If you and your spouse are able to agree on most issues, it’s tempting to think that your divorce might be quickly and easily determined in court. While this might happen, you can reduce time and expense associated with your divorce by opting to go through mediation. Mediation is beneficial for many couples and may be the right solution for your situation, even if you and your spouse are on good terms.
Mediation has a neutral focus and uses a third party to help you discuss critical issues. Mediation tends to offer even amicable couples the opportunity to generate their own flexible solutions rather than relying on a court to determine what life will look like post-divorce. The mediation environment is encouraging as opposed to the battleground that family court can look like even for agreeable couples.
Mediation is extremely helpful when couples agree on a basic premise (such as property division or alimony/spousal support) because it provides a forum for the details to be discussed and hammered out. This reduces money spent on attorney fees and having to wait for court dates when you simply need some time with an experienced mediator to create your own solutions.
Going through the mediation process is very beneficial when you want to maintain a civil relationship with your spouse after the divorce is finalized. Unfortunately, the courtroom can bring out the worst in anyone, even when the two people enter the court at the beginning of the day on relatively good terms. Simply put, litigation often does not foster long-term civil relationships between disputing parties, whereas mediation helps to lay the ground rules for interaction once a divorce decree has been issued for your case.
Some couples agree on several issues but may have a few points of contention in their case. These cases can also get a lot out of mediation because you will be able to expediently deal with the terms of the agreeable topics and use the assistance of your mediator to manage the more complicated concerns. Many couples going through mediation, including those who already are civil and amicable towards one another, feel that mediation is able to help them efficiently resolve their issues. Ultimately, this process reduces the expenses and time associated with typical courtroom methods while maintaining that civil relationship the two spouses already have.
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