Divorce is Different for Women

©2026 Artemis Divorce Coaching | Divorce is Different for Women.

Divorcing as a woman is different than divorcing as a man. It starts from the very, very basics — how we socialize women versus men. Divorce for women means getting intimately familiar and acquainted with how we’ve been brought up to take up less space. To acquiesce. To appease. To be the good girl. To cater … to men … and everyone else … especially before ourselves.

When it comes to the divorce process, however, this — contortionist us — is not the shape we need to take. Divorce demands that we step into a much fuller, much more powerful version of ourselves. We have to stop renting the basement floor of our beings and to, instead, occupy the fullness of our lifeforce and bodies.

It’s quite a spiritual reckoning.

Then, there are all the tangible, material things and issues women tend to face in divorce. I wish I didn’t see these as frequently and pervasively as I do in my practice, but I do.

The highlights:

Financial Secrecy & Insecurity

It’s shockingly normal to hear from women that they’ve been locked out of their mutual finances, often for years. Sometimes it masks infidelity; othertimes, debt. They don’t get statements. They have no idea account log-ins or passwords — or what types of financial assets they even have. 

And, yes, they ask. They request. They insist. They demand. And, still, more common than we want to admit is this simple truth: Many women have no transparency or access to their financial records — to accounts they’re liable for in marriage. They have partners who’ve racked up significant amounts of debt, a surprise they discover in divorce. Their homes are worthless because of the number of home equity loans. Heck, they may not even own their home; it was purchased in someone else’s name. True story.

Need A Career!

Relatedly, women often find themselves needing to fast-track into money-making to provide for themselves and their brood. Some of them live the double-edged sword of having no access to their joint finances AND needing to make money stat.

And, they do it. They hustle. Grind. Find the opportunities. Bust themselves forward for them and their kids. Their partners, meanwhile, sit on oversized financial assets while their children and the mother of their children sleep on borrowed mattresses and rack up credit card debt.

Yep, true story.

The trend is there — that for many, many long-term couples, especially those with children, there tends to be one who pulls back on work to manage the household and munchkins while the other continues on their career trajectory. A decade or more in, the one who’s focused on the home front has different career and financial hurdles and possibilities. It’s not same-same.

Unsafe Home Environments

More often than not, women experience some degree of lack of safety in their home environment. Yes, there’s blatant physical violence and manhandling. Addiction. Absence and neglect. Abandonment.

Consistently, it’s the lack of living with emotional and psychological safety, day-in and day-out for years, that viscerally greets me on our introductory calls: Tense, shoulders to their ears. Eyes on high alert. They look like they could jump out of their skin at any moment. Voices thin and pitched. They look like they’re about to cry. They glance over their shoulders, even though no one else is around.

Living in a home environment where you’re always on your toes — at the ready to be criticized, blamed, told you’re crazy or incompetent, belittled, demeaned, undermined, you get the point — frays our nerves to depths that take years to unfurl out of the brittle constancy of survival mode.

Reclaiming Motherhood

Then there’s the motherhood journey, where becoming and being a mother — matrescence (did you know there’s a word for it, even?) — isn’t honored. It’s minimized, misunderstood, mocked.

For so many divorcing women, they had to mother from a smaller version of themselves, not necessarily how they want to be in their motherhood or for their kids. They usually have a partner who’s more of a disciplinarian and who wants the kids to behave a certain way. Cue the cycle of blame: If the kids don’t behave nicely, it's mom’s fault.

Then, our protective instincts are gaslit. We’re labeled over-protective, anxious, and what-have-you, when, on the contrary, many women face suboptimal home environments and are simply trying to shield kids from adults behaving badly — or, at the very least, immaturely.

This — our motherhood — is such a sacred part of being a woman. Coming out of divorce, I see so many women finally, joyfully reclaiming their mothering. Mothering in ways that feel aligned, in connection with their children, instead of dutifully performing for a watchful gaze.

And, then, there’s cheating and infidelity.

Sometimes it results in huge life upsets for the kids and mom as baby daddy drops everything and does an about-face with his mistress. Or, validates and solidifies a long-overdue decision.

I know you know by now that these, too, are all true.

And all of that — and so much more — is a simple ode to why women need to divorce differently. We’re unraveling all of the layers that taught us that THIS was our space in the world, this was our corner, this was how tall and wide and exuberant we could be, to instead, relearn that we are so much more and so much bigger and so much brighter than what the rules had ever envisioned for us.