One of the benefits of marriage that many same-sex couples are looking forward to is divorce. Not that the desire to divorce among same-sex couple is any greater, but the rules of custody that apply are clearer and fairer to all parties.

A recent article published in the Washington Post this January discusses this complications without the structural benefits of marriage and divorce.

When her three-year-old marriage broke up, the 44-year-old doctor assumed she and her ex would split their property and jointly parent their two children. Her stay-at-home spouse wanted sole custody and the right to move the children out of Massachusetts.

In pretrial motions, both parents made the same argument to a judge: The children should be with me; I’m their mother.

For years, family court judges leaned toward a maternal preference when it came to custody disputes. But what to do when both parents are women, or neither is? Judges in Massachusetts have been grappling with that question since gay and lesbian couples began filing for divorce in 2004, seven months after the state Supreme Court legalized same-sex marriage.

Nearly 10,000 gay and lesbian couples married after the ruling. Massachusetts does not keep records on the number who have divorced, but lawyers who specialize in family cases say it is in the dozens. Those who choose to end their marriages soon discover that the trauma of divorce is compounded by legal and financial difficulties that heterosexual couples generally are spared.

“One of the benefits of marriage is divorce,” said Joyce Kauffman, a Boston divorce lawyer who has handled a dozen same-sex divorce cases. “But for a lot of couples, that benefit is very complicated and very costly in ways that heterosexual couples would never have to experience.”

In the case of the doctor, she and her spouse each gave birth to a boy fathered by the same sperm donor. They then adopted one another’s sons. Biologically, their children are half-siblings; legally, they are full brothers.

“Up to now, I’ve been lucky with the court,” said the doctor, who spoke on the condition of anonymity so as not to prejudice her court case. “Giving birth to one of our children has given me leeway because judges often show a preference toward a biological mother. I’ve spoken to other lesbian women who were in a similar situation, except that they were not the biological mothers of their children, and, in my opinion, they were not treated as fairly by the court.”

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This is just one of the many drawbacks of using the court system to make decisions about your divorce and custody. A judge is typically unwilling and unable to expand or extend the scope of the standard legal framework even if it is the most just solution.

However, mediation allows same-sex couples to develop fairer, more practical divorce and custody agreements. In same-sex mediations, as in all mediations, the couple participates in an open, honest dialogue about their expectations for the custody and property, while a mediator guides them through the process. Same-sex mediation differs from traditional divorce mediation in that the mediator will help the couple focus on issues that are unique to the legal complexities of same-sex relationships, including developing a parenting plan that accommodates both the biological and and non-biological parent.