When you cannot afford to leave
Almost every piece of advice you have read assumes a choice you do not currently have.
Short answer
If your options are limited by money, most advice you find is useless, because it starts from a decision you cannot currently make. This work does not start there. It starts with what is actually available to you this month, which is usually a short list, and it takes that list seriously. I will not tell you to leave and I will not tell you to stay. Both would be someone else deciding your life from the outside with a fraction of the information.
Why the usual advice fails here
Ask the internet about a relationship you are unhappy in and you will be told to leave, to communicate better, or to work on yourself. All three assume a person with somewhere to go, a bank account of their own, and no one else depending on the outcome. If you do not have those things, the advice is not just unhelpful, it is corrosive, because every time you cannot follow it you get a fresh piece of evidence that the problem is you.
The problem is not you. The problem is that you are being handed solutions built for a different situation.
What actually gets worked on
- The picture, accurately. Money, housing, work history, children, family, documents, timelines. Most people in this position have never laid it all out in one place because looking at it is frightening. Looking at it is also the only thing that turns a fog into a set of facts.
- What is genuinely available now. Usually a short list. It is almost never nothing.
- What would have to be true for the list to get longer. Income of your own. A skill. A document. A person. Six months. This is where a lot of the real work sits.
- How to survive the current situation without losing yourself in it. Because whatever you decide, you are living in it in the meantime, and the meantime is often years.
- Whether the situation is unhappy or unsafe. Those are different and they get different answers.
Safety first, and I mean this literally
If you are being physically hurt, threatened, or prevented from leaving, that is not something to coach through. In the US the National Domestic Violence Hotline is 1-800-799-7233, and you can text START to 88788. In an emergency, call 911. Financial control, isolating you from your family, and controlling your movements are recognised forms of abuse even when nobody has hit anybody.
⭐ Something I want you to know before you book
What you tell a coach does not carry legal privilege. Coaching is not a licensed profession, so my records are ordinary business records, and in a contested divorce or custody case they could in principle be subpoenaed by the other side.
I have designed this practice around that fact. I keep almost no written notes, deliberately. Your name, our dates, and the goals you gave me in your own words. Not a narrative of what you said. What is not written cannot be produced. The whole policy is here and it is worth reading before you tell anyone in my position anything.
If you are already in or heading toward legal proceedings, a licensed professional has protections I do not, and an attorney has stronger ones still. I would rather you know that from me than find out later.
What I will not do
I will not tell you to leave him. I will not tell you to stay. I do not do couples work and I will not talk to both of you. I am not a lawyer and nothing here is legal advice. The full boundary is here.
Sometimes fixing something in yourself changes the trajectory of everything around you.Jessica
Placeholder A resource list covering financial and legal starting points will go here.
Common questions
Should I leave my marriage?
I am not going to answer that, and be careful of anyone who will after one conversation. What I can do is help you see the situation clearly enough to answer it yourself, and take seriously the constraints that make it hard rather than talking past them.
Is this couples work?
No. I work with one person about their relationship. I never have both partners in the room. That is a licensed profession in most states and it is not what this is.
Can what I tell you be used against me in a divorce?
Coaching does not carry legal privilege, so in principle a coach's records can be subpoenaed. That is exactly why I keep almost no written records. Read the confidentiality page before you tell any coach anything sensitive, mine included.
Not sure if this is for you?
The first call is free, it runs about 15 to 20 minutes, and its only job is to work out whether I am the right person. If I am not, I will say so and point you somewhere better.