Counseling for Women After Divorce in North Carolina
online therapy with Dr. Emily Fornwalt
Photo Credits: Valeris Nikitina; Unsplash
“i feel so alone.”
“i can’t do this by myself anymore.”
“what’s next?”
You’ve Lost You…
Before the Divorce, You knew Exactly Who You Were. Now You’re Not So Sure.
Before the divorce, you had a clear picture of your life: a career on track, a marriage that looked solid from the outside, kids who were doing well. You were the friend who gave the advice, the colleague who delivered, the mom who showed up for everything.
Now you’re standing in the kitchen at 6am with your coffee going cold, staring at a custody calendar that makes your stomach drop, and the person who used to have a plan for everything can’t decide what to make for dinner.
Maybe ending the marriage was your decision, made slowly and for good reasons, and the grief surprised you anyway, with guilt arriving every time you feel relieved. Maybe the decision was made without you, and you’re still replaying the day everything changed. Either way, you keep waiting to feel like yourself again, and the waiting isn’t working.
You’re a woman who solves problems: you research, you plan, you execute. So you’ve treated the divorce like another project, and it’s the first project that hasn’t responded to effort.
Learn more about how I work with divorcing and divorced women.
The Reality of Your Post-Divorce Days
You snapped at your kids twice before school, after promising yourself you’d be patient today. One couldn’t find her shoes, one spilled cereal, and suddenly you were yelling about neither of those. You drive to work composing an apology text you’ll probably never send.
A text from your ex arrives about switching weekends, and it’s a reasonable request, but you spend twenty minutes drafting a reply that sounds calm and cooperative, delete it, and start over three more times.
It’s 2am and you’re re-arguing a fight from years ago, supplying the lines you didn’t think of at the time, aware the outcome changes nothing and unable to stop.
Your daughter asks if you’re happy, and you want to protect her, be honest, and model something healthy all at once, so you change the subject and spend the evening wishing you hadn’t.
Friends keep telling you how strong you are, and you smile and thank them while thinking about the crying in the car and the mornings when getting out of bed took everything you had.
Or there are no kids in this story at all, just a house with too many quiet rooms and a calendar full of weekends that that stay empty unless you plan something yourself.
Why the Usual Fixes Aren't Working
You’ve done what capable women do in a crisis: read the books, queued the podcasts, downloaded the apps, made the lists. Maybe you even tried therapy once, and sat there talking about your childhood while privately wondering what any of it had to do with the fact that you can’t sleep and your kids are struggling.
None of that failure is about effort. Your methods work on problems with steps, and a divorce is a loss: the marriage, the future you’d planned inside it, the person you were inside it. A loss can’t be completed like a project. It has to be grieved, and grief brings up the emotions you’ve been postponing for years: sadness in the grocery store, anger that arrives late and stays, guilt that shows up the moment you feel relief. All of it applies whether the divorce happened to you or you chose it.
your life can change after divorce counseling
You respond to your kids instead of reacting. The morning chaos doesn’t disappear, but when the shoes go missing you help look for them, and when your son melts down about going to your ex’s house, you can sit with him through it without falling apart yourself.
Texts from your ex stop costing you the afternoon. You answer once, say what needs saying, and return to your day; the constant mental rehearsal of conversations past and future gets quieter.
You sleep. Not perfectly, not every night, but the 2am argument has been said out loud in session with someone who could hear the whole of it, and your brain has stopped bringing it back.
You make decisions again. About the house, the kids’ school, the job, and what you want, without the paralysis of grading every option against what everyone else would choose.
You let people in. When a friend asks how you’re doing, sometimes you tell her the truth, and you accept help without treating it as evidence of failure.
You know who you are now. Not the person from before the marriage, and not the one who adapted her way through it, but someone with her own opinions and plans, and an answer to “what’s next?” that she chose herself.
A Different Kind of Divorce Support
I’m Dr. Emily Fornwalt, and I work with women across North Carolina who are rebuilding after divorce. I won’t hand you tips, and we won’t spend sessions dissecting what went wrong in your marriage. Instead, we’ll slow down enough for you to feel what you’ve been managing around, with me beside you while you do it, because a feeling that’s been fully felt and understood with another person stops interrupting your sleep and your workday. From there, we’ll figure out what you want next, separate from what everyone around you thinks you should want.
I hold a PhD in counseling from UNC Charlotte and work exclusively online, so sessions fit into your week from anywhere in North Carolina without adding one more errand.
serving divorced women across north carolina
I provide online therapy throughout North Carolina for women at every stage: newly separated, mid-divorce, or years out and still finding your footing.
Charlotte • Raleigh • Durham • Greensboro • Winston-Salem • Fayetteville • Cary • Wilmington • Chapel Hill • Asheville • High Point • Concord • Apex • Wake Forest • Huntersville • And throughout North Carolina
our sessions will be
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Collaborative: We will work together. Here’s at least one thing you’re not gonna be handling all on your own.
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Encouraging: Even if you can’t name them right now, I know you have strengths. You might roll your eyes when I point them out (I’ll allow it.).
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Real: I'll tell you the truth; you’ve got no time for therapy games where someone sounds like a cliché. You got that on your last Netflix binge.
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Fun: I can pretty much guarantee some laughs. You can demand more humor if needed, because I know you could use that break.
i’m Emily.
About dr. emily fornwalt:
THerapist for Divorce in North Carolina
I’m a PhD-level therapist licensed in North Carolina (LCMHC-S #S6459). My doctorate is from UNC Charlotte, and I specialize in working with women who are used to excelling at everything and feel blindsided when something falls apart despite their best efforts.
I’ve worked in community mental health, university settings, and private practice, and I now see clients exclusively online. My approach is grounded in attachment science, which in plain terms means the way forward after a loss like divorce starts with feeling the emotions you’ve been putting off, and my job is to make that safe and far less lonely than it sounds.
If you’d like to know more about me than fits in a short blurb, please explore the link below.
getting started
Investment: Sessions are $225 for 45-50 minutes. Initial sessions are 90 minutes at $450.
Timeline: Most women notice shifts within the first few sessions—feeling less alone, more grounded. Deeper changes in parenting, boundaries, and identity typically emerge over 6-12 months of consistent work.
Next steps:
Book your first session through the link below
Complete intake paperwork at least 24 hours before we meet
Show up as you are; you don't need to have it together
Schedule Your First Session:
Book Online | Call/Text: 423.281.4089 | Email: emily@alignedcounseling.com
Faqs & Logistics…
Here you can find detailed instructions on how to get started working together, how we proceed, and what you can expect.
First, important things to note:
I only work exclusively online and no in-person appointments are available.
I am not in network with any insurance plans and do not provide documentation for out-of-network reimbursement. There are many reasons for this, and I am happy to answer any questions you may have.
I offer primarily 45/50-minute sessions at a rate of $225 per session. If you’d like 60-minute sessions, please ask about my current availability. Initial sessions are 90 minutes and are $450.
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For intake sessions, I am available Mondays-Thursdays from 10:00-5:00. I am available for ongoing sessions Tuesdays-Thursdays from 10:00-5:00. I do not have evening or weekend availability. With regard to ongoing session availability, I cannot guarantee the availability of specific times or days based on openings you may see in my online calendar; availability there does indicate recurring availability. One of my values is to have some schedule flexibility for current clients so that when they need to make schedule adjustments, I am more likely to be able to do so. As such, an available slot does not equal the ability to put a regularly occurring appointment in that slot. If you have specific schedule needs, please reach out to confirm that I’d be able to accommodate them prior to completing an initial session.
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Once you have decided that you’d like to proceed with scheduling with me, you can mosey over and check out my lovely contact page. Here you can click the “Schedule your first session” button located at the center of the page. This will take you to my self-scheduling option. This allows you to look over my calendar and select a time that works for you. You can schedule up to 3 weeks in advance, as long as you are at least 3 days before the date you’d like to choose. It’s important to note that this first session will be a longer (90-minute) intake session.
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Scheduling in my online calendar will send a request for the specific appointment you’ve selected and reserve it for you. I typically confirm appointments within 24 hours, excluding weekends, holidays, and times I am out of the office on vacation. After I confirm your appointment, you will receive an email from Sessions Health.
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After you receive the confirmation, keep an eye out for three more emails. (I know! I bet you already get plenty, but I promise we just have to do this stuff once!) You will get an email welcoming you to therapy and outlining what you can expect; this will come directly from me. In addition, you will get one from Sessions Health and Aligned Counseling and Supervision; this contains your invitation to the client portal; this is where you will complete all required paperwork, which I need back 24 hours prior to our scheduled time in order to keep your appointment and avoid automatic cancellation. Finally, you will get an appointment “reminder” that will contain your telehealth link.
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Once you’ve set up portal access, you will have just three documents to review and sign. Please note that you can sign out and progress will be saved. You may want to set aside a little time to really read these over as they have a good bit of information relevant to our work together. Documents include: the informed consent, the HIPAA privacy practices, and information about my policies for electronic communication. Please let me know if you have any questions by emailing me. After signing those you will have some demographic questions and the opportunity to tell me just a bit about what brings you to therapy.
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Once you have set up your portal and I have a phone number, keep an eye out for a text from IvyPay. This is where you will enter your credit card information for me to charge for your sessions. I use IvyPay so that I don't have to personally handle any of your credit card information. IvyPay is a third-party HIPAA-compliant payment processor that takes care of it for me.
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Most clients are nervous the first time they attend counseling, even if it's just the first time with a new person. If you’ve never been before, you may not know what to expect and may have many TV or movie references for what it’s like. Trust me, they’re probably inaccurate. You may think you’re required to tell me ALL the things or that I will ask probing questions to get to the root of everything. That’s not what happens either. We will still be getting to know each other. In our first session, I will gather information about your concerns, the history, what you’d like to get out of counseling, and any other things you think are relevant. We will get a general idea of direction, but it will take us time to get to know each other. This one is a little different from the others, as a lot of our time will be spent getting me up to speed on your life and concerns. Things shift after that…stay tuned.
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It’s important to know that the completion of this initial session is not a guarantee of working together. If it ends up not working, I will do my best to help you find another provider to meet your needs. A few things that might result in us not working together include, but are not limited to:
You decide that we are not a good fit.
I am not the most appropriate person to help you with your specific needs.
You need a specific time slot and it is not available. (Avoid this by checking with me ahead of time!)
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Once you are ready to move forward, we will get your regular appointments set up. You will be scheduled for the same recurring time slot. These are either weekly or bi-weekly depending on your needs and availability. As we get to know each other during sessions, we will determine how we will know if things are getting better. I imagine that you have checked out who I am throughout my website, so you probably already know the following info. However, it’s probably worth saying again that I very much value talking explicitly with my clients about their experience of therapy with me, rather than assuming I know what they are feeling or experiencing, or what's best for them. This means I'll regularly ask you about what is going well in our therapy work together and if there's anything we should do differently. I am not a highly directive therapist, so our sessions will focus on what you need to get out of them each time. I provide some prompts about what we’ve been exploring or your general goals, but invite you to settle in and consider how we can take care of you in our session that day.
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When we get to a point where you’re feeling confident in what you’ve learned and are practicing, we can discuss reducing frequency (if you started weekly) or wrapping up altogether. There may be the option to reduce from bi-weekly to monthly sessions, but these are available only on a case-by-case basis, scheduled week-of, and cannot be guaranteed.
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Please feel free to email me! I usually respond within 24 hours Mondays-Fridays.
Book your session
Still Have Questions?
Contact Me
Please complete this form and I’ll be back in touch via email or text usually within 1 business day.
Call or Text
423.281.4089
emily@alignedcounseling.com
office mailing address
404 S Roan St., Johnson City, TN, 37604
Dr. Emily Fornwalt provides online therapy for women after divorce throughout North Carolina, including Charlotte, Raleigh, Durham, Greensboro, Chapel Hill, Cary, Wilmington, Asheville, and surrounding areas.