Meri Arnett-Kremian, JD - Expert

Meri Arnett-Kremian's Bio

Meri’s life path has consistently focused on helping others. After graduating from University of Washington, she taught for two years before helping to start a crisis intervention program. There, she delivered services to clients, developed and delivered training for peer counselors, learned how to write grant applications, lobbied local and state government officials, and learned a thing or two about press conferences and media appearances along the way. In her late-20s, she decided to go to graduate school to expand her helping repertoire. Believing that women and children were woefully underserved in legal matters, she chose to attend law school at a time when those institutions were only beginning to accept significant numbers of women. (She’s got some funny stories from those years, including tales of ladies' rooms complete with urinals.)

She graduated with honors from the University of Maryland School of Law, then practiced law for many years. Her area of passion and practice was family law: divorce and separation, adoption, paternity, guardianships, and legal issues relating to children. For fifteen years, she also served as a part-time, on-call court commissioner, hearing motions and making decisions in a variety of family and civil matters. Eventually, she became disillusioned with her chosen vocation, because she realized the adversarial style of litigation added to the distress of couples whose marriages were failing and threatened the emotional well-being of their children. So she took a sabbatical to explore her options. During that time, she concentrated on parenting her school-age sons, playing corporate executive’s wife, and working as a volunteer for school and arts organizations.

Then, after more than 20 years, her marriage fell apart when she found her husband cheating after she'd given him one more chance. She knew she had to end the marriage. The transition from loving wife to “formerly married” wasn’t easy, but accepting the challenge changed her life in ways she never imagined. With the help of a skilled coach, she tapped her inner wisdom and explored her creativity through art, photography, and writing. By opening to possibility, she totally redesigned her life. That experience gave her insight about how to help others do the same.

As people watched her metamorphosis, she began to get requests to coach other people through their own divorce transitions. Saying “yes” launched her coaching career. When she claimed her status as a coach and chose to be more intentional about developing a sustainable practice, she trained with InviteChange® to enhance her natural style, develop transformative coaching skills, and become a certified professional coach. 

For more information about how Meri puts her passion into practice, check out her coaching websites and read "Why I Became a Helping Professional." Her sites are http://www.souldeepcoaching.com and http://www.divorcedemystified.com.

Find more advice and tips about divorce here.