“She’s not my wife, but I don’t have a wife anymore and I need someone to take care of me,” said Mr. Barceló, who is paying Ms. Cox $350 an hour.
Ms. Cox is hired by men and women who need help navigating the turbulence of leaving one life behind and building a new one. “My job is to fill the void for what they don’t have,” she said. “I’m a temporary fixer. They really need someone when they suddenly have no one.”
As technology works to ease so many of life’s quandaries, divorce remains one of the most logistically complicated and emotionally wrought events. But a small marketplace of fixers (mostly, so far, middlewomen) are starting businesses meant to simplify the ancillary processes associated with a marital break-up.
Liza Feiler started a company called Divorce Concierge Group in the Washington area after her own marriage ended in 2012. “I was lost after my divorce, unsure where to begin,” said Ms. Feiler, 44. She is hired, post-divorce, for a starting flat fee of $350, most often by ex-wives. She helps clients with tasks like putting their homes on the market and hiring accountants.
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