8 Signs You Should Give up Mediation and Go to a Divorce Lawyer Immediately
Once a marriage gets far enough, the only question remains: “How difficult will it be to untangle our legal and financial life and (if necessary) deal with custody?” For some couples, mediation rather than judicial divorce has its appeal: many people are reluctant to leave their ex-spouses as enemies, and mediation is a cheaper, more collaborative, and less adversarial process than the Rose Fight .
But not every couple is a good candidate for mediation – and it can be difficult to know ahead of time who will find the process helpful and who will be useless or, worse, angry. To better understand the warning signs, I spoke with Rachel Greene, a family lawyer in Brooklyn, NY, who handled my divorce ten years ago. Below are eight signs that mediation may not be right for you.
You don’t like it when the other is okay.
“Mediation requires that both people wish each other well,” says Greene. “The goal is for everyone to be okay in the end. You must be willing to take into account the other side’s point of view, even if you disagree with her – that you are willing to sit in the room and listen. ” And, obviously, they need to be prepared to take yours into account.
You cannot accept the other side’s point of view on reality.
Even the most open-minded adults easily cling to the idea that their version of events is the only one . Greene says, “You should be able to accept the idea that the other person had a different experience than you, which does not deny your reality and allows both to coexist.”
If you or your partner are truly committed to their storytelling – for example, this one person is the absolute bad guy – mediation may not work. Green says: “There are people who are very interested in feeling like a victim:” I am right and the other person is wrong, and there is no universe in which the other person’s actions are acceptable. “
She tells the story of a couple whom she consulted as an intermediary: a man had an affair when the woman was pregnant with their first child. She heard about the couple’s problems in a social context and recalls thinking about this man: “Who is this scumbag who will have an affair while his wife is pregnant?”
But when they came to visit her, she described the dynamics of the couple as “somewhat terrifying”: “The wife was one of the nastiest and most violent people I have met. Of course, she was going through hard times, but she had an empty mouth … it was just very unpleasant to sit in the room with her. “
They had about $ 700,000 in capital in their house, and she wanted to give him about $ 100,000 to get him out – much less than the law allows. She didn’t want to take his point of view into account at all. “I came to the conclusion that from his point of view he was an abused husband. And his romance – which isn’t the best way to deal with the hardships of your core relationship – was a desperate act because now that they were going to have a baby together, he felt like he was trapped in this extremely unhealthy relationship, and it was the only way to get out of here. … So for me it opened my eyes. “
As a result, the couple did not agree to mediation.
You cannot defend yourself.
In the story above, Green notes that the husband could not at all defend himself in the face of his wife’s demands, which were unfounded in comparison with the law. “He couldn’t say, ‘No, it doesn’t make sense, I’m not going to do this – I have a right to x , y and z.’
I have heard of cases where one spouse is so eager for custody of the children that it relieves the other spouse of any obligation to pay child support that is not in their interests or the interests of the children. Greene says: “This is in direct opposition to New York City law that children should not bargain over money. These two things are determined separately by the court, so there is no reason to charge less than you are entitled to under the formula. “
So, if this is you, ask a lawyer to advise you on the side. What you should probably do anyway, Greene notes that “most people who go to mediation have legal counsel.”
It was a violent relationship.
If your marriage has been violent, you are not eligible for mediation. Green refers to the social sciences about violence and notes that the abusive partner will de facto not be able to see the other side’s point of view: “When someone is violent towards another, they cross the line of empathy.”
Infidelity can also be difficult, though not impossible, to deal with: in one case with Green, the husband was unfaithful and quite publicly – he was active on social media, on Tinder, and had an alternate Facebook profile. , he not only cheated on her, but also had a public aspect in this, so she felt very angry and she also felt humiliated. “
The wife first came to the mediation with a four-page list of their mutual friends and relatives with whom she wanted him to agree never to contact again. (He wouldn’t do that.) If your partner is unfaithful and you are angry and humiliated, it can be very difficult to fulfill condition # 1 of mediation: you have to be okay if he is okay.
You are in a great hurry.
Mediation is not quick. “Time is an important element in divorce,” says Greene. The aforementioned couple with her husband from Tinder came for a few months and entered into an agreement on joint parenting, and then stopped coming regularly. In accordance with the agreement, they were co-educators of their children, but did not move further than divorce.
But after a couple of years, the wife stopped being so angry, and they resumed mediation. Greene says: “I don’t know what her personal journey was, but they raised the children well, they both could admit that the children loved both parents and needed both parents. And then they were ready and pretty quickly settled their property relations, and we ended the divorce. She was able to forgive him, and in some way he was able to apologize for not coping well with the problems that were in their marriage.
“Many people think that if they can just get a divorce, it won’t hurt so much, but we can file all the papers and the painful feelings still remain. Divorce doesn’t really solve anything. So time can be a useful tool for couples who don’t want to get divorced in court. ”
You don’t really want to settle for mediation.
Greene has a list of goals for a good divorce process on her website , and says the number one factor is “probably that both people want to settle mediation.”
People who are even willing to try are good candidates. Even if there is a huge amount of conflict, the simple desire to come every two weeks and sit and discuss it “can sometimes be a magical tool. It begins to imperceptibly change the way you think about the problem. “
Conversely, a lengthy process can also work against you: this mediation basics tutorial notes that since the mediator cannot order you to do anything, some (unscrupulous) people will use the process to suspend support payments. So if this is your ex, you can go to court earlier and then resort to mediation later if you want.
You want the other side to lose, even if you won’t win anything.
If one partner really wants to make the other person’s life worse – for example, does not allow her to take leave with children and family when it is convenient, just because he wants to ruin her vacation plans – they are not good candidates for mediation. Green says, “If you feel like your ex-narcissist or want revenge,” mediation will not work.
You have a lot of money and you want to burn it.
Green says, “Mediation averages $ 4,000 to $ 10,000,” but litigation attorneys (in New York at least) start with a $ 25,000 fee. “Most people will end up with anywhere from $ 20,000 to $ 200,000, but there are certainly $ 300,000 in divorces. I like to joke that divorce is an area of life in which having money is a disadvantage , because you can find [a lawyer] who will fan the flame and give you false hope of how you are going to find a kind judge who is a father you’ve never had someone who sees that you are right and your ex is completely wrong. This is a fantasy that many people still adhere to. “
Greene said that she had never heard of anyone who was happy with the result, when they went to the court, “because judges usually try to give both sides of that – that. Money [you save on mediation] can be a great motivator to try and help people see the big picture and think long term. ”
Still want to try mediation? Check out a tutorial on mediated divorce and talk to a lawyer. And have an open mind about the process, even if feelings are heating up right now. Green says that she had a client who would say that she was trying to tell herself: “How will I feel about this in five days, how will I feel about this in five months, how will I feel about this in five years? ”and I thought that this is a very useful question for the person who is starting this process.”
Hey, if the Tinder wife can handle this, we all have hope.