This is a guest contribution from Brooklyn Solicitors.
Divorce rarely arrives at a convenient moment. For most working professionals, it lands right in the middle of peak career years — when you're chasing a promotion, leading a team, building a reputation, or trying to make partner. The emotional weight is hard enough on its own. The fact that you're expected to keep performing at work while it's happening can feel completely unfair.
The good news is that plenty of people have walked this path before you, and most come out on the other side with their careers intact. Some come out even stronger. The trick is being deliberate — about what you share, how you manage your time, when you make decisions, and where you go for help.
Here's what actually works.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Decide who needs to know and keep it short
You don't owe your employer a story. You also don't have to pretend nothing is happening. Most people land somewhere in the middle, and that's the right place to be.
The minimum is usually a quiet conversation with your direct manager, especially if you'll need time off for hearings, mediation, or meetings with your lawyer. You don't need to share details. Something as simple as "I'm going through a personal matter that may need some flexibility over the next few months — I'll keep you posted" is plenty enough. Most managers will respect that and won't push.
Avoid the temptation to vent to colleagues. It feels good for ten minutes and then becomes office gossip. Keep one or two trusted people in your work circle who can also be part of your support system, and spare everyone else from the details.
If your HR team is good, loop them in too — particularly if you'll need flexible hours or access to mental health support. You don't have to say "divorce." "Family matter" is enough.
Use the employee benefits you're already paying for
This is the bit most people forget. If your company has an Employee Assistance Program, use it. EAPs are now standard at the majority of mid-size and large US employers. The Society for Human Resource Management’s survey shows 82% of employers offer EAPs — and most include free counselling sessions, legal advice helplines, financial guidance, and sometimes access to mediation services. They’re confidential, and HR doesn't see your usage.
Many employers also offer some form of compassionate or personal leave. It might not be called "divorce leave" — but a sympathetic line manager and HR team can usually find a way to give you paid time off when you need to attend court hearings or a difficult mediation session.
Where you stand legally depends on where you work. In the US, there's no federal entitlement to get time off for divorce proceedings themselves, but the Family and Medical Leave Act can apply when you and your child are dealing with a serious health condition, including mental health treatment, and many employers will accommodate court dates through personal days or flexible scheduling if you ask. In the UK, ACAS publishes clear guidance on time off and flexible working rights if you want to know where you stand before having the conversation.
If your workplace has a designated mental health resource or peer supporter, talk to them. If your insurance covers therapy, use it. The worst thing you can do is grind through this without any support and burn out three months in. Look for online help. The American Psychological Association has good free resources on managing the stress of separation and divorce, and Mental Health at Work offers the equivalent for UK readers. Both are sensible places to start for employees and managers alike.
Protect your focus on work days
Divorce eats brain space. You'll find yourself losing twenty minutes to a stray text from your ex, or reading the same paragraph three times because nothing sinks in when you can’t concentrate. That's normal — it's not a sign you're falling apart. But if you don't manage it, your work side will suffer, and that will add a stress layer you really don't need.
Here are a few tips that genuinely help.
Time-block the personal stuff. Set two short windows in the day, say 12:30pm and 5:30pm, when you check messages from your ex, your lawyer, or anyone else involved. Outside those windows, do not look. The world will not end.
Move the legal stuff out of work hours. Schedule lawyer calls before work, at lunchtime, or after hours where possible. Don't take them to your desk.
Say no to activities you don't have to do. This isn’t the year to volunteer for the extra committee, the after-work drinks, or the optional travel. Save your bandwidth.
Sleep, somehow. This is the unglamorous part. Your quality of sleep can make the biggest difference between staying functional and falling apart during a divorce. If your sleep is a mess, you need to fix it first, before you even attend to the legal side. Look into meditating to help yourself fall asleep faster. In worst cases, you can consult a sleep therapist to get professional help.
Don't make big career decisions in the middle of it
This one is hard because divorce often makes people want to change everything. Quit the job. Move to another city. Start the side business they've been thinking about for years.
Resist for now. The general rule from career coaches and therapists alike is to avoid major irreversible career moves during the most acute six months of a separation. Your judgment is not at its best, your finances are in flux, and your support network is in upheaval. Adding a job change on top of all that is rarely the right call.
The exception is if your current job is itself a major source of harm, like if you have a toxic manager, an impossible workload during a crisis, or a role that's actively making your mental health worse. In that case, the calculation is different. But "I want to escape" is not the same as "I need to leave."
Sort the financial and legal sides early & thoroughly
Staying steady at work is closely tied to getting the legal piece right. Financial uncertainty is a huge part of what makes divorce so disruptive to anyone’s career. The faster you understand where you truly stand — what's likely to be split, how pensions and retirement accounts are affected, what happens to your properties — the faster the work side of your brain can settle.
Getting proper specialist advice early in the process matters more than most people realize. A general practitioner who handles a bit of everything is not the same as a family law specialist who does this every day. If your situation involves anything more complex than the simplest case — a business, a pension worth protecting, jointly held property, children, or any kind of international element — speak to a specialist who handles those cases regularly.
There are law firms, like Brookman Solicitors, that focus exclusively on family law, with experienced lawyers that specialize on divorce cases and have constantly witnessed the difference an early specialist advice makes — particularly in cross-border cases where careers, assets or families span more than one country. The cost of getting the right advice up front is almost always lower than the cost of fixing things later.
Look after yourself, not just your calendar
Career-focused people are very good at managing diaries and tasks, but they’re also often bad at noticing when they haven't eaten properly, exercised, or seen a friend in three weeks.
The basics matter most when everything else is hard. Eat three healthy meals a day. Engage in recreational activities — or just take walks. You’ll have to see people who don't want anything from you. Cry when you need to, but resist the urge to drink too much, scroll too much, or work too late.
You’ll get through this. The work side will hold steady longer than you expect, especially if you put even just a few of these guardrails in place. Most people, six to twelve months after the worst of it, look back and realize their career didn't fall off a cliff after all — and in many cases, emerged clearer, sharper, and more focused on what truly matters.
Be kind to yourself in the meantime.