With the economy in a serious downturn, many Americans are looking for sensible alternatives to survive the crunch. To dodge the skyrocketing gas prices, some are trying hybrid vehicles, biodiesel fuels, and public transportation. To avoid the sting of the housing market slump, sellers are offering flat screen televisions and gift cards to woo potential buyers. And to suppress the every-growing costs of a traditional litigated divorce, separating couples are looking to divorce mediation.

Consider this, a low conflict traditional divorce, with some negotiation but an uncontested final judgment, can cost around $40,000. The same low conflict divorce reached via mediation could cost as little as $8,500. That’s nearly five times less expensive than the traditional divorce. To put that in perspective, the savings are equal to several all-inclusive two-week trips to Hawaii.

The contrast in price in high conflict divorces is even starker. A fully contested divorce can run a couple as much as $350,000. Compare that to $25,000 for the same divorce resolved in mediation. The savings with mediation can buy you nearly anything you want, including a house in Ft. Lauderdale, a law school education, and a Rolls Royce.

While saving money is not the only or best reason to try mediation, it doesn’t hurt. And knowing that you will have money in the bank during this and future economic crises is reason enough to consider mediation as your sensible alternative to traditional divorce.

Pop culture has brought us a lot of great terms in recent years, including swiftboating, metrosexual, and my personal favorite, tivoed. But none is quite as catchy or appropriate as frenemy. For those of you not familiar with the term, it is a fusion of the words friend and enemy. It connotes a relationship where the two people masquerade as friends but in reality have negative ulterior motives. Some of pop cultures best known frenemies exist in soap operas and scripted “reality tv”. But frenemies exist in the real world as well.

While frenemy is a fun word to say, it’s not a fun relationship to have, especially when it is with your soon-to-be ex-spouse. A life change of this magnitude is difficult enough when a relationship is straight forward. It can only get worse if the relationship is duplicitous.
While some complexity in the relationship is expected, the frenemy dynamic is extraordinarily troublesome in mediation because it can distract from creating a workable divorce and custody agreement. For instance, if you think you are working together with your former partner to reach a equitable agreement, meanwhile both of you are attempting to undermine the other by omitting details or sharing incorrect information, the final product will be a waste of both your time and money.

To reach usable result in mediation, the couple must be straight forward and honest. Even if you and your spouse share a strong dislike for one another, there is a benefit in knowing where the other person really stands. This is not to say that being cordial is not an asset to a successful mediation, but manipulating your partner can only have negative impact in the end.

There is a great article on Mediate.com that looks at eight signs that you are really ready for divorce.  The piece is written by Bruce Derman and Wendy Gregson and offers some great insights if you are considering taking the next step towards a divorce.

Below is one of the best points in the article:

The reason many people do not even think about getting ready for a divorce is because they operate under the assumption that the sooner you can get out of a stressful situation the better. So there is a natural tendency for people who are in difficult marriages to want to get the divorce over with as quickly as possible in order to move on with their lives. Family and friends often encourage this as well. They hurt for the family and so also prescribe to the myth that the quicker the divorce is over, the sooner everything will return to normal. But unfortunately in most cases just the opposite happens. Couples who make rushed decisions to leave the marriage have had no time to evaluate their feelings, thoughts or options. As a result they are unprepared for the roller coaster of emotions, the complicated legal system and the many life changing decisions that they need to make. Quite often they make agreements which they cannot sustain, and instead of the situation getting better, they often find that they have just traded one set of problems for another. So it is no wonder that they often get tangled up in lengthy court cases and the very thing they hoped for, a quick divorce, often takes years.

To read more from this article, you can check it out on mediate.com