Mediation:
an alternative approach to conflict resolution
When you mediate, YOU decide.
What is mediation?
Mediation is professional guidance for those who are struggling to come to an agreement on the many things that need to be decided in their divorce. Many times, due to the emotions flying everywhere in this process, it’s challenging to communicate with each other. It’s hard to hear what your soon-to-be ex is saying. Mediation provides a structured environment where the couple in conflict is enabled to engage in a healthy conversation around the topics and issues that affect their divorce. They are in control and are encouraged to explore and design solutions to their concerns that can satisfy the needs of both parties.
When should I use mediation?
Anytime maintaining decision-making power is preferable to the stress and expense of litigation to resolve a conflict and achieve compromise.
To plan your entire divorce journey.
LEARN MORETo plan your entire divorce journey
Mediation is an approach that can be used to help guide you through a healthy process involving the steps and decisions to structure your divorce agreement. It allows you to tailor your arrangements to the needs and interests of both of you, and helps you avoid the certain traffic jams on your route.
To navigate around a traffic jam in the middle of your divorce.
LEARN MORETo navigate around a traffic jam in the middle of your divorce.
Any one of the traffic jams you’re likely to encounter on your divorce journey can cause you to just get stuck. You may completely agree on your finances, but you’re struggling to create a parenting calendar that works for you both. You can use mediation to resolve any conflict that is impeding your progress to get you back on the right track and moving again.
When your check engine light goes on after your divorce.
LEARN MOREWhen your check engine light goes on after your divorce
Mediation can also help you resolve a conflict that you’re dealing with after your divorce. Don’t let a change in circumstance lead you back to court. Mediation can help you work together to design an updated solution that works for you both.
You Get Out What You Put In
Mediation is 100% reliable if the couple in conflict is dedicated to the process. However, don’t show up expecting miracles. Mediation involves effort and compromise. If you are not interested in compromising with your spouse and would rather make them “hurt” and/or take them for everything they’re worth (and pay for your attorney’s child’s college education), mediation will not work for you.
You are getting divorced for a reason. Mediation is not going to resolve the reasons you’re getting divorced. Ultimately, you have to craft the arrangements that structure your divorce. You need to decide how you want this to go.
- Do you want to be in control of the decisions that are made, or would you prefer these decisions be made by a judge who doesn’t understand the nuances of your circumstance and sees your divorce through a generic lens?
- Do you want to spend $350+ per hour (times 2) to have your attorneys talk to each other about your wants and needs, creating attorney expenses that cause you to have to take a distribution from your 401k to pay for it?
- Do you want to drag out your divorce over the course of a year or longer waiting for attorneys to communicate with each other in between all their other cases all the while unnecessary expenses are growing?
Mediation helps avoid litigation, but it is only a process. The people in the process control the outcome. Mediation’s largest benefit is keeping decision-making control with the participants. But, the parties have to want to. Without the desire to participate, the goal of mediation cannot be achieved.
Do any of these stories sound familiar?
Kim & Scott
Kim and Scott knew they were headed for divorce and weren’t communicating well at all. Trust issues were exploding. Kim was moving on and Scott wasn’t ready. They tried to sit down together and figure out how to divide their assets and how they were going to co-parent the kids. Every attempt at a conversation ended in a knock-down drag out because neither felt the other was hearing them.
Scott, the primary breadwinner, suggested trying mediation to try to keep the cost of their divorce to a minimum. With the help of a mediation, Kim and Scott were able to communicate more effectively and both felt like they were finally being heard. This helped them start to rebuild trust in each other and understand that even though they would no longer be life partners, they could be supportive partners in raising their children. Because they felt they were being heard, they started to respect each other’s viewpoints and together drafted an agreement on division of assets as well as a parenting agreement that they could both follow.
They put the parenting schedule in place and both committed to follow it. They were both happy with the respect they received from each other in co-parenting their children. Today, because of their trust and respect for each other that has grown over time, they allow the kids to generally decide the parenting schedule and support the needs and interests of the kids rather than their own. They both describe their relationship as a strong one, committed to the best interests of their kids.
Mediation helps you focus on what’s truly important so you can make the best decisions.
Brooke & Larry suffered through a contentious divorce. Throughout their divorce, their inability to talk to each other resulted in their attorneys and the court system making decisions for them. Larry is still upset about the division of assets and the lack of understanding about the tax consequences associated with some of the assets. He thought his attorney was going to protect him in these negotiations and didn’t even consider talking to a tax accountant about his situation. Brooke is dissatisfied about the parenting schedule because it’s not flexible and doesn’t work well with her ever-changing work schedule. She told her attorney about her need to create a flexible parenting schedule, but her attorney told her that their schedule is how most people do it. Brooke and Larry never tried to negotiate these types of things because they JUST could not talk to each other.
After their divorce was final, they found out that not everything was in their agreements and there were more questions than answers about how they should handle the different situations that came up about kids and expenses. They found themselves back in court spending more money. Larry finally approached Brooke and suggested that they find another way to help them get along. One that wasn’t so emotionally AND financially draining. They found a mediator.
Years later, they found that they can achieve more through mediation than they ever could through their attorneys. Because they still have issues agreeing on a path or a solution at times, they use mediation when necessary so they can be calm and in control of the process and the outcome.
Mediation offers an alternative to break the cycle of settling conflict using the legal system.
Kevin & Nancy
Throughout their 16 year marriage, Kevin and Nancy experienced the highs and lows that a lot of couples do. Nancy experienced some emotional health issues after the birth of their first child. Also shortly after the birth of their first child, Kevin lost his job and was out of work for an entire year, placing an enormous financial strain on their young family. They tried desperately over the years to find their happiness again, but neither of them ever really got there. They were good at parenting their two kids, but just weren’t happy with each other anymore.
Kevin and Nancy talked about what divorce would look like and agreed that they wanted the best for each other. Things quickly spiraled out of control with Nancy obtaining an attorney behind Kevin’s back and filing a court order for full custody of the kids along with an emergency order to vacate to remove Kevin from the marital home. This set the tone for a very high-conflict divorce. Not one bit of it was easy due to the fact that their attorneys controlled all communication between the two of them. This fueled distrust in each other resulting in extreme anxiety and a constant rollercoaster of emotions.
In one instance involving vacation travel with the kids, Nancy’s spite for Kevin drove her to take advantage of ineffective language in their parenting agreement allowing for unilateral control by one parent. Nancy attempted to destroy the family fun that Kevin had planned to visit family out of state by threatening to issue an Amber Alert if Kevin left the state with the kids. This was a trip that, when together, Kevin and Nancy took every year to visit Kevin’s sister and her family. Now, all of a sudden, it wasn’t OK for the kids to visit their aunt and uncle. Calls were made to attorneys to duke it out.
Neither were happy with the current circumstance, but neither knew how to break the cycle. Their inability to talk to each other kept them talking through their attorneys even after their divorce was final. They were just flat out stuck in the system. They have been in court 10 more times over things like right of first refusal, obtaining counseling for the children, a recalculation of child support after two job losses by Kevin, and the list goes on.
Had they stayed committed to wanting the best for each other as they had talked about in the beginning, they could have chosen mediation over litigation to resolve their divorce and come to an agreement they designed together. If they had done this, they would have established a pattern of healthy conflict resolution rather than clawing each other’s eyes out every chance they got.
Without mediation, the process is out of your hands and could go horribly wrong.