How to have a friendly divorce (unlike me)
Kate Daly’s traumatic marital split inspired her ‘DIY divorces’ business in which no party is the loser
My divorce was about as messy, unpleasant and expensive as it could possibly get. I was in my mid-30s when we first met: he was eight years older, charming and charismatic, with a high-profile role in a media company where I was engaged to do some work. Within six years, we were married with a little girl and boy – the perfect happy family, in our comfortable London home.
In truth, we were no longer even on speaking terms. We certainly didn’t do the sensible thing and have a conversation about the fact the marriage wasn’t working. Instead, as our relationship imploded, we fell into a vicious cycle of bitter silence punctuated by transactional interactions.
No surprise, then, that before long we were outsourcing our communications to two different lawyers. The battle lines were drawn and both of us were set for the long and bloody fight ahead. I paid almost £80,000 for the privilege, and my now ex-husband paid a sum that wasn’t too far below that.
We are used to seeing marital break-ups portrayed as painful, complicated, anguished and quite often spiteful. Last year’s hottest novel, Fleishman is in Trouble, by Taffy Brodesser-akner, did little to dispel this view, while the recent Noah Baumbach film
Marriage Story is heart-wrenching viewing.
This week, the television presenter Fern Britton and her celebrity chef husband Phil
Vickery posted a joint statement on Twitter stating: “After more than 20 happy years together, [we] have decided to go our separate ways. We will always share a great friendship and our lovely children.”
I would once have raised as sceptical an eyebrow as the next person. But I now know a friendly divorce is not just infinitely preferable to doing it the hostile way – but perfectly achievable.
This is precisely the philosophy at the heart of the business I co-founded with an old friend, Pip Wilson. Called Amicable (amicable.io), it’s a stressfree online divorce services company that doesn’t involve lawyers, or cost the earth.
It was my own train-wreck experience that spurred me on to set it up. We don’t have big, expensive, flashy offices, but we don’t need to: our clients don’t visit our premises; they arrange their divorce remotely using the technology we’ve built. There are no expensive solicitors representing different sides. In fact, there are no sides at all. Just two people working out together what’s best for them and their children, with human support from our divorce coaches. Divorce is presented as a legal issue, but it’s actually an emotional problem with legal implications.
Our focus is on the future and making arrangements that make sense for each family’s unique circumstances. We assist with legal paperwork and help couples agree on how to split assets and sort out childcare arrangements, from the comfort of their own homes. (I remember all too well those arduous journeys across London, carrying my youngest child, while trying to reach our own agreement.) The average London divorce costs £40,000 if you go all the way to court. Our prices – which are fixed from the get-go – start at £300, with our most expensive service £5,500 for those with more than £2million in assets. There’s just no need to break the bank.
It was 2015 when I hit upon the (admittedly ambitious) goal to change the way the world divorces. Pip was then on maternity leave with her third child, the tech consultancy she had co-founded was being sold, and after I’d whined on about the subject for long enough to her, she eventually suggested: “Why don’t we do this together?” We decided to start operating in England and Wales, putting in the initial start-up capital ourselves, to see how far we could get.
With funding from brilliant angel investors, including some from the legal industry and some from consumer backgrounds, we’ve now conducted more than 2,000 divorces and expect to do another thousand this year.
We have more than a dozen staff working for us today, and were voted the fourth most disruptive company in Britain last year.
But you don’t get to be this disruptive without ruffling some feathers. Pip and I had ensured the way we did business was legal. We’d spent time with the Solicitors Regulation Authority, dotting Is and crossing Ts, and because of the way we function – working with the couple together, not just one warring spouse – we knew we had to operate outside of the regulatory framework. None the less, our paperwork still has to go through the legal system, and last year a couple of judges raised concerns about the legality of us working with both sides simultaneously, and whether it created a conflict of interest. They wrote to the High Court to say as much, and a test case was duly brought.
An awful lot was at stake. We knew we had followed the rules, but what if the rules were wrong? What if we were found guilty of breaking the law? I won’t pretend this thought didn’t give me a few sleepless nights.
But last week, victory was ours. The High Court ruled in our favour, confirming there was no conflict of interest in working with couples. Naturally, we were delighted, as it means we can continue to help those who don’t want a bitter or eyewateringly costly end to a marriage gone sour.
There is no one sort of person who fits this description. We’ve encountered the whole spectrum, including – perhaps surprisingly – those whose spouses have had an affair but who nevertheless don’t want to make things any worse, despite their anger. I’ve also been surprised by the number of socalled “silver splitters” we’ve dealt with, ending long marriages.
Perhaps I shouldn’t be. We’re living longer than we used to, and the idea of one marriage lasting the rest of a lifetime is becoming less common. So we have to get better at exiting them when they end.
I’m 100 per cent pro-marriage, but divorce is a legitimate life choice, and when it happens, it’s in everyone’s interest to ensure it is done amicably. Staying together for the sake of the children isn’t right if the marriage is wrong. You’re modelling a bad relationship. Far better a friendly divorce – research suggests a child won’t be adversely affected as long as it’s done the right way.
A growing number of people are cottoning on to this and recognise the system we have at the moment is broken, built as it is around conflict and not co-operation.
As for me, I have found my feet as a single parent – my children are now 13 and 11 – and the passage of time has drained the poison out of the relationship I have with my ex. It helps that there’s nothing left to argue about. I’d love to remarry one day. In the meantime, the goal is to help as many couples as possible avoid horror divorces like mine.
The divorce system we have is broken, built around conflict, not co-operation