When your financial support is tied to your marital partner, a divorce can suddenly make you feel as though your lifeline has disappeared and the only choice you have is to litigate a settlement.
Yet to count on a trial to protect you, now and in the future, is in fact a gamble, and an expensive one. Trials are never cost-effective. Before individuals proceed with this route, they need to weigh the costs of their effort, emotionally and financially. Given the emotional and financial costs, not to mention the toll on their children and relationships, it is rarely advisable to go the court route.
The solution is to find a way to sit down with your partner and negotiate a settlement that ensures that neither party is left without a safety net.
During mediation, we will help you negotiate such issues as:
“I have been an attorney for seventeen years and a large percentage of my practice involves representing clients in family matters. Recently, I have reviewed a number of mediated agreements. The agreement (you) CMDR drafted was the most comprehensive and impressive agreement I have read to date.” Consulting Attorney in a Mediated Divorce Settlement
At the Centre for Mediation & Dispute Resolution, we believe that couples need to approach considerations of support with careful attention to detail. The information we consider most critical to this process includes:
Fear should not govern your actions. Analysis and planning provide superior tools for financial stability. The couple needs to work together to calculate what makes sense now and in the future. And, as part of this analysis, they need to listen and weigh each other’s concerns and priorities.
Thoughtful and thorough analysis will often produce an agreement that will last. At times, couples even include provisions for built-in change points that relate to events or specific time intervals. Besides the savings in time and money, the end product needs to reflect an effort to produce a rational plan that will be upheld by both parties.
Clearly, provisions for catastrophic events cannot predict events that “rock” all future prognostications, such as a 9/11 happening. But the very inclusion of catastrophic provisions affirms that a couple, regardless of their relationship, knows that financially and emotionally, it is far wiser to revise an agreement than to engage in a battle. There is nothing about the mediation route that suggests acceptance of an inferior agreement. To the contrary, the attention to detail and considerations of tomorrow suggest control over your present and future, which in and of itself is a powerful outcome.
