Perhaps they have money, perhaps they don't. Perhaps the husband is having an affair, perhaps he is not. Those are not really your worries. Your problem is not to try and help your client to discover WHY her husband would do such a completely unexpected thing. Your job is to help her to cope. She needs to find a life as a single woman, and to cope on her own. She needs to make practical decisions - with respect to the children, where she is going to live and what she is going to do to pay the bills every month.
Obviously, the first prize for you would be to bring both husband and wife into sessions together, and try to help them to work out practical solutions in a calm and unemotional manner. If then, during the process they decide to try again, good and well - but at present your mandate is to work with what you have got. They want a divorce, and you need to help them through it.
It is important not to become judgmental, such that you help to inflame emotions. Your job, as counselor to the wife, is to help her to survive this bombshell without losing her integrity. Your job is to help her to dig deep within herself herself to find that she CAN cope on her own and that she will survive. Your job is to support her when the situation seems to weigh against her. Her job is not to offer legal advice - although you may help her to find legal aid, or give her a few telephone numbers of people she may be able to contact. Whatever you do - try to make sure that if she does see a lawyer, that the rates are reasonable. For a woman without a job, she should be entitled to some sort of legal aid. Help her with the questions she needs to ask, or the places she might try to get the advice she needs, but that you are not qualified to supply.
Go To Page: 1 2
