Surviving divorce constructively

Published in Blog by Andrew Balfour on December 28th 2022

Tavistock Relationships is committed to helping individuals and couples have better relationships. However, Andrew Balfour, CEO of Tavistock Relationships, believes that for couples unable to reconcile their differences, what matters is how they separate.

Here at Tavistock Relationships, we always see a rise in couples and individuals seeking relationship support in January. This aligns with the well reported surge in enquiries received by divorce lawyers after Christmas - with the first Monday after the New Year coined 'Divorce Day'. Couples come to us seeking support to help reduce conflict and to improve relationship quality, but we are also here to help couples manage divorce and separation constructively.

Previous research had indicated that divorce is inevitably bad for the couple and their children, but we now know that the situation is more nuanced than that. If a couple feel they have no alternative but to separate, therapy and other interventions can also help people avoid a difficult divorce.

Professional support can help couples who are locked together in conflict to separate in the least destructive way possible and to move on with their lives.

Divorcing couples feel a range of powerful emotions, including a sense of failure, shame, anger, hurt, guilt and loss.  It’s hard to function as an adult when you feel like a hurt child. Couple therapy helps people make sense of their situation and manage their feelings of anger and hurt. Professional support can help couples who are locked together in conflict to separate in the least destructive way possible and to move on with their lives.

A ‘good enough divorce’ with constructive outcomes for the children, as well as the adults themselves, is not a myth. I have witnessed this many times in my clinical work. However, sadly, all too often the opposite is the case, and the divorce is simply a legal punctuation point in an ongoing, destructive and acrimonious battle in which the adult partners, and their children, remain trapped for years. 

No fault divorce

No fault divorce, which came into law in April, has provided a unique opportunity to reframe our approach to divorce with a more collaborative mind set from the get go. Traditional divorce relies on the attribution of fault of a party, amplifying the conflict which is already there and putting it at the heart of the process. This increases the negative mental health impact on the couple and any children they have, and makes it difficult for them to act in a thoughtful way.

Our aim

Throughout our long history, Tavistock Relationships has looked to form partnerships to reach more couples who might benefit from professional support. We are currently working with digital development company Axis12, to create e-learning materials for the Children and Family Court Advisory and Support Service. These resources are designed to help separated parents resolve their disagreements and agree on a parenting plan, without the need to go to court.

We would like to see couples signposted towards couple support earlier so that problems might be worked through and resolved before the point of relationship breakdown.

Our goal is to improve outcomes for many more separated parents and their children, and we believe this could be achieved with increased government investment. In particular, we would like to see couples signposted towards couple support earlier so that problems might be worked through and resolved before the point of relationship breakdown, and to have this be part of the divorce and separation process.

Reducing conflict, improving mental health

Divorce and separation can take its toll on the mental health of all parties involved but it is a misconception to imagine that it’s too late to have therapy once you are separated. Through our Department for Work & Pensions funded Reducing Inter-parental Conflict programme we have worked with hundreds of couples and our results show that outcomes in terms of improved mental health, reduced conflict and collaborative parenting are just as good as for couples who are separated, as for those who are still together.

Read more about our divorce and separation service.

Share this with friends and colleagues

Andrew Balfour

by Andrew Balfour

Chief Executive

Andrew Balfour, Chief Executive of Tavistock Relationships, originally trained as a clinical psychologist at University College London and then as an Adult Psychotherapist at the Tavistock & Portman NHS Trust, whilst in a staff post. He then trained as a Couple Psychotherapist at Tavistock Relationships, where for more than 10 years he was Clinical Director before becoming CEO in 2016. He has many years’ experience of working psychotherapeutically with couples, developing new projects and conducting research.

Come to one of our Open Events

If you'd like to know more about counselling and psychotherapy courses or a career in counselling, come to one of our open events and learn more.

Book Your Place

Get in touch.

Invalid Input
Invalid Input
Invalid Input
Please choose an option
Invalid Input
Invalid Input

Read how we look after your privacy here

Your Privacy

Tavistock Relationships is committed to protecting and respecting the privacy of prospective employees, contractors, volunteers and interns. We comply with the Data Protection Act 2018 and the General Data Protection Regulations.

Please follow the headings below to read about the way we manage data submitted on this form.

Website enquiries

If you use our website enquiry service to contact us regarding any of our service, we will ask you to provide us with your name, a method of contacting you and information about your enquiry. We will only use this information to respond to your enquiry

Where your data is stored?

Your information is stored in Salesforce CRM upon submission, where only the relevant respondent can view it.

How long is it stored for?

If you decide not to proceed with registering for our services we will keep your enquiry details for up to one year after the end of your enquiry. After this time your details will be deleted.

When you use our website:-

Cookies

Like many other websites, our website uses cookies. 'Cookies' are small pieces of information sent by an organisation to your computer and stored on your hard drive to allow that website to recognise you when you visit. They collect statistical data about your browsing actions and patterns and do not identify you as an individual. For example, we use cookies to store your country preference. This helps us to improve our website and deliver a better more personalised service.

When you use our website we obtain information about you from cookies which tell us your IP address, when you visited our website and which pages you looked at.

It is possible to switch off cookies by setting your browser preferences. If you would like to turn cookies off you can do so by clicking ‘no’ when prompted by our cookie notice. Turning cookies off may result in a loss of functionality when using our website. As an example, if you turn off cookies, some information like anonymised ‘User ID’s’ for logging into systems will not be retained, so you will need to retype them each time.

Cookies are stored for a maximum of 6 months, though most expire much sooner.

Confidentiality

Tavistock Relationships adheres to a professional code of ethical standards which includes the principle of confidentiality. This means that we would not disclose information about you to a third party without your agreement, except in situations where there was significant concern about harm to you or someone else and this would normally be discussed with you beforehand.

We ensure that access to your personal data is restricted to members of staff who require access as part of delivering our service.

Your rights

The GDPR gives you certain rights in relation to the data we hold about you. You can exercise the rights outlined below by contacting us:

Email to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

In writing to Privacy, Tavistock Relationships, 56-60 Hallam Street, London, W1W 6JL Telephone 0207 380 1975

Under the GDPR you can:

  • Find out what information we hold about you
  • Access a copy of the information we hold about you
  • Rectify any inaccurate or incomplete personal data
  • Have the right to object to our processing of your personal information
  • Ask us to delete or restrict how we use your personal information, but this right is determined by applicable law
  • Have your registration information (if registering using our online booking system) sent to another provider
  • Have the right to appropriate decision making (TR does not use automated profiling or decision making)
  • Complain to a regulator if you think we have not complied with data protection laws. You can lodge a complaint with the Information Commissioners Office https://ico.org.uk/concerns/

Privacy policies

We have specific data protection policies for each of our services and if you go on to become a client, then you can access the policy of the service you enquired about here:

Clinical Service
https://tavistockrelationships.org/contact-us/privacy-policies/clinical-services-privacy-policies

Training and Events
https://tavistockrelationships.org/contact-us/privacy-policies/training-events-privacy-policy

Recruitment and selection
https://tavistockrelationships.org/contact-us/privacy-policies/recruitment-selection-privacy-policy

Building Relationships for Stronger Families
https://tavistockrelationships.org/contact-us/privacy-policies/brsf-privacy-notice

Between Us App
https://tavistockrelationships.org/contact-us/privacy-policies/between-us-privacy-policy