and to be able to put up shelves into the bargain. It’s unrealistic. You must have other support systems in place and learn to love the stuff at which your partner isn’t so great.”

Sometimes, however, the incompatibilities run deep. And Sara is convinced that divorce, in such cases, is a valid and necessary response. Misery, stigma and guilt need not follow as night follows day. 

“It’s part of everyday life. Blended families are the norm: mum’s got a boyfriend, dad’s remarried, there are stepkids or half-brothers and -sisters. Divorce can be fun; divorce can be sexy. It can actually be a really healthy, positive thing that doesn’t have to damage kids and doesn’t mean inevitable conflict.’’

I ask Sara about a curious divorce-related phenomenon: the rise of the so-called silver splitters. The average age for divorce in the UK has risen to 46 for men and 44 for women, with more than 13,000 women aged 55 or over experiencing a break-up in 2016. To Sara, however, age is no barrier to emotional recovery. 

“In the past, if you got divorced at that age, you’d say: ‘Right, blue rinse and slippers, that’s it for me. But now there are dating clubs and agencies for the over 50s, plus networking, socializing and all that. It’s much easier now to go out and start dating at that age: you know who you are, you’ve got kids out of the way and you can focus on you.” 

Silver splitters do pose a unique challenge to a divorce coach though. Their relationships can be hard to unravel and Sara has had to develop techniques to help co-dependent partners go their separate ways. 

“If you’ve been together for a long time, splitting up does create problems. I met with a lady who’d never driven outside of her home town, or done online banking, because her husband had always done all that for her. He, on the other hand, had never used a washing machine or cooked for himself. So they spent three months teaching each other these skills and then they managed to part.”

Such seamless adjustments, however, are not the rule.

“In an ideal world we’d all consciously uncouple. We’d be amicable with our exes and go on holiday together with the kids. But the reality is that most of us aggressively sever – that’s what I did, and so did lots of my clients.” 

Yet handled correctly, says Sara, even this negative experience can be turned to positive account. 

“It’s a good life lesson, for both you and your kids, that things don’t always work out as you’d want – maybe you don’t get that fairytale ending – but that you can restart your life and be even happier than you were before.”

No doubt Meghan, Duchess of Sussex would agree. 

saradavison.com; thedashcharity.org.uk

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