My wife is making plans to leave, and it looks like nothing will stop that from happening. I'm comitted to DBing and saving my marriage. She's already met with a lawyer from this group Collaborative Divorce, which is a mediated legal process rather than a court process. Anyone know anything about this?
Collaborative Divorce is a step up from Mediation. The lawyers are well aware of what the norms are for whichever financial situation your household has. The focus is the lawyers wrangling it out without a trial, the parties and the lawyers being able to negotiate and complete the settlement process. However, both lawyers have trial experience but prefer to have their clients work out a reasonable settlement rather than losing all their money in court battles.
Consider it to be talking softly but carrying a big stick, that you don't want to use. Both parties win if they're willing to commit to a settlement and are upfront with their finances.
Thanks Gypsy. I've been to the site, and printed out some info. It certainly looks like a "civilized" way of destroying a marriage and 3 lives. (I'm a little bitter today)
I was curious if anyone here had personal experience with going that route.
I work in the legal field and have never even heard of it. Now I think I need to research...
Bitter??? Nawwwwwww...
Seriously I think we are all a little bitter.
Im still standin better than I ever did looking like a true survivor feeling like a little kid Im still standin after all this time and Im picking up the pieces of my life without you on my mind..
I did mediation, and it sure saved me tons of L's fees. I know this is not what you want, but it's prob the "best" way to go about that D foolishness. Hang in there))))
Be not afraid...I will repay you for the years the locusts have eaten Joel2
30something 2kids survivor of S, MLC, A, D I have peace in my heart, at last.
Our state doesn't call it a collaborative divorce, but it sounds like what H and I are doing.
Basically we got together without our lawyers (actually H isn't even getting a lawyer) and we wrote up what the two of us agree to in terms of finances, kids, possessions, etc. I sent the draft to my attorney. He will review it to see if it is 'fair' to both parties. If so, my H and I will sign off on it and it will go before a judge. Unless the judge thinks one of us is getting screwed, he will grant the D with our terms.
No fuss, no muss, just ripping a family in half and dissolving a marriage. (OK maybe a little bit bitter here...)
I used to work for a collaborative divorce attorney. The process is very different from litigative divorce. The focus of the process is to make sure the clients (man and wife) are heard, that they get to control the process (rather than the attorneys controlling it), and that the children and finances are handled in a way that is more helpful to the clients and the children in the end. When you enter the collaborative process, both clients and the attorneys sign an agreement that says "we will not go to court, instead we will mediate until we are in agreement, and then we will file an agreed upon judgment to the court". This is so that both clients know that the other will not just say one thing in mediation but then something different to their attorney. It is not a "fight" between two attorneys but instead, a collaboration of both attorneys and both clients.
It is a very difficult process however and not all couples should use it. The reason for this is that the couple will have to have a lot of face to face interaction to complete all the necessary mediation sessions, and some couples just cannot face each other during these times. Some would rather let the attorneys handle it than have to face their soon to be ex, which is understandable in many cases.
I worked for that attorney for over 2 years and it took me that full 2 years to really understand the collaborative divorce process, it is very new and is a totally different model than litigative divorce.
Thanks for the feedback. If she does insist on going down the road to Divorce, then this might be a way for us to go. There's no real open hostility between us, and we wouldn't have much to settle financially, so it could be a possibility.
