In this short video, I talk about what a separation does to a dad, and how you can stay close to your children while rebuilding your own life.
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Online divorced fathers therapy is for the father whose separation or divorce has reshaped his family, his home and the hours he gets with his children. The sessions are yours alone: 1-hour video meetings with 50 minutes of therapy, in English, set at a time that works with your access schedule and your time zone.
I help you carry the grief, the handovers and the difficult exchanges, so you can stay present for your children and grounded in yourself. I give no legal advice, and I do not take sides between parents. You will find it beneath online therapy for fathers, inside my online psychotherapy for men. If you are still together and your baby is very young, online new fathers therapy fits better.
Whether this is a week with the children or without them, you can ask for a free 30-minute call, book a session, read my client policy or get in touch.
Online divorced fathers therapy is for separated or divorced fathers who are struggling with what the split has done to them and to their time with their children. You may ache for your kids, dread the changeovers or feel nudged to the margins of their lives.
Separation raises many questions, and some belong somewhere else. If a line below is nearer the mark, its link will serve you better.
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These reviews describe clients’ experiences of working with me. They come from my wider practice and do not all relate to online sessions. Each person’s experience is their own, and a review does not promise a particular outcome.
“Since I began studying men’s work in 2010, I have grown convinced that separated fathers misjudge one thing above all: how much their children need them steady rather than impressive. Some dads try to win back lost time by becoming the parent of treats and adventures. Others drift away because every goodbye stings too much. Both moves are human, and both miss what matters. Under the surface a father often asks ‘Am I turning into a guest in my own children’s lives?’, and in the same breath orders himself ‘Hide it, they must never see how much this hurts.’ My view is that children can bear their father’s sadness far more easily than his absence.”
Mark Colclough, MA, psychotherapist and EFT couples therapist
I am Mark Colclough, MA. I have practised since 2004 and offer online psychotherapy and couples therapy in English.
My training brings together your emotions, your thoughts and your relationships. My deep passion is the moment when what happens between you finally makes sense, to each of you and to each other. I have lived and worked in nine countries, so I know something of life across languages, cultures and borders.
Read about my background, or explore online psychotherapy and online couples therapy.
I meet regularly with experienced psychotherapists to reflect on my work, question my understanding and develop my skills. Supervision is part of the professional care I bring to individual and couples work, including online sessions.
My focus is thoughtful practice, integrity and responsibility.
You are welcome to ask about the kind of support you need.
Tell me where you are based and your time zone. We can then consider whether online sessions together are suitable.
Isaac is 43, a quantity surveyor from Leeds who has lived in Berlin for 14 years. He and his wife separated last autumn, and their children, 6 and 10, live mainly with her. He has them every other weekend and on Wednesday evenings. On those days he cooks, plays football in the courtyard and checks spelling lists. The rest of the week he works late and eats crisps for dinner. His older boy has gone quiet on Wednesdays, and Isaac has nobody to tell.
I would start with the days between visits, because that is where Isaac’s grief has nowhere to go. In a first video session he would probably see that shielding his children from his sadness is right, and that he also needs one place where the loss is allowed.
I have presented this clinical example as a compound of 22 years of clinical practice.
You have held it together for the children and kept things civil with their mother, and the loss still lands on you week after week.
You do not have to wait for a breakdown or a court hearing. If the separation is affecting your sleep, your patience, your work or the time with your children, that is reason enough. Over 22 years I have seen many fathers wear a brave face for years after a divorce while the grief went underground.
A separated father needs his own space, apart from the logistics of co-parenting and the legal questions. The 6 questions below are the signs I look for in dads after a split.
For many separated fathers they are. With the children there is noise, purpose and a timetable. Without them the evenings stretch, and you may fill them with work, a screen, a few drinks or nothing much. The morning after a changeover is often the lowest point of the week.
I would look with you at what those days contain and what you do with the feelings, which tells us whether you are adjusting or stuck. If the empty days sound like this, book a session with me.
Both pulls are real. Part of you wants to fight for your seat at your children’s table. Another wants calm for them and fears any push will make things worse, so you swing between firm messages and backing down.
Neither part is wrong. One guards your bond with the children, the other guards them from conflict. I help you hear both, so you act from a clear head. Legal questions belong with a lawyer or the family courts where you live. Our work is about you and how you carry this.
Many divorced dads live with this fear. A child who is quiet on a video call, a teenager who prefers to stay with friends, a mention of life at the other house, and it feels like proof. So you plan harder, ask more questions or test their loyalty without meaning to.
Wanting to stay close is legitimate, and I will not shame it. I help you settle the fear enough to meet your children as they are. Children tend to stay near a father who remains steady and curious about them.
This is very common. All week you look forward to them, then feel irritable or flat when they arrive, or you cannot relax because the goodbye is already on its way. Closeness feels precious and painful together.
I help you trace what sets this off, often dread of the next changeover, guilt or anger with nowhere else to go. I meet these reactions with understanding, and I will still ask you to own their effect on the children.
Many fathers do. A note about dates or money arrives, and you go cold, answer in a word or leave it unanswered for days. That distance spares you more hurt and words you would regret, yet it can leave important things unsaid.
I will not shame your need for distance. I help you find a calm, brief way to talk about the children without being pulled into old fights. I will never take sides against your children’s mother. The focus is how you stay steady.
A divorce can shake a man to the foundations. You may feel you failed your family, that you are now a part-time dad, or that life has shrunk to work and alternate weekends. Shame and self-doubt are common and rarely spoken.
Sam Keen, in “Fire in the Belly”, shows how a man’s worth gets welded to his job and his successes, and maps a way towards a broader manhood that makes space for feeling, friendship and tenderness. That fuller man is often the very father children need after a divorce. I help you work out what you want to stand for now, with direction rather than a script.
If your weeks as a separated dad look like this, ask for a free call to talk it over, or book a session if you already know you want to begin.
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Tell me briefly what kind of support you are looking for.
Include your country and time zone so we can discuss whether online work together is possible and find a suitable time.
You do not need to explain your whole story in your first message.
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Understanding the divorce matters, and you also need to change how you handle the changeovers, the empty days and the messages.
Our work will help you understand what the separation has stirred in you, spot the patterns that keep repeating and make changes your children can feel. Insight alone does not get you through a tense handover. The work has to reach the doorstep.
I take an active part: I say what I see, ask direct questions and challenge stories that keep you stuck or bitter. I have been a student of men’s work since 2010, and it has added to and deepened my training as a psychotherapist. Eli Buren, a dear friend and mentor, has been a central influence. My own view, from my practice, is that a separated father needs other men he can talk to. These 6 questions show what we work towards.
Related reading: My wife wants a divorce and I don’t. What now? and How will I know when to get a divorce?.
I help you find the real weight under the calendars and the messages. Dates, money and logistics are real, and often they carry something deeper: grief for the family you had, guilt about the children, fear of being replaced, or anger that has never found a safe place.
I give you my honest reading and challenge lines like “I am fine, it is only practical”. If you want to look beneath the logistics, book a session with me.
You can learn to see it coming. The night before a changeover, a message from your ex or an empty chair at dinner can start it: a tight chest, racing thoughts, the line “I am losing them”. Seeing it early lets you meet the changeover differently.
In sessions we walk slowly through a recent handover, finding what set you off and what the reaction protected. Then we practise a calmer way through, so the next one is about your children rather than your pain.
Staying calm is not hiding everything. It means being present enough to choose how you respond. Children can cope with a dad who is sometimes sad. What unsettles them is a dad who explodes or disappears.
I help you notice when you are flooding and find concrete ways to slow down before and after a handover, such as a short walk, a set routine or a few minutes in the car before you go in. You practise these between our sessions.
Co-parenting messages go better when you know which part of the exchange is truly yours. After a split, practical notes carry old hurt, so they turn sharp, or you give in to avoid a fight.
I help you find words that are short, respectful and specific, about the children and nothing else. I challenge both silence and point-scoring. I give no legal advice, and I will not help you build a case against your children’s mother. I help you stay steady.
Choices about schedules, schools, a move to another city or country, or introducing a new partner get clearer once you separate guilt, fear and outside pressure from what you know about your children and yourself.
Together we lay each path out and look at its demands on you and on them. I will give you a straight opinion, and I will name it if you seem to be dodging the real issue. The decision is yours, and legal decisions belong with a lawyer.
Change has to reach past our sessions. It may mean a home your children feel is theirs too, simple rituals for arriving and leaving, a life on your own days that nourishes you, other fathers to talk to, and a calmer way of dealing with their mother.
I help you choose what to change and what to protect. The aim is not to be a perfect father but a reliable one, recognisably himself whether the children are with him or not.
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You do not need to have it all sorted. We start with how you and your children are doing now.
In the first sessions, I listen for what the separation has cost you most as a father and give our work a direction. Your whole history can come later.
This is focused online psychotherapy, structured individual work. Online divorce therapy helps people decide on and carry out a separation, while this page is for the father after the split, with the focus on you and your children. If you and your ex both want joint work and a future together, online couples therapy offers long-term relational development and healing. To fix sessions around the children’s schedule, a therapy bundle gives real savings and an agreed plan.
I will want to know what happened, how the care arrangement runs, what an ordinary fortnight looks like and where you most need support. Every detail of the divorce can wait.
At the close of the hour, I tell you what I see in your situation and where I would suggest we go, and you decide whether that is useful. If a talk first suits you better, request a free 30-minute call.
Individual work fits almost every separated father, because the questions now concern you: your grief, your fathering, your new life. We can talk about your children and their mother in depth with nobody else on the call.
I keep the thread across the weeks with and without the children, and tell you honestly what I notice. Online psychotherapy describes my individual work more broadly.
Joint work can make sense when you both want to try again, or to understand together what went wrong, and both are willing to take part. Reconciliation is only the goal if it is what you both choose.
As an EFT couples therapist, I help 2 people see the cycle between them and take responsibility for their share. Online couples therapy is long-term relational development and healing. When the willingness is yours alone, start with sessions for yourself.
Many fathers find that sessions on the days without their children work well, every second week, when there is room to think. In a hard stretch, weekly sessions help more.
I will tell you if the gaps are too long, or when it is fine to space them out. If your schedule is tight, a few sessions can sit back-to-back over a couple of days.
Choose a bundle once you know this will take more than a handful of sessions. It fits a rhythm of alternating weeks or weekends, and spares you deciding after every session whether to go on.
It brings real savings and a fixed plan alongside the children’s schedule, and I will help you judge whether one fits. Therapy discounts and bundles sets each one out, and the cards lower down sum them up.
It has done its job when the days without your children feel like your life rather than a waiting room, the changeovers are calmer and your children have a steady father in both homes.
We check together, out loud, whether you still need the sessions, and I have no wish to keep you longer than is useful. Sessions can thin out, pause or end. Coming back when a child hits a new stage, such as the teenage years, is simply part of parenting across 2 homes.
Not sure this is the right place to start? The table sets it next to the routes separated dads usually look at.
| Option | Choose it when | Pace |
|---|---|---|
| Online divorced fathers therapy (this page) | You are a separated father and want help with yourself and your place in your children’s lives. | Every second week, often on days without the children |
| Online therapy for men after divorce or breakup | Your own life after the break is the main issue, with or without children. | Weekly 1-hour video sessions at first |
| Online divorce therapy | The separation is not yet settled, and you want help to do it well. | A planned course of video sessions |
| Online therapy for fathers | You are not separated, and fatherhood itself is the strain. | 1-hour video sessions on your own |
It is individual psychotherapy by video, in English, for separated or divorced fathers who are struggling with the loss, the new arrangements and their place in their children’s lives. The aim is to mourn what has gone, keep your balance and share parenting without your judgement clouded.
The whole man is part of the work, your past and your own dad included. I do not give legal advice. It sits within online therapy for fathers.
Get in touch once the split is colouring your mood, your drinking, your job or how you are with the kids, or once months have gone by with no easing.
I look at how isolated you are, how the days without the children go and whether the grief is moving. Dads who reach out sooner usually find it easier to keep the bond with their children strong.
Yes, in the part that is in your hands: being steady, present and interested when you are with them. Changing the custody arrangement is not something I can do, and legal advice is outside my work. What I offer is steady work on you, which children usually feel quickly.
In my clinical experience, closeness rarely goes to the dad with the busiest itinerary. It goes to the one who can be plain, occasionally sad and utterly dependable.
No. I stand with you as a person, and with your children, who need both of their parents. Building a case against their mother, or blaming her, is not part of what I do. That helps neither you nor them.
What I will do is help you make sense of your own anger and pain, and guard your relationship with the children so that they are not left holding the conflict.
Because closeness and loss are tangled together now. Fighting for time protects your place. Falling silent shields you from the ache of the next farewell. Many fathers do both, and it is not a flaw.
We look at what stirs in you as changeover day nears, and you practise staying fully there until the very end of each visit. Children notice the difference.
We open with the present: the care arrangement, the shape of your weeks and the toughest moments. I might also ask about your own dad and how conflict was handled at home, since that tends to mark how a man shares parenting. You leave knowing how I read the situation and where we could begin.
There is nothing to prepare. Choose a session time that fits your fortnight, or begin with a free call.
Expect several months, usually meeting every other week. Many fathers feel steadier within a few sessions. Heavier grief, or a conflict that keeps reigniting, takes more time.
I prefer to agree a first block of sessions, timed around your time with the children, and then look back on it with you. At that review you choose with me whether to continue.
Yes, though you may prefer to keep sessions for the days the children are away, so the hour is fully yours. If you need a session during your time with them, choose an hour when they are at school or asleep, and use headphones.
Video suits separated fathers well because it follows you through moves, travel and a changing schedule. If your children live in another country, we can talk about long-distance fathering too. Times show in your own time zone, and a free call can settle any doubts.
Sessions are individual psychotherapy, 1-hour video sessions with 50 minutes of therapy each. For the current fee in US dollars, see my prices page.
Booking a block of sessions as a bundle cuts 10 per cent and gives you a set plan, explained on therapy discounts and bundles.
Book a first session for yourself as a separated father, or request a free 30-minute call if you want to talk first. A line about your situation is enough.
If you need a slot that works around the children’s schedule, send me a message and we will arrange it. If the split is very recent and you are struggling to function, I hold some room for acute situations, usually a time within days, described on acute online psychotherapy. Choose a time, and we start where you are.
You can also send me an email
I want therapy to help you understand your experience and make choices you can use in everyday life. We pay attention to feelings, needs and the responses that happen before you have time to think.
Our online room should offer enough trust and honesty to explore what is difficult. I bring attention and professional judgement. You bring your experience, questions and the right to say when something does not fit.
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P.S. I’ll call you in a bit!
