For Priests, Spiritual Directors & Therapists
She didn’t imagine ending up here. How do you help her find what’s next?
Andy Arbie
Certified Professional Life Coach · Member of St. Joseph Parish, Diocese of Lincoln
who she is
She's standing in the space between what was and what's next, and it can be deeply disorienting, maybe even more so because she's a faithful daughter of the Church.
She may be freshly divorced and facing what an annulment could mean for her, her children, and her future. She may be waiting on a tribunal and wrestling with the uncertainty of not knowing. She may not be free to date while still carrying very human desires for companionship and marriage. Or she may be free now and discovering that freedom comes with its own question: Now what?
Wherever she is, it can help enormously to talk with someone who understands this particular in-between and hasn't had to leave the fullness of the faith to get to the other side of it.
what do you hope for her?
You want more for her than simply getting through the divorce or receiving an answer from a tribunal.
You want her to find peace while she waits. To make decisions with greater clarity and confidence. To remain rooted in her Catholic faith while learning how to live faithfully in circumstances she never expected.
You may want to see her become more confident in the way she shows up as a mother, establish healthier boundaries and ways of relating, recognize patterns she doesn't want to carry forward, and rediscover a sense of purpose in the life she's living now.
And if she becomes free to discern marriage again, you want her to approach that possibility from a place of freedom and maturity, able to acknowledge her desire for companionship without allowing loneliness or fear to make the decision for her.
In other words, you want to see her flourish, not someday when everything is resolved, but in the life God has given her today.
That's what I want for her too.
what progress can look like?
The work will look different for every woman, but over time you may see a woman who:
• Can distinguish what is hers to act on from what she cannot control
• Makes decisions with greater confidence instead of repeatedly second-guessing herself
• Communicates more clearly and establishes healthier boundaries in difficult relationships
• Shows up with greater steadiness as a mother and feels more confident navigating conversations
with her children
• Can live through the uncertainty of a legal or tribunal process without allowing the waiting to
consume her
• Recognizes patterns she doesn't want to carry into the next season of her life
• Can acknowledge her desire for companionship or marriage without allowing loneliness to dictate
her choices
• Begins rediscovering purpose and investing in the life actually in front of her
• Grows in her capacity to trust God while taking responsibility for the choices that are hers to make
Sometimes progress looks like taking a concrete next step. Sometimes it looks like realizing that an answer isn't available yet and becoming more peaceful living faithfully in the meantime.
Both matter.
where coaching fits
There is a lot of ordinary life after divorce that doesn't necessarily belong in therapy, spiritual direction, canon law, or a conversation with an attorney.
What do I actually want now?
Why do I keep second-guessing myself?
How do I handle this conversation with my former spouse?
What do I say to my children?
How do I live while I'm waiting?
What boundaries do I need?
What am I doing with my life now?
Am I pursuing this relationship because it's good, or because I'm afraid of being alone?
That's where coaching can be especially useful.
Coaching is a distinct, trained skill. Through asking, listening, reflecting, and noticing patterns, I help a woman slow down her thinking, name what she actually wants, understand what matters to her, recognize what's getting in the way, and begin taking faithful action.
Sometimes that happens in a single conversation. Other seasons need consistent support over months as circumstances change and new questions emerge.
The goal isn't for me to give her the answer. It's to help her become increasingly capable of hearing her own thinking clearly, making sound decisions, and living faithfully toward what matters.
alongside spiritual direction
Spiritual direction and coaching can sit close together in this season, but they're not the same work.
A spiritual director helps a woman discern how God is moving in her interior life: her prayer, the sacraments, her relationship with God, and her vocation. That's sacred ground, and it calls for real formation in the tradition of spiritual discernment.
My work sits alongside that, not inside it.
I don't discern God's will for her or tell her what God is asking her to do. I help her become clearer about her own desires, fears, assumptions, circumstances, and decisions so she can bring something clearer into the conversation she's already having, or one I'd encourage her toward, with God, her pastor, or a spiritual director.
Some women I work with already have a spiritual director. Some don't. Either is fine. I'm not the only person who should be in her corner, and I'll say so.
alongside therapy
Therapy treats. It addresses trauma, mental health concerns, and patterns that need clinical care to heal. That's real and necessary work, and it belongs with a licensed professional trained to provide it.
Coaching isn't a substitute for that.
My work is oriented toward the life she's living now and the life she wants to build: the decisions she's making, relationships she's navigating, patterns she's noticing, changes she wants to make, and the way she wants to show up in this next season.
For a woman already in therapy, coaching can give her another place to practice forward movement in everyday life while the clinical work remains where it belongs.
If something surfaces in coaching that appears to need clinical support, I'll say so directly and encourage her to bring it to an appropriate professional.
why you can refer in confidence
My coaching is grounded in a Catholic understanding of the human person, freedom, vocation, marriage, and discernment.
I hold the Church's teaching that civil divorce does not, by itself, end a marriage. The marital bond is presumed valid unless and until the Church declares otherwise, or until the death of a spouse. I won't coach a Catholic ahead of that reality.
I don't make decisions for her or tell her what God is asking her to do. I help her notice what is happening within and around her: the desires, fears, patterns, assumptions, values, and possibilities she may be too close to see clearly.
When it serves her, I may share something from my own experience or another woman's story as an invitation to reflection or prayer, never as a prescription for what she should do.
I also know the limits of my lane. When something belongs with her therapist, priest or spiritual director, attorney, physician, tribunal, or another professional, I encourage her to take it there. My work is meant to complement those relationships, not compete with them.
Our conversations are held in confidence. She is always free to talk about our work with her therapist, priest, spiritual director, or anyone else she chooses, but I don't share what she brings to coaching with a referral source or others without her permission, except where disclosure may be required by law.
What I bring to this work
I bring three things to this work: professional coaching training, years of experience coaching women through divorce, annulment, and the seasons that follow, and lived experience of these seasons myself.
I’m a Certified Professional life Coach, trained through an International Coaching Federation-accredited program with the Professional Christian Coaching Institute.
I’ve also walked through my own divorce and annulment, raising our daughters through the aftermath, lived the waiting and the “now what?” that followed, and years later entered the very different season of dating again to discern marriage.
That combination matters.
Priests and many of the therapists or coaches who walk with women through this, haven’t been through a divorce or annulment personally. Because I have, the intersection of lived and professional experience gives me a particular ability to understand the human complexities of these seasons while respecting the boundaries of the Catholic faith.
Women regularly tell me that simply knowing they don’t have to explain this particular terrain from the beginning brings a sense of relief.
ways to refer her
Complimentary Introduction
A low-pressure first step. She’s welcome to send a message or book a time, whatever feels right for her.
www.andyarbie.com/connect
Clarity Session
A focused 75-minute phone session and where most women begin.
It’s a good fit when she has a particular decision, question or situation
she wants to think through with someone who. understands this season.
www.andyarbie.com/clarity
Six months of private coaching, beginning with an application and short conversation so we can both confirm it’s the right fit, for a woman who knows there’s something she wants to be different and is ready for consistent support as she begins living toward it.
www.andyarbie.com/foundation
You don’t need to determine which option she needs before referring her. You’re welcome simply to send her my way, and I’ll help her determine the most appropriate starting point.
She can also begin by listening. Several episodes of my podcast, Own your Revival, are available anytime wherever they listen, with no waiting and no commitment. I often hear from women that after one episode, they felt like someone finally understood the particular space they were living in.
a note on scope
I follow applicable legal and professional obligations regarding situations in which disclosure or reporting may be required.
My hours are intentionally limited so I can give each woman real attention. I’d rather be a dependable resource than an overextended one.
I entrust this work to Saint Helena, patron of divorced people.
refer a woman or ask a question
andyarbie.com/connect
andy@andyarbie.com
Andy Arbie · Certified Professional Life Coach · St. Joseph Parish, Diocese of Lincoln