In brief: Why emotions matter as much as the law in divorce

Divorce is an emotional journey with legal and financial consequences – but what happens when the professionals helping you through it don't understand that?

Kate is joined by Annmarie Carvalho, award-winning therapist and former family solicitor, to explore why the emotional side of divorce matters just as much as the legal side – and what that looks like in practice.

We talk about:

• From solicitor to therapist – and why the emotional side of divorce drew Annmarie in
• How to spot a legal professional who truly gets the emotional journey
• Why the five stages of grief is a myth – and what healing post-divorce really looks like
• The skills that help you navigate divorce negotiations more effectively
• Practical tips to support your wellbeing during separation

This episode is for anyone going through separation who wants to feel more understood, more prepared and more in control of how they show up through the process.

Meet Annmarie Carvalho

Annmarie Carvalho is a multi-award winning therapist, trainer and public speaker. Before retraining to become a therapist, she was a family solicitor and mediator at Central London law firm Farrer & Co for over a decade.

Annmarie set up the therapy, training and coaching agency TCC in 2018 with a mission to provide better mental health support and improve psychological understanding amongst lawyers and those working in and around the legal profession.

Since then, she has worked therapeutically with hundreds of members of the legal profession and trained many more, with a goal to help those in the profession ‘stay sane’. Her first book ‘Staying Sane in Family Law’ is aimed at helping legal professionals better understand the psychological demands of family law work. 

You can learn more about Annmarie’s work on her website and you can get in touch with her on LinkedIn or on Instagram.

More divorce resources

Ready to take a practical next step? 

Book a free 15-minute consultation with an amicable expert for guidance on the legal, financial, emotional or co-parenting aspects of separation. 

Want ongoing support through separation?

Kate’s book amicable divorce includes dedicated chapters on emotional readiness, navigating separation with kindness and moving forward with confidence. Find it on Amazon today.

Got a question for a future episode?

Share your thoughts at hello@amicable.co.uk or through direct messages on Instagram.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:05

Welcome to the Divorce Podcast, where we explore relationships, divorce, separation, and parenting apart. This episode is part of our mini-series where we answer your questions, discuss current news and events, and share practical bite-sized tips. I'm your host, Kate Daly, a relationship counselor, divorce specialist, and co-founder of Amicable, the online legal service for separating couples. This week I'm delighted to be joined by Anne-Marie Carvalho to discuss the emotional journey of divorce and why it's so important for legal and professionals to understand that journey. Now, if you know somebody, a friend, a colleague, a family member, who'd really benefit from this episode, please share now. Welcome, Anne-Marie. Thank you. Thank you for the warm welcome, Kate. Nice to be here. It's lovely to see you again. Now we know each other well. We sort of circulate around the same scene, don't we? And we're often in a situation where we're talking about the importance of the emotional journey in divorce. So that's really the context for today. And I'm delighted that you can join me to have a good old chin wag about that. But why don't you kick off just a couple of minutes and tell us a little bit about your background and how you've kind of come to be in this position and doing what you do? Thank you.

SPEAKER_01 1:22

Yes, of course. It's been a sort of topsy-turvy ride, let's say. So, as was mentioned, I started out as a family solicitor and mediator working in a central London law firm. And somewhere along the way, and this is true for lots of people who specialise in family law as lawyers, I realized that the thing that most enticed me or the thing that I was most interested in was the psychology, the relationships between the people who were going through separation, divorce, disputes regarding children, prenuptial agreements, that sort of thing. And, you know, that that area of kind of human relationships, that's that's something that is relevant to all of us as humans, isn't it? You know, how do we relate to each other? How do we deal with situations where there's tension? So I started to do my therapeutic training and eventually qualified as a therapist and then set up my own agency. And we work with people who are going through divorce and separation themselves, whether it's couples and individually. And also, really, our specialist area is in supporting lawyers and other professionals who work with people who are going through divorce and separation and children disputes, et cetera, and mediators as well. And working with those people, those professionals, mainly professionals therapeutically, but also training them and helping them to understand the emotional journey, what their clients are going through, and really helping them to understand the psychology a little bit better. Because I think if you're a lawyer or another practitioner working with someone going through a separation or divorce, whether you're a financial professional, a pensions professional, whatever job title you might have. And if you're only approaching it from a sort of rational analytical, legal point of view, you're missing 90% of content. And I'm sure you would agree with that, Kate.

SPEAKER_00 3:09

Yeah, well, we always say that, you know, divorce is an emotional journey with legal and financial consequences. And I think you're absolutely right. You are just, it's like you're just dealing with the tip of the iceberg if all you're doing is sort of demonstrating your professional skills. It's everything else that goes around it, isn't it? What do you think then is the difference between, in practical terms, between someone who's who you work with, so a professional who's been trained in the emotional journey versus somebody who just doesn't see the value in that and all they think is important is the kind of the interrogation of the law. What would people see as the difference?

SPEAKER_01 3:47

Yeah. I guess to take a tangible example, I often think about situations where, well, I guess the the first thing I should say is those situations where you first meet a new client. So you're first meeting with someone who's going through a really difficult time, often emotionally. And I think what often lawyers can forget is how intimidating go through a legal process might be, or how intimidating it might be meeting any professional within that context. And so the bit that we often neglected, certainly when I was a lawyer, was how to create an atmosphere of psychological safety using therapeutic skills, acknowledging, reflection, all of those slightly intangible things as well, ways of kind of putting clients at ease, which you would use at amicable, kind of day in, day out. But I think, and there's a lot of that that I think people miss. And as lawyers and other professionals, we might have that tendency sometimes to go into meetings and to lay out our information, lay out our advice, and then perhaps say, Do you have any questions to our client? without really trying to step into their shoes and realise that actually, when you've gone through something difficult and distressing, often your memory is affected by that. You can't call to mind all of the information that you need to call to mind. And that's something that lawyers and other professionals need to take into account in the way that they interview people. How do we put people at ease and create that psychological safety for people so that they they can bring those things to the fore? I think also something that I feel particularly passionately about, because my kind of particular area of specialism was a branch of therapy called motivational interviewing, which is about working with people who might traditionally be regarded as resistant in inverted commerce or self-destructive. So the idea being that when we're going through the emotional kind of mindfield a lot of the time of separation and divorce, we will often feel tempted to do things that might not, strictly speaking, be in our best interest on a legal basis. We might text R X or we might put something on social media, there were all sorts of permutations of this. We might want to argue over a particular, you know, item that was in our house that RX wants to take and we want to take. And I think if if you come at that as a professional or as a lawyer with a very kind of rational analytical approach to things, then you're not hearing your client in their emotions and you're not able to work with them effectively to really examine with them what is going on here? What does this mean to you? And you know, and and really exploring and being curious with it. If you aren't able to take that psychologically informed approach, then I think you will meet resistance, not because there's anything inherently resistant in your client, but because you've not sought to build that relationship in the right way, um, in a way that works for both your client and for you as the professional.

SPEAKER_00 6:50

Yeah, I think that's super interesting, isn't it? Because as you say, nobody's going to argue over that silver teaspoon that is, you know, something neither of you ever really wanted or remember buying, but it's what it represents and it's it's being able to get beyond, as you say, that surface reality to see what's really going on and to have the confidence to ask those questions. Because the impression I get is a lot of legal professionals aren't confident in their understanding of the emotional journey to be able to go there and ask those questions, which is why they stand behind the formal language or the long words or the complicated analysis. And actually, this is about somebody, as you say, that's a human being. We're all human, who's a human being who's in a really tough place and they're having a really tough time. So to be able to meet them where they are, not where your legal knowledge starts, is a tremendous benefit. What so so if to people listening and they're thinking, well, I want a professional that gets the emotional journey, what would you advise them? What are they looking out for? What are they listening for when they go and have that first three, 30-minute call with a lawyer or whatever, or a different sort of a mediator or amicable, what are you asking people to listen out for that indicates, okay, this person gets it? That's a really interesting question, isn't it?

SPEAKER_01 8:09

So I would say what clients should increasingly be on the lookout for as well is if the family law professional that you're working with in whatever capacity, have a look at their website, have a look at their profile and speak to them, get a sense of how they are as a person and understand whether they are engaging in any of what we call in the profession reflective practice or supervision themselves. Because increasingly family law professionals are engaging in this practice. And what reflected practice or therapeutic supervision really means is having a space, it's a little bit like therapy, but having a space regularly to talk about how you process the emotions that you are taking on through your work. And if somebody is doing that work and continuing looking at themselves on a continuing basis, that's a big clue that they will be of this psychologically informed mindset and that they will approach your situation in a way which takes into account their own humanity and whatever they bring to the work. And they will it's highly likely they will have a decent level of understanding of the psychology around it. And I always feel as well that the biggest clue is really as to whether you're going to work effectively with someone is meeting them, having a phone conversation, and then thinking to yourself, how do I feel when I'm with this person? Because back in the day, everyone wanted a professional who was, you know, was kind of on a pedestal, was this big sort of powerful shoulder pad, storming into courts, you know, this is what I want from my family law practitioner. I understand the temptation to go for that, but actually the most affected relationships, I'm sure you you guys do this at amicable, is ones where you have created a relationship with your client, which is not one person as an expert and one person as a receptacle for advice, but these two adults collaborating and working together to achieve the best outcome for you as a human being. And that's what you're looking for. Do I feel comfortable with this person? Do I feel that I could tell them all of my sort of deepest, darkest secrets at the things I'm ashamed of? Do I feel empowered by being with this person? That's the key.

SPEAKER_00 10:27

I think I think that's super interesting. And yes, I mean, we work with couples, so we're trying to have that three-way relationship. But as you say, it's a it's an adult-to-adult relationship, not a parent-child relationship or where there's an expert, you know, imbuing knowledge to somebody. It's not like that at all. And I like your point about the reflective practice. One of the things that, you know, we we it's funny because we always have the opposite careers, don't we? Your lawyer gone into therapy, and I'm therapist gone into lawyering, and it's it's it's kind of like the crossover. But one of the things I brought from my therapeutic background to Amicable was this idea of collective reflective practice. So we have a supervision session set up for all of our specialists where we talk about emotions and not just privately, but in this in these small groups that we have, which is so important because it's it's such a demanding job and we are the instruments. So you need somebody to be working alongside you who has the capacity, the emotional capacity to hold your case and hold your scenario. And that's that's really key. What do you think then are the emotional stages people go through uh when they're going through a divorce or separation? Because we've talked about the professionals and how to spot a good one. So, what are people experiencing themselves that you think is is worth being sort of noticed about? It's really interesting, isn't it?

SPEAKER_01 11:51

Because we you will talk to clients and and I talk to clients about that traditional idea of the five stages of grief model, which I think everybody is aware of. And I think the common misconception about the five stages of grief is the idea that you go through these five stages sequentially, and there's a sort of neatness to it. And that that was a misconception, a misinterpretation of what that model was intended to be. I think the reality is, you know, all of us when we go through uh grief around a divorce or separation or any other kind of grief will experience some, if not all, of those stages, actually, anxiety, bargaining, all of those things. I think the the idea of sort of coming to acceptance around it is the last stage in that I have some issue with because I think actually acceptance and it isn't a sort of finite end point in my experience. I think often you come towards some form of acceptance and you might be 90% in acceptance, but then you might feel like the next day you've regressed back and you might be 40% in acceptance. And then so it's a bit messy, and there's a kind of moving forwards and and backwards to it all. The other thing I should say about that model of grief is a sixth stage of grief was added by one of the co-creators, David Kessler, a few years ago, and it was a great book that he's written about meaning. So he talks about the sixth stage of grief being meaning, and how do you find meaning in whatever you've been through? And I I recommend that book. I think it's meaning is something that I think about quite a lot, and it's not about sugarcoating things and saying, oh, yes, everything's wonderful now, I found meaning after my divorce. No, that's not how it has to be. But what it does acknowledge is the fact that for a lot of people, having gone through something difficult like a separation or divorce, and it does alter the course of your life. You might find yourself qualifying becoming a divorce coach. You might find yourself doing charitable or fundraising work or joining community groups that has something to do with what you've been through. You do see that quite a lot. And I quite like that idea of that final stage of grief was being about finding meaning. The other idea that resonates more with me, I think, is the idea that whenever you go through something uh that can be very difficult, like a separation or divorce, is you experience something called the loss and restoration model. The idea being that quite quickly after you've been through the or after the initial situation has occurred, in any given day, you can feel like you're swinging quite wildly sometimes between being very much in the loss of it, so feeling absolutely dreadful, and then perhaps the same day or the next day, being in restoration mode. So being able to think about moving forward and planning and all of those things. The idea being that we we do have a tendency as humans to swing quite wildly from very early on between those two stages. And as time goes on, generally the swinging, the wild swinging becomes a little bit steadier. And I think also that model also reflects the messiness of it all. I don't know what you think, Kate.

SPEAKER_00 15:40

Well, I I like the idea of the waves. So you're standing on the foreshore and the waves are coming in, and sometimes the waves just ripple in, ripple over your feet, doesn't make much impact on you. And then all of a sudden a big wave will come and catch you off guard and absolutely soak you. And I think that's how it feels when you get divorced. There's gonna be lots of things that you think are gonna trigger you that actually don't have a big impact, that you actually surprise yourself that you can make certain decisions, you can get through. And then there'll be something very random that isn't, wasn't even on your radar that will completely floor you. And you don't know when those things are coming, but you just have to accept that if you're standing on that particular foreshore of divorce or separation, that that's how it happens. There are some things that are going to be big, there are other things that you will cope really amazingly with and that will just kind of ripple over your feet. And I I think that's how I see it. There isn't, like you say, that we talk about this emotional curve all the time because it's particularly useful when you're trying to help people understand that where you are and where your partner is could be very different things, even if the timescales have been the same or whatever, but often with an instigator and a receiver of the news, it's a useful tool to show people that there are different stages. You might be in a different place to your ex. And therefore, this is why some of the decision making is going to feel either too fast or too slow, depending on which person you are. So I like it for that reason. I like being able to show people the difference. But in real life, I like the wave analogy because it's the unexpectedness, it's the stuff you can't control, it's the stuff that you've got to, you've got to be able to ride rather than prepare for or stop or hold back. There isn't, I don't think you can do that. And you're only ever in control of one half of the story, which is your emotions. Whenever you're dealing dealing with a divorce and separation, for me, it's the interplay of the two that makes it such a fascinating area. And there's nothing you can do about your ex and how they feel or what they do or how they behave. You can only control what you do, what you think, what you behave, how you respond or react to them. And that's what I love about it. It's just such an interesting space. So just thinking about, you know, the sorts of skills that people need. If you were going to give somebody some advice in terms of how to navigate divorce and separation, what are the sort of skills that people can hone in themselves? Or if they're professionals and listening to this, that as a professional they can hone in themselves?

SPEAKER_01 18:15

I think you've just hit on one actually, which is that idea of uh responding rather than reacting to situations. And as you say, you know, the real difficulty when you're going through this is that you're dealing with somebody else who can be doing whatever they want to do, and you have little or no control over that. So really focusing in on the fact that, okay, what is within my control? What are the values that I want to bring to this process? And sort of keeping your side of the street clean, as in focusing on, okay, how do I want to operate? It, you know, what would it look like to operate in accordance with my values? And I think that responding rather than reacting is really important. But to when I say that, I want to sort of say that with compassion as well, because all of us react to things all the time, won't we? And as mentioned earlier, I hate that idea that, you know, if if somebody who's going through separation and divorce and reacts in an impulsive or an emotional way in a situation, that they should then be chastised by their professional who they're working with, like it's just not productive for all humans. But I do think having emotion, I think of them as emotional buffers around you. So you thinking ahead and thinking with your professional actually, of okay, what are the scenarios, what are the situations that are likely to trigger me? Knowing this person who I'm separating from as I do, what is it that's likely to really get to me? Whether it's handover time with the children, whether it's phone calls or whatever the situation might be, I know that these things are likely to get to me. So how can I put buffers in place to help me or to remind me that I want to respond rather than react in this situation? So it might be having a particular network of friends on call who you can WhatsApp as a first step before you send a response to your ex in a particular situation. It might be something like that, but putting little kind of practical things in place to help you with that, I think that's where having a holistic professional working with you is really important because they can help you to think about those things, which aren't strictly speaking about the legal, are they? But they will affect how you feel about the situation. And again, we come back to the adult-to-adult relationships, don't we? In terms of if you have an advisor who you're able to speak to about the temptations to do these sorts of things, then you can develop these little plans together for how you want to be. Because I think if you feel you're going to be chastised, then you won't feel able to be as open as you'd like to be with your advisor. And that won't be productive to you.

SPEAKER_00 20:58

And that's kind of the the bit that we've we didn't explicitly say, isn't it? But well, I think you might have actually explicitly said it, doing you a disservice here. But that idea that you pick somebody that you can be totally honest with, and that's a key part of choosing, you know, what service or professional you're going to work with to solve this issue of how to move your life on post-divorce. That's kind of that's absolutely fundamental, isn't it? Somebody you can be honest with, that you can have that adult-to-adult relationship with, and where you can talk about the things that go right as well as the things that go wrong as well, I guess.

SPEAKER_01 21:34

Yeah, absolutely. And someone, you know, you talked earlier about professionals being in reflective practice or supervision themselves, mentioning that you have that in in groups at Annachopo, which I think is great. I think if if you are working with a professional who is of that mindset and is engaging in that practice themselves, they are much more likely to then be able to reflect with you as the client on what are the wins in this situation, as in look at how you handled that situation, look how you refrained from taking action there in that situation, even though it was very tempting to do so. You know, the sort of silent wins and the the points of meaning in the process and seeing how you grow as a person through that process and being able to reflect on that with you. You know, I I hate people who sugarcoat things or, you know, try and put a silver lining on things because I think separation divorce can be incredibly painful. But if you can see through it how you're growing as a person and Your professional can reflect on that with you, then that is beautiful, really. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 22:40

Yeah, absolutely. Now, in just a minute, Anne-Marie will share some practical advice on how to support your well-being during the emotional journey of separation. But just before that, if this episode has given you a bit of clarity or comfort, or just a tip that's made things feel a little bit more manageable, make sure to follow the divorce podcast on your favorite podcast app. Each week we're here with expert advice and real support to help you through your separation one step at a time. Right, Emory. So final tips. What are some gentle ways to care for your emotional well-being so you're in a better place to make some big decisions during the separation process?

SPEAKER_01 23:22

I think having the right people in your corner, I think a variety of people in your corner. I think therapeutic support is absolutely vital. Having somebody who you really can share all of your darkest fears and uh worries with, and who can sit there and be with you in that is very important. I'm a big fan of, I call it distract and discharge. So we need to discharge our feelings, which is where things like therapeutic support come in, trusted network of friends, trusted professional who you're working with through the divorce process, whether that's a lawyer or somebody else. But also, we also need to distract ourselves at times because, you know, it it is not often a fun period of life. And that kind of lightheartedness can feel very, very distant and for long periods of time. And but I think what's important to remember is if we're spending all of our time in our feelings, that can feel completely overwhelming. So having some things which distract us to some degree, whatever that might be, sports or spending time with your kids, or just really trying to find some points in any given day where you are present completely in the moment. You know, for some people, they can meditate for, you know, long periods of time. I think for many of us, that is very out of reach, particularly when you're going through something as difficult as separation, divorce. So some points of presence in any given day are really important. And having those outlets for those darker feelings, as I said, I think the especially if you're going through a legal process, the emotional side of things can really kind of stray into it. And that that's an inevitability. But I do think the legal process can go more smoothly or less unsmoothly, if that's a term, if we make sure we have those emotional outlets where we can talk about all that stuff, you know, get the punch bag installed in our homes, you know, things like this, just to be able to get out that sort of we talk about the shadow side in in the world of therapy. And we all have the shadow side, we all have that darker side, we all have these darker feelings, and we need to have a space to process them. And that can help us to sort of bring, I was going to say, our best selves to the outside world. I don't mean that in a sort of shiny, clinging, and new sense, but just enables us to sort of show up in our lives the way that we want to.

SPEAKER_00 25:47

Brilliant. Thank you very much. Great tips there from you, Emma. Really appreciate that. Where can people find more information about you? Oh, on my website at www.carvalytherapy.com.

SPEAKER_01 26:00

Lots of information on there. And I can be found lurking around on LinkedIn as well. You can find me on there and Instagram.

SPEAKER_00 26:07

Brilliant. Thank you. For separation and co-parenting support, you can visit amicable.co.uk where you can explore our resources or book a free advice consultation. Now you can also find me on LinkedIn as well, hanging out with Anne Marie. And you can hear about new podcast episodes by subscribing for updates and visiting thedivorcepodcast.com or find us on your favourite listening platform. Finally, don't forget we'd love to know how we can help further. So please share questions on divorce separation and co parenting with us at hello at amicable.co.uk. They might be the next topic or a future episode. So thank you. Thank you, Anne Marie. It's been lovely chatting to you today, and thank you, everybody, for listening.