Online divorce counseling for women in Richmond | Dr. Emily Fornwalt, PhD
Counseling for Women After Divorce in Richmond, Virginia
Therapy for divorce grief
It’s a Saturday in October, and you’re at the fundraiser you’ve gone to every year for fifteen years. You see your old college roommate across the room and she pretends to look at her phone. You see the couple who used to host you at the lake on July 4th and they say hello in the specific way you say hello to someone you’re hoping won’t sit down at your table. You stand at the bar with a glass of wine you don’t really want and you remember when this room was full of people who knew you, and now it’s full of people who knew you as one half of a couple that doesn’t exist anymore.
You drove yourself there and you’ll drive yourself home. You used to find these events tedious, and now you’d give anything to find them tedious again, sitting next to someone who knew which stories you’d already told a hundred times.
You leave before the dessert course and the drive home is short. You walk into the house and the silence has a different quality now. Your kid is at the other parent’s for the weekend, the dog is at the other parent’s too, and you sit on the kitchen floor with your back against the cabinet for ten minutes before you can stand up to brush your teeth. The loneliness is worse here, in your own kitchen, than it was in a room full of people who pretended not to see you. That’s the part nobody warned you about.
You’ve done the work. You read Conscious Uncoupling and Untamed and the book about the gray divorce. You hired a therapist last year who was kind and seemed to take detailed notes. You started running again. You said the right things to your kid when she asked questions. You handled the legal process with the same competence you bring to a complicated case at work. You did everything you were supposed to do, and you still ended up on the kitchen floor.
What you haven’t admitted yet, even to yourself, is how scared you are. You’re scared this is what the rest of your life feels like, scared you don’t know who you are without the marriage you spent twenty years building, scared the people who used to be your people aren’t your people anymore.
You’re not used to feeling like this. You graduated at the top of your class, made partner three years ahead of schedule, raised a kid who’s mostly thriving. When things go wrong, you handle them. That’s who you are.
This is grief, and the tools that got you through everything else don’t work on it. Grief doesn’t respond to a plan or yield to insight. It shows up at the fundraiser when the couple you used to know turns down a different aisle. It shows up at work in the meeting where someone asks for your input and you don’t have one because you’ve been replaying last night’s interaction with the new lawyer. It shows up at 11pm when you find yourself on your ex’s Instagram for the fourth time this week, looking for evidence of something you couldn’t explain even if you found it. It shows up at the grocery store when you reach for the brand of cereal nobody in your house eats anymore.
The phone buzzes with your ex’s name on it. Your stomach drops before you’ve read the message. It’s about your kid’s college tour next weekend, which is fine, but your chest is already tight and the rest of the evening has a low hum of anxiety beneath everything else.
Why the Books, the Podcasts, and Your Last Therapist Aren’t Helping You Figure Out Who You Are Now
You’ve read everything. You can explain attachment theory at a dinner party, when you still get invited to dinner parties. You’ve listened to every podcast about gray divorce and identity reconstruction on your commute. You’ve ordered books that sit half-read on the nightstand. You did therapy last year and your therapist was kind and you understood your marriage better and you’re still on the kitchen floor.
The books helped you understand what happened in your marriage. They weren’t going to help you figure out who you are now. That part takes time, and it doesn’t happen just by waiting it out. It happens in a relationship where someone is helping you figure out what you want your life to look like after your divorce.
What Changes in Your Week After Six to Twelve Months of Therapy With Me
You sleep through more nights than not, and you wake up in the bed you live in now without immediately doing the math on what time it is at the other house. You make coffee, you read for ten minutes, you start the day at your own pace.
You drop your kid off at the other parent’s on Sunday afternoon and you come home, and the silence is something you walk into instead of something that hits you. You eat dinner at the kitchen counter, you read a book, you take a long bath. Sometimes you call a friend. Sometimes you don’t, because you want the evening to yourself. The empty house is a place where you live now, where you have your own routines and your own quiet.
You go to the fundraiser. You see your old college roommate and you walk up and say hello first. She might be awkward, you’re steady. You stay through dessert because you’re enjoying the conversation at your table. The drive home is the part of the night you’re looking forward to, because you have a book to get back to.
The phone buzzes with your ex’s name and your stomach stays where it is. You read the message about the college tour, you answer in two sentences, you put the phone down, and you go back to what you were doing. The message doesn’t have power over the next three hours of your day.
Your kid asks the hard question about the divorce, the one you’ve been dreading. You sit down on her bed and take a breath. You answer her honestly, in a way she can understand at her age. She nods and goes back to her phone, and you walk out of her room feeling like you gave her an answer that could help her understand a little more, instead of replaying the conversation for the next three hours wondering if you said too much.
You sit through a deposition, or a long surgery day, or a board meeting, and your thoughts stay in the room instead of wandering to the property settlement or the conversation with the new lawyer. You hear what’s being said, you write the follow-up note in twenty minutes the way you used to, and you’re still thinking clearly at 5pm when you used to be staring at your laptop unable to form a sentence. By Friday you can tell what you accomplished this week, and you’re proud of the answer.
Saturday morning you make coffee and walk in the park. You text a friend and make plans for next week with people you want to see. You sign up for the class you’ve been thinking about for two years. By Monday morning the weekend feels like a weekend instead of a 48-hour pause before the next round of co-parenting logistics.
You stop opening the financial spreadsheet at midnight, and you stop scrolling your ex’s social media. The evening becomes yours: a novel you read until you fall asleep, a phone call with a friend that’s about something other than the divorce, a bedtime that arrives when you’re tired instead of when you’ve exhausted yourself thinking about your divorce.
How Therapy With Me Changes the spiral Itself
I work with women who’ve already figured themselves out and are still crying on the kitchen floor, still spiraling on a text from the ex, still doing all the right things and not feeling any better. I don’t do the version of therapy where you sit on a couch and tell the story of your divorce.
I’m trained in evidence-based approaches that help smart, self-aware women change responses they already understand but can’t seem to stop.
I keep a small caseload, around ten clients at a time, so I know your situation between sessions. If something comes up during the week, you can reach out. I won’t tell you to hold the thought until next Tuesday.
I see clients exclusively by telehealth, with no commute and no childcare for the appointment. You log on from home, from the office, sometimes from the car between meetings.
our sessions will be
01
Collaborative: We will work together. Here’s at least one thing you’re not gonna be handling all on your own.
02
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.).
03
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.
04
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
I’m a licensed therapist in Virginia with a PhD in counseling from UNC Charlotte. I spent years in community mental health and academic teaching before opening my private practice, and a lot of those years studying what changes people and what doesn’t. The answer, it turns out, isn’t more insight.
I’m warm, and I’m honest. You can bring me the tired version of yourself, the angry version, the version who just hit send on a text she regrets, the version who cried in the bathroom at the fundraiser and put her lipstick back on like nothing happened. I won’t flinch, and I won’t judge you. I’ve sat with women whose lives looked exactly like yours, and not one of them was wrong to be taking this as hard as she’s taking it.
How to get started in Counseling
Prices and logistics:
Sessions are 45 minutes, usually once a week, and cost $225 each. Your first session is a 90-minute intake, and it costs $450.
My practice is private pay. I don’t bill insurance, and I don’t provide superbills, which are the receipts some clients send to their insurance company for out-of-network reimbursement. Because I don’t bill insurance, no information about our sessions goes to an insurance company.
I see moms online in Iowa, Tennessee, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Virginia, and you’ll need to be in one of those states during each session. My practice is based in Eastern Time, which is one hour ahead of Iowa.
Self-Schedule here:
Choose an appointment time through my HIPAA-compliant calendar using the button below.
I’ll review your request and confirm it, usually within one business day. Then you’ll get your new client forms by email and a text from IvyPay asking you to add a card.
Log on for your first session at the time you scheduled, using the secure video link in your confirmation.
-
No. All sessions are online. Telehealth works for Richmond women whose schedules already don’t have room for a commute on top of court days, hospital rounds, custody-schedule logistics, and the dozen other things asking for your time. You log on from home with the door closed and headphones in, from the office, or from a car parked somewhere quiet.
-
Yes. Many of my clients start during the divorce, not after. We work with whatever stage you’re in, including the messy parts: negotiating custody, telling extended family, deciding whether to keep the house.
-
No. I’m completely private pay, and I don’t provide reimbursement paperwork.
frequently asked questions about online therapy in richmond
Have a practical question before Scheduling? Send me a message below.
If you have a question before you schedule, send it here and I’ll reply personally within two business days. This form is private and secure, so you’re welcome to share as much or as little as you’d like about what’s bringing you to therapy.
This form is only checked during regular business hours, so if you’re in crisis or need help right away, please call 911 or go to your nearest emergency room.
Thank you for your message.
I’ll reply personally within two business days.
areas served in richmond
Online therapy for women rebuilding after divorce in Short Pump, Henrico, Glen Allen, Midlothian, Chesterfield, The Fan, Museum District, Carytown, Bon Air, Stony Point, Westover Hills, Brandermill, Wyndham, Innsbrook, Mechanicsville, and surrounding Richmond neighborhoods.
also serving divorced women across virginia
I work with women rebuilding after divorce across Virginia, including Arlington, Virginia Beach, and other communities.