In life, your most successful strategy is to learn how to generate peace today; now; the minute you realize that arguing can in fact threaten your life and your life span. If you haven’t learned advanced motivational skills then you will need a very skilled Mediator, right? It is dangerous to go along with your partner’s recommended Mediator thinking that this will move you closer to a peaceful divorce; it won’t! Don’t make this mistake; make sure that you’re hiring a very competent Mediator who can meet both of your needs for fairness and the numerous other needs you may each have because a mediator’s client is The Divorce, not each of you .
1. Never give up on Mediation because a Mediated divorce is always a better bet for your entire family!
A. You get privacy rather than the records from any litigation that are available to your children, grandchildren, and great grandchildren when they want to know how you lost $tens of thousands or $hundreds of thousands of dollars in court!
B. Autonomy to agree to what the best options are for your entire family versus letting a judge; a stranger, force your decisions.
C. Time to consider your options because Mediation moves at your speed while a courtroom has its own schedule; very slowly over what can be 6 months or more you are waiting for your “day in court” and then in a few hours the judge decides your entire financial and parenting future without interest in your “special needs”.
2. Confirm that the potential Mediator can meet all your key need. Carefully review the mediator’s website for Testimonials and information that clarifies their expertise
A. Expertise in peaceful, cooperative divorce using any of the following skills that may include Heartspace® skills that include peace-making and divorce expertise or that they have Nonviolent Communication® or similar skills and also have extensive divorce experience.
B. Check that there are sufficient testimonials showing that the Mediator can be relied on to meet your needs.
C. There is no evidence that a more costly Mediator is a more successful mediator unlike the different criteria in selecting an attorney, Mediators must be focused on creating peace before any other consideration.
3. When you interview the Mediator you need to be clear about your goals and be actively interviewing to finesse so that you get the information that you needs:
A. Provide the Mediator with a 10 minute maximum carefully edited version of your divorce situation minus any and all emotions.
B. “I imagine, (name of Mediator) that you have seen many cases similar to mine based on what I’ve just told you about the financial and custody issues and the factors of our assets, yes?”
(Mediator responds)
“Can you please give me as many details as you can about 3 similar cases and how long the mediation took, how much each of the mediations cost for each couple and any pertinent data that will allow me to understand if your mediation skills would be best for my divorce?”
4. You must write down everything you hear and be sure to ask the Mediator to slow down or repeat anything that you missed because you will need to review this when you are clam after the telephone call ends.
5. AVOID meeting in person until AFTER you have your basic questions answered via telephone. Why? Because it is much harder to focus on information when you are also looking at the Mediator. It’s easy for a Mediator with charm who is attractive and poised to convince someone to hire her or him and you cannot afford to hire any Mediator but the best one for your divorce scenario.
6. Once mediation begins your job will be to motivate and inspire your Mediator and also your partner even if you believe this is the “Mediator’s job” the sad truth is that few Mediators have the skill to understand the needs that other people have and how to encourage different behaviors.
7. First clarify your own needs in this divorce and the prioritization of these needs; are they
A. Money
B. Custody
C. Fairness/Respect or any other conceptual need
8. Then you need to imagine what the most important need for your partner is and what is the least and have plenty of evidence to share with the Mediator in your private conversations with him or her. Would it be
A. Money
B. Custody
C. Fairness/Respect or any other conceptual need or other options such as
D. Financial security which is different from outright Money
E. Freedom which might be different from a 50/50 custody plan which is the most common in Western countries.
F. Consideration/Support/Understanding etc. is really important to emotional people and can in fact be more important to them than all other needs.
9. As you move through your Mediation you will find again and again that you are tempted to think, “The Mediator should be doing a better job” or “I’ll just let the Mediator handle this” and you would be confused because
A. Mediation is based on give and take which you cannot enforce; you can be a big help in motivating your partner by explaining to the Mediator what is key as you have so much more experience with your partner than any Mediator could ever have.
B. You must manage your Mediation by thinking ahead to why your partner would want to compromise and looking for strategies that your Mediator can utilize to create peace fast!
For a free private 1 hour telephone training in The 6 Part Conversation© https://heartspacesolutions.com/coaching/ or to learn how to create a peaceful no-court Mediated divorce https://heartspacesolutions.com/peaceful-divorce/ and I welcome all your questions
Susan Allan
CEO The Marriage Forum, Inc. a 501 c 3 nonprofit
