I often get phone calls from women who want to avoid an adversarial divorce and all the associated legal costs. We’ll discuss how mediation works and generally how much it costs. Their next step is to approach their spouse to encourage them to mediate their divorce. Knowing all the advantages of mediating your divorce can help convince your husband to go the mediation route.
Encourage Your Soon-To-Be-Ex To Mediate Your Divorce
Mediating your divorce is a whole lot less than the cost of a litigated divorce. For one, only one neutral party will be examining the financial documents, budgets, and so forth. The mediator can provide an estimate of their fee and their hourly rate. Your spouse can take that knowledge when looking for an attorney and then he/she will quickly see that mediating is by far a less expensive choice.
Mediation makes it much less likely that you will turn into adversaries. After all, when you file a complaint for divorce, suddenly you become “Jane Smith vs Joe Smith”. When you each hire attorneys, it can turn into a contest very quickly, and sometimes it can escalate and get out of your control. You have probably known people who ended up hating each other after their divorce and if you have children, this can put your children in between two warring parents. That can leave emotional scars for life.
Mediation offers an opportunity to end your marriage with grace and mutual respect. Raising children requires both emotional and financial cooperation. Mediating provides an opportunity to talk about co-parenting and consider each other’s needs in a neutral controlled environment. You make the decisions rather than attorneys or a judge.
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