Yet every word in conflict is also an expression of hope, because it is an attempt to bridge the gap that separates adversaries; an act of courage, because it is a plea for understanding; and an effort to re-connect, because it is a deliberate effort to move toward our opponents and away from the hostile assumptions that feed impasse.
Kenneth Cloke
What is divorce coaching?
Divorce coaching can include a few differing concepts, but in general it is the direct work done by a divorce coach and usually one party pre-, during or post-divorce in order to prepare that party for the various conflicts that lie ahead. The idea is relatively new, and in its early stages of development in South Africa. We will return to that aspect later on.
In its best form it prepares the party(ies) to be effective at the various levels of interpersonal and procedural conflict that lies ahead. This is an empowering process that enables the party to be maximally informed as to their options and solutions, to be resilient, to be able to defend themselves and their loved ones outside the normal parameters of legal and psychological support systems. It prepares people for those hard decisions that must be made, gives them invaluable conflict skills in the battlezones that most divorces resemble, and allows them to heal effectively by being able to recognize, and deal with, cyclical and harmful conflict spirals.
It takes back agency in an informed and skilled manner, something often (for various reasons) lost in the process of adversarial divorce processes.
South African statistics
According to the latest reliable figures, 2024 saw just over 24 000 South African divorce cases granted, a nearly 9% increase from 2023, and that is only the finalized divorces in that year. Those finalized but still affecting the participants, or those still in the process of being finalized of course add tremendous weight and numbers to the overall picture. The largest group of these parties showed marriages lasting between 5 and 9 years, with the median age for men and women being in their 40s.
More than half of these granted divorces involved children under 18, affecting nearly 23 000 children. Reliable and complete statistics for maintenance applications are more difficult to obtain, but with even the 2019/19 stats showing nearly 130 000 new civil maintenance applications served during that year.
A snapshot of the problem
A rapidly evolving social environment, employment and workplace complex challenges, unrealistic expectations, an unwillingness to constructively work at interpersonal conflict, and a system overburdened and simply not designed for individualized empowerment of affected individuals all create the perfect storm for parties (including the children) going through a divorce.
These tremendous, often life-changing pressures are often in great imbalance between the parties, with access to finances, personal skills, access to various levels of legal representation and so on all adding to extreme injustice occurring under the rubber stamp of organizational approval. While the offices of the Family Advocate in general, and the various divorce court in particular, play a very effective part in looking after the interests of minor children involved, this remains primarily the responsibility of the parents involved, and there is no real similar mechanism for the individual adults involved. Very few legal practitioners have any conflict training outside of their legal knowledge and experience, none of which is best suited to empower a party to deal with the conflict in a personal and ongoing basis. Instructions are asked for and executed, regardless of how informed that party may be, and once the file is closed the real conflict so often starts, leaving the parties with the pieces of a ruined relationship, and with no conflict skills to tackle what is really the important phase of the process.
Movement towards court-mandated mediation is still in its infancy, and already a lot of divorce attorneys view such processes simply as box-ticking exercises, something to do so that the trial can proceed. Similarly, counselling and psychological assistance tend to be helpful but reactive, seeking to help affected parties with symptoms and processes that are not always trained in modern interpersonal conflict best practices. In the end, the divorce process is a warzone that can take months or years, and from which many people simply do not properly recover, be that financially, emotionally or psychologically, in a variety of preventable ways.
Divorce coaching, at its best, serves as a personal project that does not necessarily change the existing organizational divorce process, but which radically changes the party experiencing that process, through tools of conflict competency, confidence and very specific strategies designed for that particular divorce.
My own experience
In the twenty-plus years that I practiced law I represented parties in just over a thousand divorces. Most of those were done step by step, always with an eye on the see-you-in-court final solution. I would listen to clients telling me about the personal and emotional suffering they went through during the divorce, I would see the relationship and financial destruction that happened because of that process, and I would see the worried faces after that final decree of divorce was granted. There was nothing I could do about that. Or so I convinced myself at the time.
After retiring from legal practice I started studying human conflict as a science, and an art. I was inspired by what I saw, by what is possible with even the most complex conflicts, the most intractable issues, the most difficult characters. Why did I not know this during legal practice, why was this not our primary tools at that time? I still try to avoid the answer to that hard question.
I assume that different divorce coaches would have different methods of working, but my own consultancy runs a very simple program, across the three categories of pre-divorce, during an existing divorce, and / or post-divorce coaching. The coaching program is designed after consulting with the client, and approved step-by-step by the client, as things may develop and change. Depending on a few of the actual conflict dynamics at hand, it is most often working with one of the parties, although great results are achieved with both working together, and with the children involved as the parent(s) may feel comfortable with. Work is always done on a very confidential and personal basis, with independent reading, structured conflict programs, and various best practices approved in advance by the client utilized.
Pre-divorce: This is mostly a very brief program and period, where a client would have questions such as “Should I get divorced?” and a range of what-ifs flowing from that. The end-goal here is clarity and the confidence that comes from understanding the various options open to that party. Divorce can often be effectively, and in a sustainable way, be prevented at this early phase.
During the divorce: here the party retains the service of a legal practitioner and any other support professionals they may regard as necessary, and our role is to teach the client the very specific personal conflict skills applicable to the developing phases of the divorce. Examples here would include strategies to work with conflict avoidance, intimidation, manipulation, gaslighting, physical and emotional violence, abusing parental rights involving the children, financial conflicts and many others. The legal process continues, but the client learns how to prepare and manage those conflicts skilfully outside of the actual legal process, including interpersonal engagements with the other party, extended family conflict, access and custody conflicts and so on. It is heartening to see that, slowly but surely, we are being appointed by attorneys to take care of that part of the process on behalf of some of their clients, so the idea of protecting parties in this way can be widely established.
Post-divorce: We often receive mandates from client in this phase after much of the harm has been done. The work here is often reconstructive and more painful than what it needed to be, with the damage caused by the system having become entrenched. While it is often more difficult, it is often more rewarding as far as the change in people, and the very measurable results in the conflict competencies and resultant resilience and healing that they experience, are concerned.
Suggested future developments
There can be no meaningful debate about the systemic problems, pain and needless suffering caused unintentionally by a system designed to divorce people. Real, effective change to that system has been debated for decades, and in the meantime people, including generations of children, suffer harm that follows them around for the rest of their lives. Systemic change will happen in bits and pieces, over years, but it will never reach the source of the bigger picture: the conflict competency of the involved individual. It is here where direct change can happen, where measurable and immediate improvement can be achieved.
The legal system itself is clearly aware of these problems. Efforts to integrate mediation, various projects designed to protect children and vulnerable parties are ongoing, and it is certainly not for lack of trying that the pain remains. There are some wonderful human beings in the legal profession, and they fight these problems on a daily basis with the tools they have. There is also no need for much public education about the damage and harms suffered by those who have to go through the system. Pain, regret, financial ruin, relationship harm and a range of other very prevalent conflict outcomes can be verified by speaking to any number of our friends and family members.
The solution lies not so much in what we need to experience to get through what we regard as a necessary process, but in our own skills in dealing with it. How we respond to the various battles and risks is what determines how well we survive, and thrive, before, during and after the divorce process. As anyone who has any knowledge of modern conflict skills will know, this has nothing to do with being nice and polite, or compromise for the sake of finalization, and everything with being effective at our interpersonal conflicts, a skill which we carry with us beyond the end of the divorce.
This aspect of the problem is what I would like to see debated far more expansively and effectively. It should be included in attorneys’ service offerings, it should form part of GBV programs, academic research, public debate and institutional reactions to these harms and risks. Divorce in itself, even at its most constructive and amicable levels, is a terribly personal, disorienting and life-changing process. It should be approached with care, confidence, and skill.
Summary of main sources, references and suggested reading
1. My article on conflict during custody disputes serves as a reminder of the complexity of the conflict sometimes experienced: https://www.conflict-conversations.co.za/conversations/conflict-during-custody-disputes-modern-conflict-strategies
2. Divorce is of course also not the only option under certain circumstances: https://www.conflict-conversations.co.za/conversations/marital-blues-modern-strategies-for-conflict-in-marriage
3. For articles dealing with conflict in general, and the various skills and levels that this can be personalised, see our blog index at Conflict Conversations
(Andre Vlok can be contacted at andre@conflict1.co.za for any further information.)
(c) Andre Vlok August 2026
* Author’s note on the use of artificial intelligence in writing this article I learned to draft, argue and write in the hard school of litigation. I enjoy and value the very human process of creating ideas, of testing my own knowledge and thoughts. It is a process that I need, for answering some of my professional and even personal questions, it is cathartic and inspiring. Other than the most basic research assistance I do not use any AI in the creation of my written work, this article included. It is a matter of pride, of preference, and of mental health. Whether that is a wise choice or not, I will leave to the reader to decide.