It’s difficult enough to go through the divorce process. If you do so without really knowing your legal rights and what to expect, it’s easy to make a mistake that costs you both time and money.
Even though many people find divorce mediation preferential to litigation, you still need to understand the goals associated with this approach. These typically include the following:
- To create an equitable and mutually acceptable agreement
- To eliminate the high costs of litigation
- To reduce the amount of time it takes to finalize a divorce agreement
- To minimize hostility toward one another, which is very important if you will be co-parenting
While these are among the primary goals of divorce mediation, you don’t have to stop there. If there is something in particular you want to accomplish, it’s within your rights to bring this to light during the first meeting with your mediator. It’s better to get everything out on the table upfront, than to sit back and hope that you get what you want as the days go by.
Once you understand divorce mediation and what it entails, you can set goals for yourself and then work toward reaching them.
You may not get everything you want out of mediation, but as long as you put yourself in position to succeed, you should feel good about the way things are headed.
When everything is said and done, you want to be able to look back at each step of the divorce mediation process and realize that you did whatever you could to put yourself in position to succeed.
Source: FindLaw, “Divorce Mediation – Overview,” accessed Jan. 17, 2018
