A recent email sent by a reader got me thinking about the subject of this post. I won’t go into details, but the gist of it was, ‘How can I put the tips you give into practice when me and my husband got divorced and prefer not to speak to one another?’
We tend to keep things on the positive side on this website, but this is the unfortunate reality for many couples, or it will be soon. Couples change, they can make unforgivable mistakes, or just grow apart, all of which makes it difficult or downright impossible to keep their marriages intact.
Unfortunately, when this happens, many couples begin looking for an exit in all the wrong places. Rather than look for a peaceful and cooperative dissolution of their relationship, they lawyer up and start preparing the ground for the big court battle that is sure to come.
The lawyers in this situation are incentivized to make the situation worse – the longer and costlier the battle, the more they can bill their clients. If they work on a percentage, they’re often willing to do whatever it takes to win, no matter how badly the couple and their families are damaged in the process.
The litigation process can take months or even years, entirely subject to the timeline set by the courts. During that time, the stress of the divorce can wreak havoc on both parties and lead to deep and lasting damage that can permanently alter the course of a person’s life for the worse.
The question is – why do most couples choose this path? I think the answer is pretty simple – they simply don’t know that there is an alternative.
If you and your soon-to-be-ex spouse are on good terms and want the divorce process to leave both parties and their families intact, mediation is a far preferable option. Mediation is a collaborative negotiation process that uses a neutral third party – the mediator – to represent the interests of both parties and help guide them through the split.
Mediation has a number of advantages over traditional litigation. First, the divorce is completely in the hands of the couple – it’s on their timeline, they decide what is fair and equitable, and in this control they are more likely to walk away from the divorce far more content than they would otherwise.
Second, there is no one to pit the other party against the other. The mediator represents both parties equally to help find a resolution that both can be satisfied with. That means no underhanded techniques used to get a slight edge when the judge makes their ruling.
The key to a successful mediation process is a skilled mediator. For those looking for a divorce mediation specialist in Newport Beach, McNamee Mediations is by far the best the area has to offer. Though I haven’t gone through the process, many of my readers have and all have given very glowing recommendations.
I know this post is a little more somber than most on the blog, but divorce is a somber subject that many go through all the same. The ending of your marriage doesn’t have to be some huge, apocalyptic event – if you do it right, you can make it just one ending in your life rather than THE ending.
McNamee Mediations
+19492233836
4590 MacArthur Blvd Suite 500, Newport Beach, CA 92660