divorce stories

Introducing the latest transcript blog featuring an insightful interview with Chloe O., an experienced divorce coach specialising in international divorce. In this insightful interview, Chloe shares her expert knowledge on what international divorces are, the unique challenges they pose, and how to navigate them effectively. From dealing with cultural differences and cross-border legal systems to managing emotional stress, Chloe offers invaluable advice on making the process as amicable as possible.

Join us as we explore the common issues that arise in international divorces and practical strategies to help individuals maintain clarity, focus, and resilience during this complex journey.

Read on for the full transcript of our interview, “Navigating International Divorce: Challenges and Strategies.”

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Hello everybody, thank you so much for joining us again on The Divorce Magazine YouTube channel or on the website if that’s where you’re watching it. My name is Dr Soila, I’m the founding editor of The Divorce Magazine, it’s been running for, over 10 years, let’s put it that way, and um, today we have Chloe and um, Chloe has contributed to The Divorce Magazine quite a bit so we like that. Um, really interesting, and extremely informative content that you have sent to us so, if you haven’t met Chloe, please look her up on The Divorce Magazine or, on her Instagram.

Anyway she’ll tell us where to find her at the end of this um, interview so, Chloe is a mum of two pre-teen girls, and has been helping people through divorce and separation for over a decade now since her own um, divorce. I’m introducing you Chloe, I hope that’s okay? She was born in Paris, to a French father and uh, an American mother, and she’s been living in the UK for the past 15 years and is a very active um, member of the expert community.

Um, she has personally experienced divorce twice, um, the first from her father, the father of her children after six years of marriage, and the second divorce was also from the father of her children but in a very different context, where he needed to move abroad suddenly, and um, and that brought up all other issues that that um, included financial issues and child arrangement seeing as they would be living in different countries so the whole thing, kind of was brought up again is that right Chloe? Yeah, and that was a second experience, so given this story um, it’s not surprising the direction that Chloe took, which is to become a non-court dispute resolution, res, resolution professional and a certified divorce coach.

She now dedicates her time as you will see here and in other context uh, she dedicates her time to something particularly purposeful to her, which is supporting others through one of the most difficult and stressful life transitions that they can ever experience in their lives. So welcome Chloe, and, thank you so much for having me, pleasure, for coming and being with us today.

So I’m going to do this a little bit differently than I do with, with other um, interviews. I’ll ask you, tell us about your work, and what it entails. Yeah, so divorce coaches are, are a fairly new um, profession in the UK. Quite established in the US, it really depends on where you are in the world. But basically we insert ourselves between the work of a therapist, and the work of a lawyer. Our, our objective is to support people through the journey of divorce, from one end to the other ideally, and to be there really as their thinking partner, because there are thousands and thousands of decisions that need to be made um, in the context of your divorce and they’re not necessarily legal decisions.

So I work a lot with expat, there’s decisions with regards to which country they want to live in after divorce um, how are they’re going to arrange um, for their children to see both parents if they’re in different countries um, all the questions are around whether the settlement discussions are working the way they want and whether they’re, they can accept the proposals that their ex is making for them, to them. So there’s a lot of different issues that come up and that require some proper thinking. And your friends and family can be really helpful, but they’re not professional, they’re not trained um, I bring that specific training specifically around conflict management and negotiation skills. So my objective is to help my clients to divorce out of court, to reach agreements amicably, doesn’t mean they’re best friends, it means they do it collaboratively. And so I coach them through communication methods, negotiation strategies, and overall how to limit the conflict, so that the divorce can be as fast, as cheap, and as conflict free as possible.

And that can’t be easy because we already know because I’ve been through divorce myself, and we already know just how emotional, people can get when they’re going through divorce and what emotions can, arise in them and how, that can just bring the whole process to unravel and become quite conflictual. Yeah. Absolutely and big part of my job is helping people to identify these emotions, recognise and accept them, but also to make sure that they don’t tint their decision-making.

So the processes around fact-based decisions, because those are decisions you’re going to have to live with for quite a while after your divorce um, you want to make sure that they’re not made in the spur of the moment based on, on short-term emotions, but that they’re really thought through, and that you’ve, you know, compared those decisions to your long-term objectives, and to your children’s wellbeing needs. Yeah, yeah.

So today we’re looking at international divorces um, yes, which actually is so important because the world has become so small, it’s not a big, big world where trouble was much more complicated now it’s so much easier to travel and to settle in different parts of the world.

What is the process when going through an international divorce?

So why don’t you talk us through what you, what you have found or what the process is when you’re working with people who are going through or might end up going through an international divorce. Yeah, well I mean I think in general, you know, an expatriation or a national marriage all amazing opportunities, you get to learn about someone else’s culture, you get to go live in a new country, and discover a whole new world of, of opportunities new ways of thinking. What it does do though, is it, it does take tend to create a strain on the couple, it can create an imbalance. A lot of my clients have been the ones following their spouse um, either to, to their home country or they travelled together before the spouse’s job, and so they have had to put their own career on the, on the back burner a little bit, they have had to leave their own friends and family behind to follow this romantic relationship um, and, and what happens that a lot of couples have a hard time finding a new balance, that that works for them in that new context.

So there’s a lot of thinking that needs to go into the decision to move abroad even before um, you know you’re anywhere near divorce but once you get to the stage of divorce, it is particularly difficult, when you’re in that situation. First of all you’re far away from your friends, your family, your support network um, sometimes you’re getting divorced in a country where you don’t even speak the language, or you don’t speak it very well. You don’t know how the how the legal system works there, none of your friends and family can tell you, you know share advice because they divorced in another country um, and then there’s a lot of kind of legal elements to it that become complicated that don’t arise in a local divorce, and so that’s where having somebody who’s specialised and who can really guide you through, um, all those different implications for the divorce, that your typical lawyer or typical divorce coach wouldn’t be informed about um, that value is, is, is tremendous because that avoids making really costly mistakes later on.

What is an international divorce?

Yeah, yeah can I, I just realise that what, what do we actually mean by an international divorce? I, I just thought to myself that some people might see think about it that um, okay so you’re having your wedding and you go and you have it in Barbados, and then you’re going through divorce, do you get divorced, is that an international divorce where you have to go to Barbados to get the divorced you have it here? Or is it where you have a divorce while you’re living in, you move, you know immigrate to Barbados and you’re living there and then you go through divorce while you’re there?

So that there are very complex rules around which country is eligible to deal with a divorce and I, I would let a, a lawyer answer that question because it will depend on the country and there’s a lot of different conventions that regulate that, but that is one of the biggest decisions that people have to make very early on, with regards to their divorce is, which country do we get divorced in, and if they have ties to different countries, um, if one of them’s from France and the other one’s from the UK um, it might be that both countries would recognise their right to, to rule on this divorce.

That being said, every country has very different rules, very different laws, different ways of approaching divorce, you know, in the UK we’ve, since 2022 we have No Fault Divorce so you don’t need to prove any wrongdoing as for a divorce, in some countries you do. So you’re not going to approach it the same way, so that decision of choosing the right place for you to divorce has a lot of implications it’s not you know some countries take a lot longer to get divorced and some are a lot more expensive just because legal fees are more expensive um, there’s all kinds of rules that come into play with regards to how long you might have been married, or how long you’ve been separated, to be able to divorce. So you need to spend time understanding all of those differences, so that you can make an informed decision, and that’s usually one of the ones that most of my, my clients struggle with very early on, it’s an important decision yeah, okay.

What advice would you give to a parent who wants to relocate as a result of getting a divorce?

So let’s take an example, of a couple living in the UK, and they’re both from, you know um, which country sh, shall we pick they’re both from Kenya. O kay, they come here, and they’re, they’re living here married um, have children, and then they start going through a divorce, yeah, and one partner wants to take, you know, the mum says for instance, well we are having a divorce, I don’t need to be here anymore, I’m moving back to Kenya with my children. Um, do you have any advice as to how to manage that because that can be so difficult for the children for the, um, dad, and for the mum you know, how any…

It’s one of the big challenges that comes up in international divorce especially, in the example I was stating of people following being the one who followed their spouse. They were there for that person, it often doesn’t make much sense for them to stay in that country if they’re no longer married. Plus, you know when you’re get divorced it’s tempting to go back to somewhere that’s familiar and where you have your friends and family, so relocation comes up a lot and when you’re bring the kids with you, it becomes very complex. Um, there’s a lot of rules that you know that prevent you taking your without permission of the other parents, you’re not allowed to kidnap the child even if you don’t see it as kidnapping, as you think it it’s just taking travelling abroad with your child, so you need to be really careful about how you do that and understand the local laws, with regards to that.

But in general it’s a very difficult thing to uh, to force the other person to do through the legal system which means that it is typically something that you want to negotiate. You want to sit down with your spouse and say listen this is why I think it’s in the best interest of the children for us to go back to Kenya in your example, this is how we would work, this is what I suggest, and really try as much as possible to bring them along on that journey and to get them to understand the value, of the children and to agree to all of the, the nitty gritty of how it’ll work.

So I have a template that I, I make available for free on my website, to help people plan long-distance co-parenting, because there’s a lot of things to think about. Who’s going to pay for the children’s flights back and forth, from what age can they go on their own, who takes care as of Visas, if there’s need for visas in one country or the other, who keeps the passports, um, how is contact maintained outside of those times of visitation, what does that mean in terms of devices you provide to the child, so the other parent can contact them. There, there’s just so many dimensions that you need to anticipate, and the more you can document those up front, the less conflict you get later on, because both parents are on the same page and have agreed as to how it’s going to work. So that’s something I spend a lot of time working with my clients because it’s very common that they, they want to go back to their home country. Yeah, yeah.

Have you experienced any cases where relocation is not possible post-divorce?

And do you know of any cases where, that had, you know, maybe the dad, or the mum, has wanted to relocate well I’ll come back to that one, but um, and the, the judges have said I’m sorry you can’t relocate, I know this is more like a legal issue but you know from, from the work that you do, have you met any families where the relocation has not been possible post-divorce?

There’s case where, there’s places where it goes, it goes to court, and you know it’s a bit of a Russian Roulette when you go to court, you never really know what the judge is going to decide. In general, it ends up with a very binary decision, you know, one parent has the, the children and the other doesn’t. The beauty of negotiating the agreement, is that you can round the edges a little bit, you know it’s always going to be binary you’re not going to send the child to school, you know, halfway between Kenya and the UK, but um, you can still make, make it happen in a way that allows parent who’s being left without the children, to feel like they’re still very involved in part of the children’s day-to-day life, and that’s where you need to really speak to each other, to find the best possible arrangements for you and for your children. Yeah.

Yeah, and I think that’s where the children really come into you know very child-centred, very child focussed, what’s the best thing for the children, especially, probably if one parent had, both parents have been very active in their lives and then they lose, the presence of one parent you know pretty much, you know as it was, then you know the distance grow not just geographical distance, but also, relational distance. The you know, the wellbeing and the best interest of the children are always the paramount priority for any court, so if it did go to court, that’s what they would look like and each parent would have to show, how it’s better for the children to be in X or Y country. Yeah, so you know whether it’s just having the conversation directly with your, your ex or if it’s through the courts, you need to be able to articulate why this is better for the children, and how it would work in practice. Show that you’re not trying to alienate the other parent, um, that there really is no ill intent there, it’s purely because it feels like the right thing to do for the children at this stage. Yeah, yeah, okay.

In your experience, what was it like when your ex-spouse decided to move countries? How did the dynamic change?

If I can use your example, your life’s example, for your life’s experience as an example, where you were, I’m assuming you were in the UK, and then your ex was the one who was going to, to leave. Um, and you had already come to some kind of agreement, and you know, and all of that so what, what changed what um, you see what I’m asking? Yes well a lot changed and partly because, the way we handled the first the actual divorce, versus the second uh, iteration was very different. So when we originally got divorced um, we got divorced very amicably, we prepared a lawyer which you were able to do and got divorced in France, you could do that at the time in France, and you know we spent a thousand pounds, three months of our life and that was it, it was sorted and he lived 10 doors down the street, saw the children very regularly, we weren’t best friends, but we got on, and we were able to co, to co- parent at least together um, and then you know several years down the line, things had changed, he had met somebody new, I actually had met somebody new too, but the influence of this new person in his life, led to him moving abroad. And that transition was not handled nearly as smoothly as the first one, um, partly because I wasn’t aware that he was moving abroad, it happened suddenly um, and so there was a long period of uncertainty I didn’t know where he was, before finally receiving a lawyer, a letter from a lawyer telling me that he’d moved abroad.

So the way it was handled and the fact that, we didn’t speak to each other directly at any point during that process, and it lasted about a year, the negotiation, and the court process, we did didn’t speak to each other because, he was intent on only communicating via lawyers, so it cost both of us a fortune it took a long… Yeah, I was just thinking how much that would have cost. Oh it goes so quickly, we were just talking about it the other day, we were reminiscing now we get on nicely but at the time, it was incredibly difficult for our relationship, I felt very betrayed by the fact that I had been blind, blindsided by his departure, um, I can’t speak for what he felt but, there was a lot of tension, and what the difference was, between our ability to co-parent originally, and after that happened, was night and day.

The collaboration, the communication, even the quality of the time of the, the transitions when, when the children were going from me to him, or him to me, um, you know originally we used to meet for coffee and just have coffee out together and then the children will go off with one of us. Um, for a long time after high conflict divorce, um, I couldn’t even look him in the eyes, the transition, were you know the handovers happened at the front door to about 8 seconds, and ended up with the door being shut in someone’s face, and you know that has a huge impact on the children. It’s horrible for the parents, but the children get to see their parents not even being able to speak to each other, and so the cost of that, is massive, and that’s where having those, those conversations early on about what would happen if one of us moved abroad, would have really helped prevent a lot of those issues.

How do you manage the child arrangements in an international divorce?

Yeah. Yeah. So how did you manage that child arrangement? Because as you was saying before the, the, the divorce before the, um, interview started, we’re just saying it’s already hard enough getting to an amicable or, an agreed child arrangement when you’re in the same city, or the same town, or the same village, um, compared to live alone being in the same country, how do you manage child arrangement?

The advantage we had, is that there was no um, there was no conflict about where the children were going to be living because he had um, left with so we weren’t fighting around, you know, the main residence of the children. Uh, but there was a lot of back and forth around the logistics for holidays um, and which countries they could travel to, who would come and pick them up and whether in this case he had to come pick him up in London, or whether I could bring him to wherever he was, um, notice periods, if things need to change, and how that would happen, and I think there’s a lot of things that in hindsight, I would have handled lot better uh, that now I think, now I have to live with these agreements and actually some bits of it don’t work for me, but we’ve put so much time and effort and pain, into reaching them that, we’re just kind of living with what, what we’ve got, but I’d like to share those lessons with people who are in those earlier stages of divorce, to make sure that they think through, what that feels like, what that looks like in practice when they agree to certain things.

So, so one example is, you know oftentimes somebody will want to take the children back to their home country, and they’ll tell the other spouse, or the ex-spouse, in exchange you can have the children for all school holidays. Which seems like as much as they can give right, it’s all the available time, but for the person who is taking the children with them, that means they will never again spend a school holiday with their children. That’s quite a big implication, it depends how old they are, but if they’re young, that could be 10 years, 15 years of never taking a holiday with your children. You have to think through these kind of proposals, and really make sure that it’s something you can live with in the long term, and that’s not going to cause problems down the line. Yeah, yeah because otherwise the one who’s not having holidays with their children they become, the strict parent, and the other one is a fun parent, which happens a lot.

How would you solve the issue of who is having the children and when?

Um, so that’s one thing so how would you solve that that issue for example, who’s having the children when, while one parent is in the UK for instance, and the other one is in Kenya? The issue is really individual for each family because it depends on their children, depends on how old they are, and how they react to change, how attached they are to each parent, how long they’ve been living in the country where they’re being taken from, so there’s a lot of different factors but, in, in general the best thing to do is to try and maintain as much regular contact as possible.

So people get very hung up about the holidays, and that makes sense because that’s when you get to actually see your child, but what creates a relationship, is that ongoing contact, and how do you make sure that the parent who’s far away, is still part of the children’s daily life, that they’re involved in health care decisions, education decisions, parent teacher meetings, all of those things how do you plan for that in a way that they can be put brought in on Zoom, or in some other way, and that they’re involved but really so they can stay close to their, their children, and then the other element is culture. I mean in your example both parents were from Kenya, but if you’ve got, you know, for example the father who’s British, and the mother is Kenyan, and she take children back to Kenya, it may be that the father’s worried and the children’s English is going to get less good, or that, they’re going to lose touch with their British culture, and so how do you build that into the children’s routine so that both parents remain, you know, part of their day-to-day life, and the influence of both parents remains part of their day-to-day life.

Yeah, and these days is so, there’s so many ways of keeping in touch like you’re saying, a parenting meeting you can call in for you know, on Zoom or on Teams or, you know, yeah, you can yes exactly, you just need to have your phone really with you, to plan ahead, to make sure that you’re thinking of time differences and, you know, letting the other person know as well about the times of the appointments. And I’m assuming that when you’re making those, you know, the structured co-parenting plan, um, that you keep in mind the ages of the children because now they’re two and four, but when they get to 14, they can fly on their own, you know, so what will that look like or, you know um.

That’s a big element Soila, because I think in general whether it’s an expat divorce or not, um, a lot of people tend to design their parenting plans based on today, and what the children need and, and do and, and they’re at today, and they forget to think about the future, and when they’re going to grow up, and things like at what age can they travel on their own, you know, if your children are two and four today, you probably don’t have that in mind at this stage you know it seems so far away, but really thinking about the long term and how that will work. What also happens if one of the two parents meet somebody new, how will that person be introduced, how will they be eased into the children’s lives. If you can anticipate all of that, at a time where you’re not in the heart of the storm, when you’re not living those events that can trigger a lot of emotions, you can anticipate, and look at them more cool-headedly, and make decisions that are actually in the best interest of the children, rather than based on emotions in in the moment of crisis. Yeah.

Oh there’s so much that is going on through my mind as you’re speaking, even when, when you started speaking about, what if they met somebody new, and I’m thinking okay, the parent who doesn’t live with their children, like um, the parent who’s left in the UK, who only sees the children, you know holiday time for instance, and the children are so excited to come and see their parent here, and then the parent has met somebody else, at what point do you introduce this person to them, the kids want to come and hang out with their parent and then oh, there’s this other person in the house, and where’s, I want my time with my mum or my dad and you know, so it can just cause so many other, um, so many things to think about.

So I’m assuming one of the things you’re saying is that make the plan as structured as possible but not set in stone. Well you know what I, I think there there’s two sides to that. Not set in stone in stone because life, and things change, and children grow, and circumstances change, so you can never sign a co-parenting agreement, you know, when your when your children are two and four and say that’s going to stand until they’re 18, the reality is will not let you do that, um, that being said, I think that it’s important to have a baseline, when having a discussion and documenting decisions you make as a couple, around how things will work, allows everybody to be on the same page.

It takes away a lot of the disagreements later on, because usually it’s the fine print that leads to conflict uh, so things around, if you need um, to have to get papers from the other parent to renew the children’s passports for example, how long ahead of time do you need to ask them, and what’s the timeline by which they need to provide those? That can cause, I’ve seen so many people have so much conflict around that because they’ve booked an appointment at the embassy they’re ready to go for the passports and the other parent hasn’t sent the documents, and they’re arguing, and this is a very small example, but it leads to so much back and forth and so much tension between the parents, and it’s just not necessary. If they just agreed, will, you know, any request will be made for weeks ahead and you have two weeks to provide them that’s it, everyone knows where they stand.

It doesn’t mean you can’t be flexible, if your ex is on holiday at that time and says I can’t send them right away it’ll be an extra week, it’s fine, but you have an agreed baseline, and I think that’s where the beauty of a documented arrangement is, is really live yeah, okay.

Thank you so much, but before we, how can people reach you Chloe,? Where can they find? So they can reach me by through my website, I have a link there to book a free discovery call, I always offer a free touch point, to get to know each other, to make sure that I’m the right person to help them, to make sure for them, to make sure that they’re comfortable speaking to me, and that I’m the right person for them, and just making sure it’s a good match. So they can book a free discovery call we have that informal chat, and they can decide at that stage whether they want to continue or not.

I do encourage people to check out my website because there are as you said earlier, a lot of free resources, I write blog articles, I have a podcast, I have a newsletter, do videos there’s a lot of information there, and I’m a very strong believer that information is key. It is really the power that allows you to handle your divorce properly. And you do have the free download? Yes everything is, is there for free it’s really a wealth of information, the idea is that people can gather that information and then we can work together to make sure that we’re tailoring the journey to their specific family. Yeah, okay. Thank you so much Chloe and um, thank you for having me, contact details at the you know at the bottom and people can contact you through that, and um, yeah, thank you and you know please keep sending your articles through, they’re amazing, well thank you so much, thank you, take care.

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Read more articles by Chloe O.

About Chloe O.

“My name is Chloe O., I am an Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) professional and a Certified Divorce Coach. I specialise in working with women to help them reduce conflict during and after divorce by improving their negotiation and communication skills with their spouse. The objective is to work towards an amicable divorce outcome in order to minimise the emotional and financial cost of divorce. I work with all types of clients but I have extensive experience in supporting expatriates and international families who are dealing with the unique situation of living abroad during and after their divorce, with limited local family support, language barriers and relocation considerations.”

For more information about my work and services (including my Podcasts, newsletter, myth-buster videos…), you can visit my website and/or follow me on Instagram, Facebook or LinkedIn.