Most of the people I work with have never gone through a divorce. Every single person I work with knows at least one “horror story” of a divorce. Whether this knowledge comes from a movie or TV portrayal of divorce or from someone personally known, each and every one of my clients comes to the mediation room with some idea about divorce.
In most aspects of life, having some idea about something new can be helpful. When it comes to divorce, it has been my experience that familiarity with the process is beneficial, familiarity with “what happened when my best friend got divorced” is not.
Take a moment to consider what marriage means. It is the legal union of two people that is recognized by the state and one’s community. But now consider what a marriage looks like. As we are each unique, each partnership will also be unique. One can safely state, “Yes, you are married, and I am married, but my marriage looks different from your marriage.” And each person can easily account for those differences by resting on the knowledge that marriages are as different as the people in them.
Take a moment to consider what divorce means. It is the legal severing of a union of two people that is recognized by the state and one’s community. When it comes to divorce, a result that statistically will occur in half of those who choose to marry, we seem to be less willing to embrace the uniqueness of the divorce itself and wrongfully conclude that it’ll look like someone else’s divorce.
Let me assure you that YOUR divorce will NOT look like anyone else’s if you choose mediation.
Why? Because your choice to mediate your divorce opens up the opportunity to be thoughtful and creative in the necessary decision-making that will attend your process. And this is the great gift of mediation: mediation honors the uniqueness of the two people moving from unhappily married to civilly divorced in a manner that they create together that respects both the unique aspects of the marriage and the special process of coming to terms with each other in the construction of their Separation Agreement.
HOLISTIC MEDIATION 