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Free support group helps people cope with divorce
AUSTINTOWN
A local family-law practitioner not only represents clients in divorce and dissolution cases, but also helps them adjust to the major life changes associated with the breakup of a marriage by offering a free support group for people navigating through separation and divorce.
An Austintown native, Atty. Melissa K. Rocci also shares her own experiences as a divorced parent in her book: “Courageous Wings Within: Growing Through Divorce to Live an Extraordinary Life,” which was published last year.
The book’s cover illustration is a photo Rocci took showing light at the end of a canopy of trees exhibiting fall foliage colors along the Mill Creek MetroParks Bikeway near the Austintown-Canfield boundary.
“I feel like I have a connection with my clients, and that connection really stems from my own divorce and from my own realization that people don’t generally want a divorce,” Rocci said.
“Even for the people that initiate it, it’s still an uncomfortable challenge,” Rocci observed.
“I’m not advocating for divorce at all. I’m basically advocating for happiness,” Rocci explained.
“When people come in, I always ask them if there’s any chance to reconcile their marriages because going through a divorce is not easy, and it’s not something that should be taken lightly,” she said.
When prospective clients, who believe a divorce or dissolution filing is imminent, come to her, Rocci advises them to prepare by gathering all their financial documents and other important papers and planning where they will live if a separation occurs.
“When people are going through a divorce, their lives are changing drastically. Their monies are cut in half. ... They’re so very concerned about their children, usually,” she observed.
“People come to the divorce attorney’s office sad, scared, wishing they weren’t here, wishing their marriage worked,” Rocci said in an interview in her office.
“I take them from that place of sadness and fear to a new phase in their lives,” she added.
The support group, open to both men and women and clients and nonclients of Rocci’s law office, has 90-minute meetings at 6:30 p.m. every Tuesday in Rocci’s office at the Cider Mill Professional Center, 1570 S. Canfield-Niles Road, Building C.
Founded nearly a year ago, the group typically has eight to 10 participants who share their experiences under the guidance of Robyn Podboy, group facilitator.
Participants may not be under the influence of alcohol or drugs and may not take their children to the group meetings. All matters discussed within the group meetings are confidential, Podboy said.
Call 330-757-4259 for reservations.
“She does do the lawyering, but she also does the personal, emotional side of it,” Podboy said of Rocci.
“Things can move forward for them. This isn’t the end of their lives,” Podboy said of people going through divorce.
“People need a place where they can know that they’re not alone,” Rocci said.
“However you go through the process is really a choice. You could either go through the process angry, mean and just full of all this anxiety and hatred, or you could choose to go through it with support and understanding,” Podboy said.
“It helps them defuse their negative emotion about the divorce. ... It helps them not to feel like a failure,” Rocci said.
“The hatred gets in the way of their making sound settlement decisions” in the legal proceedings, Rocci said of people going through a divorce.
“We cannot always control the circumstances of our lives, but we can choose how to respond to them,” Rocci said.
The support group helps to “uplift and encourage my clients and anyone faced with divorce to the next phase of their lives,” Rocci said.
“They entered into this marriage with love,” Rocci said.
When divorce occurs, Rocci said, she wants to help people “end that marriage with some degree of dignity and grace because I feel that that’s important to preserving their parenting relationship” and avoiding having children embroiled in a battle between estranged parents.
A certified divorce mediator, Rocci advocates mediation as a means of enabling people to resolve conflicts over parenting and division of assets on terms that are mutually satisfactory to them.
It lets them avoid the cost, stress and uncertain outcome of a courtroom battle, she added.
“It gives them control of their own lives by allowing them to make their own decisions with regard to their settlement,” Rocci said.
Rocci received her bachelor’s degree in English from Youngstown State University. She graduated in 1992 from California Western School of Law in San Diego and has law licenses in California and Ohio.
She studied law in Strasbourg, France, and worked at Amnesty International’s United Nations office during her international law internship in Geneva, Switzerland.
An Ohio-licensed lawyer since 1994, she devoted her practice exclusively to family-law matters after her own divorce.
Her private practice operates under the name “Divorce with Dignity.”
Rocci is a family-law mediator in the Mahoning and Columbiana county common pleas courts and a member of the Mahoning County Bar Association.