After several conversations with your spouse, you both decided to dissolve your marriage. Rather than a traditional divorce, you want to try mediation, but is the alternate dispute resolution method a favorable option for your split?
Family Education explores when avoiding mediation may offer the most favorable outcome for a divorcing couple. Determine how to end your marriage and start the next chapter of your life on the right foot.
You need/want attorney-client privilege
If you have hidden assets, had an affair that your spouse does not know about or any other issues that could negatively affect your split, opting for a standard divorce could benefit you. Mediators do not have attorney-client privilege, so anything that you share with your mediator could come out in court or in a later session with your current spouse. Your mediator may feel that revealing your secrets helps your current spouse make well-informed decisions about your split.
You do not speak with your current spouse
Are you and your wife or husband on good speaking terms right now? If not, going through mediation may not do much to open the lines of communication. Mediators do not receive the same psychological training as therapists, so your mediator may struggle to facilitate healthy conversation between you and your spouse. If the two of you do not or cannot open up to each other, you may not get too much from mediation.
You do not know your spouse’s assets
Touching back on hidden assets, consider standard divorce if you feel uncertain about the full value of your wife’s or husband’s assets. Mediators do not have the authority to compel a spouse to reveal her or his assets the way a judge does. Even if you know about your partner’s hidden assets, mediators do not give clients legal advice.
