In today’s Wall Street Journal, there was an article about the fight over revealing divorce details and the potential damage it could do to the individuals involved and their children.  The author’s point was that it was difficult to tell where the first amendment and the public’s “right to know” ended and the seemingly insatiable interest in gossip we have now-a-days begins.  Just walk by a newsstand or search the Internet for a celebrity’s name and an endless stream of information will appear before your eyes on everything from what they had for dinner last night to the latest rumor about their sexuality.  But if you think it’s just limited to celebrities, think again. It seems these days that there is no such thing as private information given how much data is publicly available on us.  Just do a search on your name in Google and be prepared for what you find.  Do you really want this information out there when it comes to your divorce?

As you may already know, divorce proceedings are open to the public and anyone including your co-workers, neighbors and relatives can sit in the gallery and listen to every sordid detail.  All of this is happening while you pay your attorneys tens of thousands of dollars to come to a settlement you and your ex could have pretty much put together yourself with the help of a New Jersey divorce mediator so what it really comes down to is personal choice.  Do you go the adversarial route and fight this out in public or do you go the mediation route and resolve your differences in private?

There are many benefits of mediation and if you’re like me, privacy is a big one because what happened during my marriage is my business and should remain only my business.   When you use a mediation service, there is no such breech as everything we do is behind closed doors and stays in the confines of our mediation sessions, keeping the details of your settlement completely private as opposed to the alternative which (well read this article and see what I mean) isn’t exactly ideal.  And if you think grandstanding in open court is going to get you a more favorable settlement, think again.  I can’t imagine when you and your soon to be ex are screaming at each other in front of dozens of total strangers, you are going to end up with a good result.  As much as we’d like to think we’re adults, divorce can make us do crazy things and cooler heads don’t always prevail.  But with the help of a divorce mediator in New Jersey you and your spouse will be surprised at just how much progress you can make towards peacefully ending your marriage.  It doesn’t have to be as hard as the movies and television would like you to believe and by making the decision to keep your divorce details to yourself, I promise you, both you and your children will be better off in the long run.

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If you have any questions about divorce mediation or how mediation can benefit you, please feel free to contact us to schedule a free, no-obligation consultation in one of our six central New Jersey office locations where we will take some time to get to know more about you and your situation and see if mediation is right for you.  Of if you’re simply not ready yet, feel free to visit the Equitable Mediation Services website where you’ll find lots of great information about parenting plans, equitable distribution, NJ child support and spousal support / alimony and contact us when you’re ready.  We look forward to helping you get through your divorce peacefully, efficiently and with as little stress on you and your family as possible.

Normally as a NJ divorce mediator, I blog about items of interest to couples seeking divorce mediation services in New Jersey or elsewhere and tend to write postings aimed at divorcing couples.  Today I’d like to change all that and share with you an interesting article I read by Rachel Shields in The Independent regarding how to cope as a child with your parents divorce.  And while it doesn’t matter is your 5 or 25 when your parents get divorced, it always seems to put you square in the middle even if you don’t want to be.  The article gave four tips for coping but what really struck me is that each of them centered around dealing with the acrimony that can still remain long after couples are divorced.  For regular readers of my blog, you know that I am a big proponent of the benefits of mediation and this article is one of the reasons why.

Part of getting a divorce is dealing with the residual anger that often accompanies being torn apart.  Hurt feelings can linger long after the final divorce decree has been filed with the courts.  But why?  What happened that someone never got past all of this and will now let it overshadow their relationship with their adult children?  In one example, the author speaks of the “Wedding Day” scenario with still dueling parents.  I mean really, it’s my wedding day and I have to worry about who to sit next to whom?  You are my mom and you are my dad and I would like you to be there for me, not to have to deal with your squabbling 25 years down the road.  Your marriage status may have changed but your role as my parents did not, no matter what the courts say.

One of the ways we manage this in divorce mediation is to recognize the myriad of feelings that accompany divorce and encourage divorcing couples to work with outside mental health professionals who can help them.  For high conflict cases, I even recommend my mediation clients go see a marriage counselor.  You must be thinking I’m crazy but my thought is that one of the reasons you wound up in front of a divorce mediator is that your communication skills probably weren’t all that great when you were married.  And now that you don’t have the covenant of marriage to encourage you to be better communicators, you’re going to need to learn some skills because chances are, when it comes to raising your kids, you’ll both still have a lot of years ahead of you where you will be interacting on their behalf.

And seriously. you don’t want to ruin their wedding, do you?

If you have any questions about divorce mediation or how mediation can benefit you, please feel free to contact us to schedule a free, no-obligation consultation in one of our six central New Jersey office locations where we will take some time to get to know more about you and your situation and see if mediation is right for you.  Of if you’re simply not ready yet, feel free to visit the Equitable Mediation Services website where you’ll find lots of great information about parenting plans, equitable distribution, NJ child support and spousal support / alimony and contact us when you’re ready.  We look forward to helping you get through your divorce peacefully, efficiently and with as little stress on you and your family as possible.

I saw this interesting article regarding “who gets the church after a divorce” and I thought how interesting as often times we as NJ divorce mediators only think in terms of assets and liabilities when it comes to discussing equitable distribution. But what about other non-financial “assets” such as community?  How do they get divided?

Have you given any thought to what your social life and support network might look like after your divorce?  It may be worth considering and discussing with your soon to be ex-spouse although I’m not sure how you would put that into a Memorandum of Understanding.

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If you have any questions about divorce mediation or how mediation can benefit you, please feel free to contact us to schedule a free, no-obligation consultation in one of our six central New Jersey office locations where we will take some time to get to know more about you and your situation and see if mediation is right for you.  Of if you’re simply not ready yet, feel free to visit the Equitable Mediation Services website where you’ll find lots of great information about parenting plans, equitable distribution, NJ child support and spousal support / alimony and contact us when you’re ready.  We look forward to helping you get through your divorce peacefully, efficiently and with as little stress on you and your family as possible.