Letters: you can have a ‘good’ divorce

Splitting the difference

Sir: Hannah Moore’s article ‘Split personalities’ (27 July) is brutal. ‘There’s no such thing as a kind divorce,’ she writes. Ms Moore cites Amicable, the company I co-founded after my own long, painful divorce, as promoting the impossible idea of a ‘successful divorce’. Unless you have been divorced, it is hard to understand the pain and soul-searching that ending a marriage entails. Emotionally, psychologically and financially, it tears you apart. Divorce can reduce unhappiness and remove unbearable pressure from families. In broken relationships, the only thing worse than breaking up can be staying together, especially for the children. Do you really want to role-model ‘put up or shut up’ to your kids?

For too long, divorce has been played out in an adversarial legal system that funnels people through a narrative of conflict. It forces them to ascribe mal-intent where confusion rather than hostility exists.

Divorce and separation are emotional issues with legal and financial consequences. Focusing attention on the emotional journey can get you what you want and need – undamaged kids, somewhere to live, enough money to live on day-to-day and security in retirement.

Amicable was borne out of a belief that focusing on the emotional journey – where both spouses work online with a specialist – leads to a kinder divorce. So it has proved. From a standing start we now do more consent orders than nearly any other divorce services provider. I am proud that we have facilitated countless ‘kind divorces’.

Kate Daly, co-founder of online divorce services company Amicable

Mortlake, London