Meet Claire Auchmuty, Northern Ireland's first relationship and divorce coach

But life hasn’t always been so sweet for Claire, Northern Ireland’s first relationship and divorce coach. In 2016 her “whole world changed” when she decided to leave her 19-year marriage to a church minister.

"I just knew I couldn't stay. I thought, we've tried everything and it’s not working, so I chose to leave. People thought I was fine because I chose it, but I was anything but fine. I never wanted to not be married. I was heartbroken,” she says candidly.

"Because my ex-husband is a church minister, I left my church as well. My whole support system changed, but I thought, I'm the only person living in my life, so I'm the only one who knows how to make a decision for my best interest.”

Originally from Galway, but now living in Coleraine, Claire, 55, worked in nursing for 36 years, before deciding on a new career path in June 2022, retraining as a relationship and divorce coach to help others navigate the emotional, psychological, and practical challenges that come with divorce or relationship breakdown.

An American concept, she explains the difference between relationship and divorce coaching and counselling.

“Counselling is generally about looking backwards to go forward. Coaching is action driven. Where are you now? What's your life like? Where do you want to get to?”

Whatever the reason for divorce, whether it be conflict and arguing, infidelity, financial issues or abuse, Claire aims to improve the client’s situation.

"I can shorten the length of time they stay upset. I can shorten the confusion. I can help them make decisions faster. I offer a service where I'm in the background of their world for the time they work with me.

“Divorce is an emotional event that happens to have legal and financial consequences. Nobody looks at the story of divorce and the emotions and that's what I do.”

Claire, a finalist in this year’s Woman Who Achieves Awards, wishes she’d known someone like herself when she was going through her divorce.

"I thought if I had had me when I left my marriage, I know it would have made a difference because I didn't know what the pitfalls were and I didn't know who to ask for help.”

She said as a single mum with a mortgage, leaving a pensionable job as a GP practice nurse to purse this career path was a “bit crazy”, but added: “I thought if it would have made a difference to me, then it will make a difference to other people. Now I have clients in Australia, Germany, Portugal, England, Ireland and locally.

"About 35 per cent of my clients are men. I didn't see that coming. I just presumed it would be the professional female mid-40s with children, but the first client who signed up was a man in the south of Ireland.”

If they live locally, she’ll often meet clients for a walk or a coffee.

“I have some clients that want to go for a walk on the beach. We will walk and talk. With another client we did a session walking in the forest. Movement and fresh air and nature allows our nervous system to calm down.”

Claire focuses on the emotional aspects of relationship breakdown, signposting and preparing clients for appointments with financial advisors and/or solicitors.

And she has recently launched a new service to support people who are on the receiving end of bullying at work.

"The lived experience of this individual is very similar to the lived experience of being on the receiving end of an abusive marriage - where confidence is eroded, a person's sense of self is reduced, overthinking and second guessing becomes the norm and life feels that it is becoming smaller and smaller.”

Regardless of how a marriage ends, it’s accompanied by the classic bereavement stages.

“A divorce journey has the same grief emotions because you've lost the future that you had planned for. You've lost the person that you thought you had married and wanted to be married to. A lot of the grief journey in a divorce is what you didn't get to have. Your world, the person you trusted, the person you felt safe with is now coming at you, and there's fear and threat. Who will have the children more? How will I manage the money? And all of this comes into your world.

“What I want to do is help people to find their sense of identity and self because when a relationship breaks down, the first thing to go is your confidence. I don't think there's anywhere more lonely than being in a relationship where you're not seen, not heard and not appreciated. It's very isolating. I give people a space with no judgment to just get what's in their head out. And even as they talk it out, it gets clearer because they have a space where somebody can hear them.”

In 2021 there were 2,040 divorces registered in Northern Ireland – an increase of 35.3% since 2020, when the divorce numbers were at 1,507.

So what are the main deal breakers for people who opt to divorce?

“Generally speaking it is that communication has broken down and it's not possible to be able to be seen or heard,” said Claire.

“When communication breaks right down and you are upset, isolated, lonely, frustrated, angry, resentful, sometimes you're too far apart to actually want it to work.

“Some people end up in divorce because they choose it, because they don't know how to change or fix what they have to make it feel better. And they just go, I can't do this anymore.

“The other side of this is the person who has left because somebody's had an affair and walked out on them. And they're on a divorce journey not because they wanted it.

"Divorce is not easy, but neither is staying when a marriage isn't good. When the cost of staying becomes intolerable, that is when somebody is ready to move."

The two issues which create contention in a divorce, and which are universal, she says, are children and finances.

"They're the two things that cause the biggest amount of fear and the biggest amount of control. When the divorce is settled and those things have a plan, then things can settle down and find a new normal.”

But, she points out that sometimes people decide to stay.

“I changed my title from Divorce Coach to Relationship and Divorce Coach because people presumed I was pro-divorce. Actually, what I want to do is help you to have a healthy relationship, so I always start with the question, ‘what if you didn't have to go?’ Some couples I have worked with have stayed together and stayed together well, they just didn't know how to change the patterns that they had.”

Claire, who works with clients to devise a parenting plan, says her own children have adjusted really well after her divorce.

“When I left, the boys were four and six. I remember being really upset thinking they will never remember life as a family of four, and I literally cried for two days. It was devastating. But I thought that equally, they’d have a better version of me if my life was a bit better.”

Helping people through the brutal impact of relationship breakdown is a “humbling” experience for Claire.

“I received a message from a lady saying, ‘If I hadn't had you in my world, I don't think I would be here’. I cried when I got that – I thought, this is why I do what I do. It just lights me up because I have seen people's lives change.

"It's never too late to be happy. I hope that me living the life that I live just shows people what can be possible after divorce.”

www.claireauchmutycoaching.com/