If someone you love is getting divorced
Every other page on this site is written for the person in the divorce. This one is written for you — the friend, the sister, the parent, the neighbour standing next to them, trying to work out what actually helps.
You have probably already said “let me know if you need anything.” They will not let you know. Not because they do not need anything, but because working out what to ask for, and then asking for it, is one more decision in a year made entirely of decisions.
One is a kindness that costs them something to accept. The other is just help.
“I’m sorry. I’m here.” That is a complete sentence, and it is usually enough.
Ask how they are, then stop talking. You cannot fix it, and you are not being asked to. Most people carrying this are desperate for five minutes in which nobody offers a strategy.
Follow their lead on detail. Some people want to tell you everything. Some would rather talk about anything else and be treated like a person for an hour. Both are normal, often in the same week, from the same person.
“I never liked them anyway.” It feels like loyalty. It lands badly twice over: sometimes people reconcile, and then you are the friend who said that — and even when they do not, you have just told someone who gave years of their life to that person that you thought they were a fool the whole time.
“At least…” At least you got the house. At least there were no children. Nothing useful has ever followed those two words.
“Everything happens for a reason.” Not yet. Possibly not ever.
“You seem to be handling it so well.” Often heard as please do not stop handling it well in front of me.
Anything beginning “you should”. They have a lawyer, or they are trying to afford one. They do not need a second.
The things that help most are dull. That is the point — dull is what has collapsed.
- Food. Turning up with it. Not a voucher, not a plan to cook together one day. Food, at the door, that goes in the oven.
- Childcare that is not a favour. “I’m taking them Saturday morning” lets someone sleep, cry, or sit with paperwork without a child in the room.
- Transport. To the court, the lawyer, the viewing. Sitting in a car park for an hour is an enormous gift.
- Sitting beside them with the paperwork. Not doing it for them. Beside them. The dread of the envelope is usually worse than the envelope.
- A spare room, if you have one and mean it. Say at the start how long it is available for. Vagueness here hurts everyone later.
- Keeping the invitations coming. This one matters more than the rest put together, and it is the one people stop doing.
If you want to know what they actually need for a second household — the things nobody thinks of until the first night in an empty flat — there is a list of it here: the two-household list. It is the clearest answer to “what can I get them?” on this site.
On money. If you can help, be specific, and say at the time whether it is a gift or a loan. Money between people who love each other goes wrong most often when nobody said which it was. If you cannot help financially, say so early and without embarrassment — an unanswered hope is worse than a clear no.
This is where a friend or a grandparent does real good, and also real damage without ever meaning to.
Be the boring, steady adult. Children in this get plenty of intensity. What they are short of is somebody exactly the same as last year. Same greeting, same jokes, same Tuesday.
Do not ask them questions about the divorce. Not “how’s your mum doing?”, not “does your dad have someone new?” Nothing that makes a child a source of information. They can feel it, and it teaches them that adults want something from them now.
Never say anything about either parent in front of them. Not a sigh, not a look, not “well, we all know whose fault that was.” A child hearing a parent criticised hears half of themselves criticised, and will remember who said it long after forgetting what was said.
Do not carry messages either way. A child who becomes a messenger becomes responsible for how the message is received.
Keep whatever is yours with them. The Sunday swim, the baking, the film you always watch. Continuity from outside the household is worth more than anything you could say inside it.
Let them be fine. Children often are, for long stretches, and then are not, at odd moments. Treating a child as fragile at all times is its own burden.
Support arrives in the first month and thins out by the fourth. The hard part usually starts around then.
The early weeks are a crisis, and a crisis attracts people. What follows is longer and much quieter: the first birthday alone, the first Christmas negotiation, the day the house sells, a Tuesday in February with nothing particular wrong with it.
Put it in your calendar. Genuinely. A reminder six months out to call. Another at a year. Nobody else will still be doing it, which is exactly why it will matter.
Keep inviting them even when they keep saying no. They will say no a great deal, and they will be counting the invitations. The day they say yes is the day the invitations stopped being about the evening and started being about not having been forgotten.
You are allowed to stay friends with both. You are not obliged to choose, and anyone demanding that you do is asking for something they have no right to.
- Do not carry information between them. Not gossip, not schedules, not “she seemed alright, actually.” Nothing.
- Do not let either of them use you to send a message.
- Do not take a public side, and never repeat to one what the other told you in confidence.
If it becomes impossible, it is usually because one of them made it impossible. That is worth noticing quietly rather than announcing.
Say what you see, plainly and kindly. “I’ve noticed you’re not sleeping and you’re not eating. I’m worried about you.” That is not an intrusion, and people very rarely mind having been asked.
Offer to help them find someone — a doctor, a therapist, a support group — and to sit with them while they make the call. Being in the room is often what turns an intention into an appointment.
If someone tells you they are frightened of their partner, believe them. Do not challenge the ex, do not turn up to confront anybody, and do not push a plan they have not asked for. Leaving is the most dangerous moment in an abusive relationship, and the person living it understands the timing better than you do. Ask what would help. Keep the door open. Keep answering the phone.
If anyone is in immediate danger, that is a call to emergency services, not a conversation.
- Bring food. Name a day.
- Ask, then be quiet.
- Say nothing about their ex in front of the children.
- Do not carry messages.
- Still be calling in eight months.
This page offers practical guidance rather than findings. It carries no statistics, and cites no study, because we have not read one we would be willing to put our name to here. Where this site states a figure, it names the source and the date it was checked. This page states none.