The Job Nobody Trained Me For

I have a professional designation for numbers. Nobody gave me one for what actually happens in a separation process.

Split the assets, calculate the support, file the paperwork. Almost nobody makes those decisions from a place of clarity. They make them from fear. Fear of losing the house, fear of what the ex will do next, fear that the sister who died two years ago and the friend who died this year mean their own body is next. The math is the easy part. Fear is what’s actually driving the decisions.

I’ve watched this pattern for years now, with different clients, different situations, the same shape every time. Someone hires me for the financial piece, the piece I’m actually qualified for. Then, slowly, I become the person they text at 6:40 in the morning to ask if their ex was emotionally abusive. Not because I offered to be that person. Because I was there and competent, but most of all, I listened. That gets mistaken for capacity.

It is not capacity. I am not a therapist. I have never claimed to be one, but for a long time, I kept trying to help because no one else was. When the system doesn’t provide anyone else, people reach for whoever is closest and paying attention, and I do care for the people I’m helping, yes, even the ones who behave badly. I can understand why; I’ve been there. There is always a reason underneath the behaviour.

I used to think the answer was to be a better boundary-setter. Write the email to the client explaining how they really needed a therapist or a coach, then hold the line. And that helps, some. But it treats the problem as mine to manage, one relationship at a time, instead of what it actually is: a gap in the system itself. Nobody going through a separation is routed toward the emotional support they need alongside the legal and financial process. They’re routed toward lawyers and mediators and, if they’re lucky, someone like me, who can help them get clear on the finances once the fear isn’t running the show. Otherwise, fear sits there, unaddressed, and keeps making the decisions.

I don’t have an answer for this yet. I keep writing the boundary emails. I keep believing the system needs to build in what it currently leaves out. Both are true at the same time, and I don’t think they will ever resolve into a single lesson.

Renée

Renée

My days these days are mostly advocacy, with my kids always first, and hiking, biking, and cold plunging worked in whenever I can. Winter cold plunges aren’t for everyone, but there’s a strange kind of beauty and calm in it that I’ve come to need.

Separation was a journey. It took time, and it taught me most of what I know now.

I write about what I learned along the way, and about the family justice system I ended up spending years inside of.