What is Mediation?
Mediation is a voluntary, cooperative settlement process in which a neutral professional helps make practical, informed decisions to resolve your differences. With the guidance of a mediator, you define the issues that need to be settled and attempt to resolve these issues in an amicable fashion.
With a mediator's help, you can make decisions about such issues as parenting plans, child support, spousal support, property division, and debt allocation. Of course, you should weigh both the pros and cons carefully as you decide whether mediation is appropriate for your situation:
Pros:
Pros:
- You can make your own decisions about your future.
- You can carefully weigh all of your options and take your time to reach an agreement that you are comfortable living with.
- Mediation requires you to treat each other with respect and decency throughout the process.
- Mediation is practice so that you can work out future problems together.
Cons:
- You must put aside your bitterness and hurt and deal with your spouse on a personal face to face process.
- You must be willing to compromise.
- Mediation may not be appropriate if one spouse is domineering and tends to bully the other spouse.
- The mediation process does not provide any guarantees and one spouse might decide after lengthy discussions that they do not wish to continue with the process.
Only you will be able to determine whether mediation is appropriate for your situation. In order for mediation to be successful, both parties need to come to the table with an open mind and with a similar goal; that is to reach an agreement that both spouses are comfortable living with so that you can close this chapter and move forward with your lives.
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