Relationship breakdown can be a difficult time in one’s life. It’s often compared to grieving a death, because so much of what you’re losing is real and hard to name. The work of moving through it is usually more than people expect.
You May Relate If:
- you’re in the middle of a separation or divorce and barely keeping up
- you’re grieving things that are hard to name or explain
- the legal process and the emotional weight are colliding
- you don’t know how to talk to your kids about what’s happening
- you’re trying to figure out who you are on the other side of this
Understanding Separation and Divorce as Grief
Separation and divorce are often likened to grieving a death. You’re losing a relationship. You’re also losing the future you built with this person. The routines that structured your life. The social world you were part of. A sense of normal.
Many of the losses are intangible. There’s no funeral. No one sends flowers. People don’t always know how to hold it with you. Sometimes, depending on the circumstances, there’s relief mixed in with the loss, which can be confusing in its own right. This is why it’s often experienced as a complicated grief.
At River’s Edge, separation and divorce counselling holds space for all of it. The grief. The practical upheaval. The emotional toll of the legal process, even when that process is mostly happening outside the counselling room. Some of our counsellors are also trained to work directly with children to support them through what is often a difficult transition.
Counselling can help you understand:
- what you’re actually grieving, beyond the obvious losses
- how the legal side and the emotional side are affecting each other
- what you need to tend to for yourself, even when everything is in motion
- how to talk to your kids about what’s happening, in ways that honour both them and you
- how to rebuild a life that fits who you are now
By better understanding the grief and the transition you’re in, you can move through it feeling more grounded.
How Counselling Can Help
Counselling can help you:
- Grieve the intangible losses of separation or divorce
- Navigate a new way of living and being in the world
- Process how the legal process is affecting your emotions, and everything else in your life
- Speak to your children about the separation or divorce in ways that support them
- Care for your children’s needs as they move through this transition
Rebuild a sense of identity and normal that fits the life you’re moving into
Separation is rarely a single event. It’s a series of endings and beginnings, often happening at the same time. Counselling is a space to move through them without losing yourself along the way.
Our Therapeutic Approaches
We draw on a range of evidence-based approaches, grounded in a flexible, collaborative, and client-centred way of working that adapts to what is most helpful for you.
This allows us to shape our work around your needs, experiences, and goals, drawing from different therapeutic modalities as needed. Learn more about our approach to care.
Person-Centred Therapy
Person-centred work trusts that you know, at some level, what you need to grieve and how you need to move through this. Your counsellor’s job is to hold space for you. During separation, that matters especially. Almost everything else in your life is asking you to make decisions.
Narrative Therapy
Narrative therapy helps you look at the story of the relationship as it’s ending. It also helps you tell a new story about yourself, one that fits who you’re becoming. Both kinds of story need space.
Compassion-Focused Therapy
Separation often brings self-criticism. Questions about what you could have done differently. Judgments about what kind of person this makes you. Compassion-focused work helps you meet those voices with less harshness and more steadiness.
Attachment-Based Therapy
Attachment-based work looks at what the relationship meant for you at an attachment level, and what the ending is costing your sense of safety and belonging. Grief is, at its core, an attachment wound. Understanding the shape of it is part of the healing.
Solution-Focused Therapy
Solution-focused work is practical. It helps you figure out what’s within reach this week, while you’re also grieving and adjusting. For separation and divorce, that kind of forward motion often provides something to hold onto when the rest of life feels in flux.
There’s space here for the grief, the uncertainty, and the imagining of what comes next. Book when you’re ready.
Meet Some of Our Counsellors Who Work With Separation & Divorce
Cathy Underhill
Cathy's goal is to ensure that you feel heard and valued throughout our work together. She believes you are the expert in your own life, and that each person's journey is unique, and there's no "one-size-fits-all" solution. Her training includes EMDR and Somatic Experiencing, as well as Mindfulness and Mindful Self-Compassion.
Sabrina Roach
Alissa Caskey
Alissa firmly believes in the transformative power of therapy to enrich lives at any stage. She empowers her clients to take proactive steps toward a fulfilling life, providing a healing space where individuals feel heard, understood, and supported on their journey toward growth and well-being.
Edna (Teddie) Knowlton Fussell
Teddie's clients tell her her thoughtful, calm manner helps them feel safe to open up and put vulnerable feelings and concerns into words. She believes in working in a collaborative manner and helping clients utilize their internal strengths, drawing on decades of experience across mental health, education, corrections, and not-for-profit settings.
Sheila Ennin
Cynthia Smith
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Frequently Asked Questions About Separation and Divorce Counselling
No. People come in at all stages. Some are still considering whether to separate. Others have recently ended things. Some are deep in the legal process. Others come in well after a divorce is finalized. Each stage has its own work.
Your counsellor can work through this with you directly. What to say, and how to say it, depends on who your kids are and what’s happening in the family. We also have counsellors trained to work with children directly, if they would benefit from their own support through the transition.
Yes. Grief and adjustment don’t only apply to the person who was left. People who initiated separation often carry their own mix of feelings. Grief. Guilt. Relief. Uncertainty. Sometimes all at once. Counselling is a space for all of it.
It varies. Some people come in for a defined piece of work, like figuring out how to tell their kids or navigating a specific legal-emotional moment. Others come in for longer-term support through the whole process. Your counsellor will talk with you about what seems right as you go.