Family Mediation: The 9 Benefits and Beyond

Deciding to end a marriage is never an easy decision. It could be that you and your spouse have simply, but irrevocably being driven apart or that you now have irreconcilable differences about important issues. But no matter what your reason is, it can be the right decision to take.

Once the decision has been made to end a marriage though, what happens from there will depend on how the couple approaches the process. Divorce commonly involves several complex legal issues that can be daunting to resolve. This will often be further complicated by a cloud of emotional issues between the spouses. 

If the couple are not careful about the approach they decide on, divorce can become an expensive, bitter and protracted affair. The legal and emotional issues involved in the divorce will require cooperation, and a bit of compromise between spouses, both of which will be difficult in a court supervised process. 

Usually, couples that want a smooth, swift and fair process will need the services of a skilled family mediator. Compared to a court supervised process, the mediation benefits that a couple can enjoy will be crucial to having a civil and sustainable resolution. 

If you have come to the conclusion that divorce is inevitable in your marriage, a family mediator can help you reach a conflict-free and mutually beneficial separation. This will be even more so when children are involved. 

You’re likely to have several questions about mediation benefits and what the process looks like. This article will discuss answers to these questions, as well as why mediation will make more sense for your divorce, than a court supervised legal battle.

A family mediator is a neutral third party professional that is skilled at conflict management and resolution. They usually come from a variety of backgrounds including law, financial, social work, psychology and other professions. 

Their job is to help couples that have decided on a divorce reach an amicable settlement of the issues that a divorce will entail. Although every divorce is different and parties often have unique legal, emotional and other issues, they generally revolve around the same issues. 

Most couples will be concerned about reaching a favorable agreement on child custody and parenting rights, financial support and property division. Some couples may be capable of working through their disputes with only minimal input from a professional mediator. However, most will have fundamentally different views on their rights and interests in the divorce. 

Family mediators help these couples reach a mutually beneficial solution to their disputes. Unlike lawyers whose primary duty in the divorce process is to direct their resources towards making one party “win”, family mediators protect the interests of everyone involved in the divorce. 

While they do not take sides or make decisions for the parties, their unbiased position lets them work better towards a solution that counts as a “win” for both parties. 

Family mediation is often considered a softer alternative to marital dispute resolution, and with good reason. Recall that a divorce process is commonly the result of a big spat between a couple that once loved each other, and probably still do. 

There will be several issues underlying the divorce, apart from the parenting, financial and legal issues that the parties need to resolve. Due to this, the divorce process will almost always be one huge roller coaster of emotions. In many cases, the parties will be severely at odd ends with each other, but will be unable to clearly explain why. 

The adversarial, and often acrimonious, nature of a court supervised process will often do nothing but stoke the flames of the dispute. Although the court may come out with a pronouncement declaring either party the “winner”, the real issues between the parties rarely ever get resolved. 

Unfortunately, this will leave a lot of resentment that will simply fester and blow up sometime in the future. Usually over something as mundane as a late support check. This is quite simply no way to achieve a marital separation. 

Family mediation allows couples deal with the deep emotional and legal issues that are involved in divorce. It helps parties achieve a total resolution of disputes. Even more important, it will result in the protection of interests of your children in a civil process that will not shatter your kids.

If your interest is in achieving a marital separation that does not leave ashes in your mouth later, family mediation should be your first option.

Every part of the mediation process is designed to get at the root problems in your divorce and help you resolve them amicably. Even if you and your spouse have been very civil about the separation, mediation provides a way for you to reach well-informed and collaborative decisions. 

Family mediation does not try to keep you and your spouse together. That’s a job for family counselling. Mediation accepts that change happens and that time has come for you and your spouse. It helps the relationship between the parties move forward to the next stage of their lives in a positive way.

No matter how you see it, deciding to adopt a mediation process in your divorce will result in a favourable outcome. You have a much better chance of resolving disputes and having your interests fulfilled when you are in control of the process, instead of a judge that barely knows your family.

You’re splitting up. That much you and your spouse know for sure. Beyond that, who knows? Friends and family are treading on egg shells, trying to be understanding. But many of the decisions you face, you’re going to have to face alone.

Amid all this, there’s a word that keeps coming up: mediation. You’re not looking forward to the emotional and financial cost of lawyers and courts, and you’ve heard that mediation benefits everyone – you and your kids. Sounds appealing, but does it really work? Is there evidence out there to say for sure that mediation will work out better than litigation in the long run?

There is.

Emery’s Mediation Study focused for 12 years on a high conflict group – young and low-income families who had filed for a contested custody hearing.

To assess if there was a difference between separations handled by the alternative dispute process of mediation and those handled by lawyers through the courts, a flip of a coin decided whether a family would go into mediation, or seek a settlement through court cases in the traditional adversarial system. So pure chance decided which family took which route.

And in the study, the mediation was short – averaging only 5 hours per family – usually, mediation lasts a bit longer. The sessions were problem-focused but sensitive to emotions – in particular grief.