About Me

My name is Kristen M. Ploetz and my experience with divorce is both personal and professional.

Ending a long-term marriage, especially one with children, results in a lot of emotions, and I have experienced them all.

At the age of 49, after being married to a wonderful man for more than twenty years, I made one of the hardest decisions of my life: I ended our marriage. Neither of us had done anything wrong and our marriage—our lives together—checked all the boxes. But over time I realized that my head and heart needed to be with a woman. I reached the hard truth that I needed to leave the marriage even though it would completely upend my spouse’s life, our daughter’s, and my own.

Going through the process of divorce and losing the label of “spouse” is challenging enough, but perhaps more so when you are also simultaneously coming out as LGBTQ+ because even more of your identity—the you you and everyone else thought they knew—is now also on display.

I am also a child of divorce myself: my parents separated the summer before I started college and divorced not long after.

Professionally, I have been a licensed attorney for more than 20 years. Most recently, I practiced as a family law attorney and mediator. My clients and their divorces ranged from amicable to high conflict, and I supported each of them in the different ways they needed as they walked the path toward their new lives.

I became a divorce coach to help other women like me, those of us in midlife wanting or needing a change, no matter what the stakes may be. My areas of coaching expertise include:

• Understanding relationship dynamics within the LGBTQ+ community, especially for women coming out later in life
• Helping women decide whether to leave a marriage and make other high-stakes choices
• Appreciating the nuances that accompany ending long-term marriages
• Working toward what will be in the best interests of a couple’s children
• Navigating short-term and long-term goals of divorcing clients
• Preparing clients to work efficiently and strategically with their divorce attorneys

If you are contemplating divorce, let’s work together and find out what lies ahead for you.