The holidays are over and the New Year is upon us. For some, this means it is time to pay down the credit card bills. Others have a list of New Year’s resolutions to work on. For some couples, a major resolution for the New Year is to finally put the past behind them and move on with a pending divorce. Maybe you can relate.
Have you been struggling in your relationship with your spouse? Have you tried counseling, trial separations, and made other attempts to save your marriage? Maybe you have been thinking about a divorce for some time now, but wanted to wait until the holidays were over for the sake of the kids and family. If you and your spouse are considering divorce, divorce mediation can be a great alternative to traditional litigation.

5 Reasons to Consider Divorce Mediation
There are several reasons a growing number of divorcing couples are turning to mediation to assist with the dissolution of their marriage, these include:

• Affordability: The cost of mediation is typically far less expensive than hiring attorney’s to negotiate your divorce. Some times this leads to divorce litigation which can raise costs into the hundreds of thousands of dollars. Just take a moment an watch the movie Divorce Corp that is now on Netflix
• High Success Rate: When couples chose to mediate, close to 100% of my clients are successful even when they are in conflict.
• Confidentiality: Divorce proceedings, like most other court proceedings, are typically a matter of public record. This means that unless the court agrees to seal the records, the specific details of the court hearings are available for public view. Divorce mediation sessions are kept confidential with no public record of what is discussed.
• Customization and Control: One of the greatest benefits of divorce mediation is the ability to customize your settlement around the specific needs of you and your spouse. For example, the courts and attorneys  tend to take a ‘cookie cutter’ approach to issues such as child custody/visitation and division of property. Through divorce mediation, couples are able to craft creative solutions that work for them. This gives divorcing spouses far greater control over the process and what will appear in the final settlement.
• Non-Adversarial Process: The mediation process is collaborative rather than adversarial, meaning the spouses are engaged in a constructive conversation guided by the mediator toward a win-win solution. This greatly increases the chances of ending the marriage on civil terms, which improves future communication and helps avoid major conflicts down the road.

It is important to note that you do not have to agree on every single issue to successfully utilize divorce mediation. All that is required is an open mind and a willingness to work together toward a positive settlement.  During the process, the spouses are also allowed to retain legal counsel to review the final agreement, assist with decisions and file with the courts.
If you are considering getting a divorce in the New Year, mediation can be a great way to dissolve the marriage affordably and quickly. In my experience, most couples can have success with the process, as long as you are willing to work together.