What People Don’t Understand about working with a High-conflict divorce coach with Rina Groeneveld
From the outside, divorce can seem simple: paperwork, court dates, and moving on. But as Rina Groeneveld, a High-conflict divorce coach, knows from working with countless clients, the reality is far more complicated. Here’s what most people don’t understand about divorce.
Rina, can you introduce yourself—your name, role, and how you support people during divorce?
I'm Rina Groeneveld, a CDC Certified Divorce Coach® and One Moms Battle High Conflict Divorce Coach. I work with protective moms who are divorcing or in a custody battle with a coercive controller and are going through hell in and out of family court. I help them communicate strategically, document abuse effectively, manage their emotional responses, and show up in court as a calm, credible parent.
I write a weekly newsletter read by hundreds of protective parents dealing with high-conflict divorce, custody battles, and post-separation abuse. Each issue translates complex frameworks like coercive control, court strategy, communication tactics, and many more into practical, actionable guidance for people who are in the thick of it and need real help, not ranting or platitudes.
I'm also the author of AI Armor: Your Digital Defense Solution for Coparenting with a Narcissist. The book draws on my experience as a victim of post-separation abuse and my expertise as a divorce coach, translator, and communication expert to help victims of post-separation abuse use AI as an effective strategic thinking partner.
Why did you choose to specialize in divorce work?
I didn't choose this work. It chose me. I left my abusive husband in 2012 after nearly 25 years together. What followed our separation— revenge porn, smear campaigns against me, financial abuse, litigation abuse, being forced to fend alone for my children and me in Canada when my ex left the country—opened my eyes to the reality of high-conflict divorce.
I built a six-figure translation business from scratch while fighting him in court and raising four kids. When I started a small venting group with two friends, it grew into a local online support group that now has over 300 members. I realized that I needed tools to help my group members, so I trained as a divorce coach.
In your experience, what’s the #1 thing people don’t understand about divorce?
That when you're divorcing a coercive controller, the divorce doesn't end the abuse. It escalates it. The family court system becomes the abuser's new weapon. Child support, custody schedules, parenting coordination all get turned into tools of control. People assume divorce is a clean break. For survivors of coercive control, it's the start of a new and often more dangerous chapter.
What are some common myths you see (from TV, movies, or general assumptions) that just aren’t true?
People think that the court will "figure it out" and protect the children. Courts aren't equipped to identify coercive control. Even in places where the laws are changing to acknowledge coercive control, judges are often focused on evidence of physical violence, not the years of psychological warfare that preceded it.
Another myth is that if you're telling the truth, you'll be believed. Truth without strategy rarely wins in family court. And the most damaging myth of all is one that court experts all too frequently believe: that a good co-parenting relationship is always possible. You cannot co-parent with someone who uses your children as leverage.
What do friends and family often misunderstand about supporting someone going through divorce?
They want it to be over, so they encourage the person to move on or stop engaging. What they don't realize is that when children are involved, you can't disengage. Your ex has court-mandated access to you for years. Friends and family also tend to see the charming, reasonable version of the abuser and often assume that the problem is on both sides. That can be devastating for someone already being gaslit by their ex and the legal system simultaneously.
What do clients often wish they had known earlier in the process?
That every communication with their ex is a legal document. Every email, every text, every voicemail. The people who understand this from the start protect themselves so much better than those who spend the first year venting in writing to an abuser who is screen-shotting everything. I always say: write as if you're writing to the judge, and cc'ing the narcissist. If you wouldn't want a judge to read it, don't send it.
They also wish they had understood earlier that the goal isn't to get their ex to cooperate, admit wrongdoing, or behave reasonably. That hope keeps people stuck in a cycle of provocation and reaction that their ex is very deliberately engineering. The sooner you accept that you are dealing with someone who has no interest in resolution, and only wants to control you, the sooner you can stop playing their game and start playing your own.
And almost universally, they wish they had started documenting sooner. Not just saving messages, but building a clear, organized, factual record that tells a coherent story to someone who knows nothing about their situation. Too often, victims are told "just leave" without being given any inkling that the abuse will continue. The most successful of my clients are the ones who researched what happens after you leave an abuser and started shifting gears and being strategic right away.
How do emotions, finances, and legal realities often clash in ways people don’t expect?
Your emotional need for acknowledgment is in direct conflict with your legal strategy. Every time you try to get your ex to admit what they did or validate you, or give you closure, you hand them ammunition. You have to learn to respond in ways that are counter-intuitive and totally the opposite of how you'd respond if your ex was a normal person, acting in good faith.
Financially, your ex knows that litigation costs you money you may not have, and they use that. They file motions not because they'll win, but because it drains you. They would rather throw away the cost of your children's future and their life savings in a protracted legal battle than let you get even one cent of it.
Legally, the system is set up as if both parties are operating in good faith. When one of them isn't, the whole thing breaks down, and the reasonable parent pays the price. Judges assume that both parents are equally responsible for a high-conflict situation, even though it's a continuation of domestic violence. They look for the most credible parent. A domestic violence victim, with their trauma response, often doesn't fit this mold, while an abuser can come across as charming, credible, and persuasive.
From your perspective, what makes divorce harder than people imagine?
The loneliness of not being believed. The people closest to you start to get compassion fatigue. The court professionals may not understand what they're looking at. You're expected to perform wellness and stability while someone is actively trying to destroy your life. And you have to do all of this while being a present, emotionally available parent to children who are being caught in the middle.
What's more, abuse victims have already been broken down by the time they get to divorce. Years of coercive control, with the gaslighting, the isolation, the financial abuse, the constant erosion of their confidence and sense of reality, mean they're starting this process from a deficit. They're expected to navigate one of the most complex legal and emotional experiences of their life while they're dealing with trauma responses that the other side will use against them. Hypervigilance gets labeled as paranoia. Emotional dysregulation gets labeled as instability. The symptoms of the abuse become evidence against the victim.
What makes it easier, once people understand it better?
Shifting from reactive to strategic. The moment a client stops trying to get their ex to understand or admit anything, and starts focusing entirely on how they appear to the decision-makers, and how they relate to their children, everything changes. You can't control your ex. You can control your documentation, your communication style, how you interact with your children, and your presentation. That's where your power lies.
How do you guide clients through these hidden truths?
I help them depersonalize the chaos. When you understand that your ex's behavior follows a predictable pattern, not because you provoked it, but because that's who they are, it stops feeling like something you need to fix.
We work on communication strategy, documentation habits, court presentation, and the mindset shifts that make all of it sustainable.
I've been where they are, so I'm able to enter their emotional world and validate them. At the same time, I don't allow them to spin off into catastrophizing or self-blame. I help them pivot back to strategic thinking and focusing on their end goal.
My aim is to empower my clients to walk out of this process knowing they did everything they could to protect themselves and their children, and that they did it with integrity. Not just to survive their divorce or custody battle, but to come out on the other side with their sense of self intact, ready to build the life they and their children deserve.
What’s one message you wish every person could hear about divorce?
Self-insight is your most powerful tool in this process. Knowing your triggers, understanding your patterns, recognizing when you're being manipulated all give you the foundation everything else is built on. The clients who make the most progress aren't necessarily the ones with the best lawyers or the most evidence. They're the ones who know themselves well enough to stay grounded when their ex is doing everything possible to destabilize them.
Thank you Rina for sharing your wisdom and experience with the Fresh Starts community! You can learn more about their work by checking out Rina’s profile below!
Please note that the blogpost above does not represent the thoughts or opinions of Fresh Start Registry and solely represents the original author’s perspective.
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