Is Divorce Mediation Right For You?
Couples who use divorce mediation can save thousands of dollars in attorney fees and untold energy in reduced stress.
Deciding To Divorce
The decision to get divorced is even more important than deciding to get married. By the time a couple decides to get divorced, they may have tried marriage counseling, marriage therapy weekends, religious instruction, and psychotherapy.
It's not surprising that so much time, energy, and consideration goes into a decision to divorce, when you consider all the effects of a divorce: deciding who gets to live where, who gets the house, who gets which cars, and how all the personal effects, from pots and pants to knick-knacks and rugs, will be divided among the two of them.
If the couple has children, the decision is even harder. Who will have custody of the children? Where will they live? How much time will they spend with each parent? Will the grandparents still get to see the kids? Which religion will they follow? What sports will they participate in? These are all decisions that are harder to make when parents are no longer living together in a marriage.
Deciding To Mediate
Divorce mediation helps troubled couples to make these decisions in a way that reduces negative impact on the children and reduces the likelihood that the property division will decrease the value of the couple's assets.
Divorce mediation is not for everyone. It requires two people who are honest about their situation and who desire to achieve a positive outcome from their divorce. If either the husband or the wife wants to hide assets, make the other party miserable, or take unfair advantage of the other party, divorce mediation will not succeed.
Advantages
The advantages of divorce mediation are many. For one thing, mediation costs less. The couple usually splits the fee of the mediator, which can range from $1,000 to several thousand dollars. Without mediation, each party pays his or her own lawyer, which costs about the same as a mediator, times two.
The biggest advantage of divorce mediation is that the couple decides the outcome of the divorce. In divorce mediation, the mediator's goal is to get the couple to agree on every step of the process. Together, husband and wife agree on when to file for divorce, how to divide parenting time with the children, how to divide property, and so forth. Without mediation, a judge tells the couple how it's going to be, and they are stuck with that outcome. They may end up sitting in the courtroom thinking, "Wow. I could have done better than that if I'd used divorce mediation."
Couples who believe they can reasonably work together to end their marriage should definitely consider divorce mediation.
