Untying the Knot

29/08/2026

Welcome to all new followers of Untying the Knot.

I'll see you Tues 1st Sept 8pm UK or 3pm ET.

27/08/2026

Looking forward to meeting you on Tuesday.

Enjoy as best you can the Bank Holiday, do something for you.

Hugs Jen x

26/08/2026

The paperwork isn't the starting line.

Most women who reach out to me arrive certain they're ready to file. They want a solicitor's name, a form to sign, a date in the diary. Something to make the chaos feel like progress. I understand that urgency completely. When everything inside you feels unsteady, action feels like the antidote.

But in my experience, the legal step is almost never the right first step. Rushing it is one of the most expensive mistakes a woman can make. Not just financially. Emotionally too.

Before any document is signed, there's quiet groundwork that determines everything that follows:

→ What do you actually want the outcome to look like, a year from now?
→ What does your full financial picture really show, not just what you assume it shows?
→ What needs to be considered around co-parenting, living arrangements, and the life you're building next?

When you work through that layer first, something shifts. The legal process stops feeling like a runaway train. You move through it with clarity instead of reactive panic. You stop agreeing to terms you'll later regret. It's why my work begins with a Decision Package or a Divorce Transition session, long before McKenzie Friend support or court paperwork enters the picture. The legal machinery does its job far better when you arrive prepared, grounded, and clear.

If you're feeling the pressure to "just get on with it", from family, from your situation, from yourself, please hear this: slowing down by a few weeks at the beginning often saves you months of rework at the end.

You deserve to walk into the legal process knowing what you want. Not just wanting it to be over. 🍃

24/08/2026

Hello all

Welcome to you.
New followers of Untying the Knot.
I'm truly excited that you're here.

I thought you maybe interested in taking part in the Midlife Married Maze Quiz.

It'll give you an objective viewpoint of where you are now in your relationship

Hugs Jen x

Unveil your path in the midlife marriage maze. Discover if it's time for a new chapter or to rekindle the flame.

24/08/2026

Two thirds of divorces after 50 are initiated by women.

That one statistic quietly reshapes everything we think we know about who ends a marriage, and when.

The numbers tell a steady story:

>> 36% of UK divorces involve women aged 45 to 59 (Office for National Statistics, 2022)
>> 66% of divorces after 50 are initiated by women (AARP, 2022)
>> 1 in 3 marriages in England and Wales ends in divorce (ONS, 2023)

Midlife divorce is not a fringe experience. It is a real shift in how long marriages end, and women are leading it.

In my work, I see what sits behind these numbers. Years of small yeses that slowly eroded a sense of self. The quiet realisation that staying has its own cost. A decision made not in haste, but after a long, careful weighing of everything.

If you are somewhere in that weighing right now, please know this: you are not alone, and you are not late. The data is simply catching up to what so many women in their 50s have known privately for years.

You deserve clarity. You deserve steady support. And you deserve to make this decision at your own pace 🌿

21/08/2026

Most women I work with have been circling the same question for two years. Some longer.

"Should I stay, or should I go?"

It's not indecision. It's the absence of a process. You can't think your way to clarity when the question keeps shape-shifting every time you pick it up.

So I built one. After years of walking women through this exact crossroads, I named the method I use inside my Maybe to Clarity programme: The Clarity Compass. Three stages. Story. Signal. Step.

Story is where you tell it without editing. What surfaces, not what you planned to say, is where the real decision lives. Signal is where we treat your emotions as data, not noise, and map the patterns beneath the feelings to reveal what you already know but haven't let yourself say. Step is the concrete next move you can make from where you actually are, not where you wish you were. Clarity isn't the absence of fear. It's one honest action.

Slow is allowed. Circling is not the same as stuck, but it does end when you have a framework to hold the question for you.

If you've been carrying this one for a while, this is for you. 🍃

19/08/2026

One of the most common questions I hear from women in the early days of separation is some version of this: "Do I need a therapist or a coach? And which one first?"

It's a fair question. The honest answer is that it depends on what you're carrying right now.

Therapy tends to hold the weight of what's happened to you. The grief. The patterns. The slow erosion of self that builds up over a long marriage. A good therapist gives you a steady place to feel what you couldn't feel while you were busy keeping everything together.

Coaching sits in a different chair. It's the work of figuring out what you want next, and then taking the practical steps to get there. The paperwork. The boundaries. The conversations with your lawyer where you finally ask, "Can you explain that to me in plain English?"

Neither one is better. They're built for different jobs. In my experience, women often need both at some point, but rarely at the same intensity. Some clients come to coaching first because they need to move, decide, organise. Others spend months in therapy first because the ground isn't steady enough to plan from yet. Both paths are valid.

If you're not sure which you need, try this question: Do I need to be heard, or do I need a plan?

The answer usually tells you where to start. And you're allowed to change your mind as you go 🌿

17/08/2026

Thrilled to have my article included in the catalogue of such informative client centric articles.

When your adult children remind you that you're allowed to choose happiness

"Mum, you don't have to stay together for us anymore." It's a sentence many parents never expect to hear. I heard those words from my own youngest daughter when she was 24. She quietly said, "Mum, your happiness is vital, don’t feel you have to stay together for us anymore."
In that moment, something shifted. It wasn't permission that I felt, it was release.

Years of believing I had to keep my family together at all costs suddenly loosened their grip. What I heard wasn't, "Leave your marriage." What I heard was, "We'll be OK. It's your turn now."

Here's the link for the full article. https://www.stowefamilylaw.co.uk/stowe-support/can-your-adult-children-give-you-permission-to-be-happy-again/

15/08/2026

Financial settlement may cost you if your too hasty.

14/08/2026

Most women in England and Wales don't know they have the right to bring someone with them into family court.

Not a solicitor. Not a barrister. A McKenzie Friend.

It's a quiet provision in the legal system that lets a permitted person sit beside you during proceedings. They can take notes. They can quietly advise. They can help you remember what you wanted to raise when the room gets loud and your mind goes blank.

I act as a McKenzie Friend for women going through divorce. I've sat beside clients through petitions, child arrangements, and financial hearings. And I've watched what it does to a woman to walk into that room knowing she isn't carrying it alone 🤍

Right now, 1 in 3 family court hearings in England and Wales involve at least one unrepresented party. Most of those people are women. Most of them had no idea this support existed.

A McKenzie Friend doesn't replace legal representation. It fills the gap between having a solicitor and having no one. And that gap is where most women feel the most exposed.

Knowing your options before you need them is the most practical thing you can do right now.