You may be considering mediating your Virginia divorce after hearing about the many benefits of meditation.
Mediation involves you and your spouse meeting with a mediator to negotiate an agreed-upon resolution to the issues in your divorce. You can mediate almost any divorce issue, such as equitable distribution or spousal support.
Advantages of mediation
Mediation generally saves time and money. Spouses often walk away feeling better about the outcome because they had a say in the decisions instead of leaving them up to a judge.
Additionally, mediation is private, meaning the terms of your divorce stay confidential. This could be extremely important to you if you are worried about a divorce impacting your career or professional reputation.
It might sound like an easy choice, but before you choose to mediate your divorce, you should consider if it is the best option for you. Depending on your situation, mediating your divorce could do more harm than good.
Domestic violence
One of the biggest reasons to avoid mediation is if you are a victim of domestic violence. Safety should be your priority and since mediation necessarily involves direct contact with your spouse, participating in mediation could mean you remain at a risk of harm.
Additionally, domestic abuse situations often involve a power imbalance. If your spouse has displayed controlling or manipulative behavior in the past, this behavior is likely to be on display during your divorce mediation. This can result in an unfair resolution.
Dishonesty
You must be able to trust your spouse to mediate. You and your spouse will be required to disclose your assets and debts and provide honest information about your financial situation.
If you are concerned your spouse will not be honest about their financial information, you should probably not mediate to avoid an fraudulent outcome. Courts take dishonesty seriously and often impose penalties for spouses that are found to have hidden or not disclosed financial information.
Failure to communicate
Mediation typically only succeeds when both spouses can appropriately communicate and have a true desire to negotiate and solve problems.
The mediator will talk during the mediation. You and your spouse may also have attorneys present. However, mediation also requires you and your spouse to communicate with each other in a polite and respectful manner.
This is often challenging when emotions are running high or your divorce involves a lot of conflict. You are not expected to act or communicate perfectly, but if you feel that you are not ready to properly communicate with your spouse to achieve divorce-related goals, you might want to reconsider mediation.
Unwillingness to mediate
Finally, mediation usually only succeeds if both spouses want to do it. Since mediation does not involve deadlines or court dates, it is easier for one spouse to drag the process out or refuse to compromise and reach an agreement.
This behavior is common when one spouse does not want to divorce. Until an agreement is reached, the divorce cannot be finalized and the marriage is not over.
If you fear your spouse will sabotage the mediation process because they are hoping the marriage can be saved, mediation could be a waste of time.
These are all red flags that should cause you to think carefully about divorce mediation. Sometimes traditional courtroom litigation results in a better outcome.
