Dialogue On Divorce

You may have guessed that the tone of the mediation process is very different from that of litigation, but you may or may not realize that a couple can makes use of more than one process choice during the course of a divorce. Barbara and her ex-husband, Alan, used a mediator to design a parenting plan, and the process was both cost-effective and peaceful. But when it came time to deal with the unraveling of their financial lives, the tone shifted. Barbara had left her job in social work 13 years prior to stay home and care for their children, one of whom suffered from a life-threatening disease before his passing at the age of seven. Alan worked long and hard to cultivate a successful career on Wall Street. As a result, Alan deferred to Barbara on much of the decision-making around parenting, while he took responsibility for the management of their finances. Their views of each other’s contribution to the economic partnership were very different, and the division of their assets became a point of contentio