Way too many mediators (whether of the collaborative stripe or other persuasion) insinuate that 1) divorce without mediation is doomed to anger and misery; and 2) merely engaging in mediation magically sucks the conflict from the room and opens stunning vistas of creatively, clarity, and cooperation. It’s bunk, but bunk that many cash-strapped, emotionally wrung-out couples lap up in the desperate hope it’s true. Mediators need to be honest: mediation isn’t magic (mediators aren’t either) and it works for people who make it work, period. You’ll get out of mediation as much as you put into it, and even then it’s out of your hands because compromise takes two.
Nobody ever said that divorcing couples must destroy or try to destroy each other. When will the “mediateurs” realize that their P.R. isn’t fooling the public as much as it once did?
Sometimes business partners or a rock band amicably decide to shutter the partnership and go in different directions because they feel it best for each other (thanks a lot, Beatles, although I’m not sure we’d have gotten the gem “Band on the Run” otherwise). Sometimes spouses do the same and divorce without rancor. But not usually, as we divorce lawyers well know.
Whether it’s the end of a marriage, a friendship, a business partnership, an employer-employee relationship, or the end of dozens of other similar relationships, when the relationship sours it’s inevitably because of conflict (great or small) at the heart of the matter.
Utah Family Law, LC | divorceutah.com | 801-466-9277