Jess Knauf
Bio
Jess Knauf is the Director of Client Strategy at Mediate UK and Co-founder of Family Law Service. She shares real stories from clients to help separating couples across the UK.
Jess is author of The Divorce Guide in England & Wales 2016.
Stories (12)
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A Couple Who Couldn’t Agree on a Parenting Plan
I remember the exact moment I knew we weren't going to sort this on our own. It was a Sunday evening, and Lily was standing in the hallway with her overnight bag, looking up at both of us like she was waiting for permission to breathe. She was six. She shouldn't have had to stand there like that, reading the room before she'd even taken her coat off.
By Jess Knaufa day ago in Families
When Court Felt Like the Only Option: A Mum’s C100 Form Journey
I never thought I'd be the kind of person who filled in a court form at her kitchen table at midnight, crying into a mug of cold tea. But there I was, reading the same paragraph on the C100 for the third time, trying to work out whether I was supposed to tick "lives with" or "spends time with" for a child who hadn't seen his dad in eleven weeks.
By Jess Knauf8 days ago in Families
How Family Mediation Helped Us Talk When Everything Else Failed
We Found a Way to Talk Again The last proper conversation we had before mediation was about a school jumper. Our youngest had lost his, and somehow that turned into forty minutes of accusations about who was supposed to be keeping track of what, who had dropped the ball again, and whether this was yet another example of the other person not paying attention to the things that actually mattered.
By Jess Knauf12 days ago in Families
My Journey to an Amicable Divorce: It Wasn’t Easy, But It Was Worth It. AI-Generated.
I didn’t wake up one morning and decide to end my marriage. It happened slowly. Quietly. And with a lot of doubt. By the time we admitted our relationship was over, we had already spent months trying to hold things together for the sake of our family. We weren’t arguing all the time. There was no dramatic breaking point. But we had grown apart, and pretending otherwise was starting to do more harm than good.
By Jess Knauf21 days ago in Families
When We Lost Our Grandchildren
I'll never forget the day Emma stopped answering our calls. My wife Florence and I had just returned from our usual Tuesday morning coffee when I noticed three missed calls from our son, James. "Dad, I need to talk to you," his voicemail said. His voice sounded hollow, defeated. "Emma and I are done. She's asked me to move out."
By Jess Knaufabout a month ago in Families
When Thursday Became the Hardest Day
I used to love Thursdays. It was fish and chips night, football practice with my son Jake, and bedtime stories about dragons. Now, Thursdays are the day I sit in my empty flat, staring at photos on my phone, wondering if I'm doing any of this right.
By Jess Knaufabout a month ago in Families
C100 Form Explained: Applying to Court for Child Arrangements. AI-Generated.
When parents separate, worries about children don’t usually arrive all at once. At first, they sit quietly in the background. Then something happens. A disagreement over school nights. A holiday that hasn’t been agreed. A pick-up time that suddenly changes.
By Jess Knaufabout a month ago in Families
We Agreed to Wait a Year Before Divorcing
I was sat in my car outside Tesco, engine off, shopping list forgotten, when it properly hit me: I had no idea where I'd be living in six months. Rachel and I had decided to separate three weeks earlier, but beyond "we'll sort it out amicably," we'd done precisely nothing. The girls were in the middle of their A-levels, we were both exhausted from years of low-level bickering about money, and now I was having a minor panic attack in a car park because I couldn't answer basic questions about my own life.
By Jess Knaufabout a month ago in Families
The Marriage That Ended Over Marmalade. AI-Generated.
I didn't think the end would come over toast and marmalade, but that's exactly how it happened. We were sitting at the kitchen table on a Tuesday morning, sunlight streaming through the window like nothing was wrong. He was reading something on his phone, I was spreading butter in careful, even strokes, and somewhere in the silence between us, I realised we'd become strangers who happened to share a mortgage.
By Jess Knauf4 months ago in Families
