Specialties · Divorce and Separation
Divorce and Separation
Separation is rarely a single decision made on a single day. It is a series of harder, smaller decisions — whether to keep trying, what to tell the kids, how to divide a household — and each one benefits from a clearer head than the moment usually allows.
60-Minute Sessions · $250 · In Person or Telehealth in Utah
Deciding
Whether to Stay Is Its Own Question
Some couples arrive already certain the marriage is ending and want help managing what comes next. Others arrive genuinely unsure, with one partner leaning out and the other wanting to save it, or both quietly wondering but afraid to say so out loud. That second situation calls for a different kind of conversation than ordinary couples work: a discernment-style process focused less on solving problems and more on getting an honest, structured answer to a prior question — is this a marriage worth continuing to work on, and does each partner actually want to.
That conversation works best when both people can speak without either performing certainty they do not feel or withholding doubt they do feel. It usually means separating two different projects that get tangled together under stress: what happened in the marriage that led here, and what each partner actually wants going forward. Couples leave this stage with more clarity even when the answer is still difficult, and clarity is worth a great deal on its own.
Telling the Children
What Kids Need to Hear, and How
How and when children are told matters enormously, and parents often disagree about timing, wording and who should be in the room. Preparing for that conversation together — what will actually be said, in what order, and how questions will be answered — tends to reduce the chance that children hear it in fragments, from the wrong person, or in the middle of an argument.
Children pick up far more from tone and household atmosphere than from the specific sentence used to explain the separation. Preteens and teens in particular often have questions about logistics — where they will sleep, whether they will change schools, what happens to pets and holidays — before they have questions about feelings, and being ready with concrete answers matters more than most parents expect.
When it is useful, sessions can include the family as a unit to support that transition, in addition to work with the co-parenting pair alone.
Seeking help for your problems means you’re taking action.
Living It Out
Two Households, One Set of Kids
Separating households produces a long list of practical decisions layered on top of an emotionally raw period: dividing belongings, adjusting to less time with children, learning to run a home alone. Underneath the logistics is a real emotional adjustment — grief- adjacent feelings of loss, identity change and sometimes relief, arriving together and often at inconvenient times. That adjustment is a normal part of separation work, though it is worth being direct that grief itself, as an ongoing primary concern, is not something Athena treats; where that becomes the central issue, a different referral may serve you better.
Co-parenting communication is frequently where the most durable work happens, because it continues long after the divorce is final. Sessions can focus on building a workable way to exchange information about kids — schedules, school, health — that does not require reopening the marriage’s old conflicts every time a decision needs to be made. Many couples benefit from agreeing, in session, on a narrow communication channel and a small set of rules about tone and timing.
Couples and family sessions run 60 minutes at $250, in person at the Salt Lake City office or by telehealth for participants located in Utah.
Athena is a therapist, not an attorney, mediator, custody evaluator or legal advisor. She cannot draft or review legal terms, recommend a custody arrangement, or serve in any legal capacity related to your divorce. Those matters belong with a family law attorney or a qualified mediator.
Common Questions
Divorce and Separation Questions
- Can therapy help us decide whether to separate at all?
- Yes. Some couples come in genuinely undecided, and a structured, honest conversation about what has and has not been tried is often more useful than either staying silent about doubts or making the decision alone.
- Can Athena help with our custody agreement or divorce paperwork?
- No. Athena is a therapist, not an attorney, mediator or custody evaluator. She cannot draft, review or advise on legal terms. That work belongs with a family law attorney or a mediator, and therapy can run alongside it.
- We are grieving the marriage. Is that something you treat?
- Athena does not treat grief as a presenting concern. The sadness, anger and disorientation that often accompany separation are a normal part of this work and will come up, but if grief itself becomes the central, ongoing focus, a referral better suited to grief work may be more appropriate.
- What does a session cost during separation or co-parenting work?
- Couples and family sessions are 60 minutes at $250. Select Health, BCBS, UBH and University of Utah Health Plans are accepted.
Start With the Contact Form
Whether you are deciding, separating, or building a co-parenting plan, send the contact form before anything is scheduled.