Divorce is not pleasant, but your divorce probably will not be as ugly as you.
Divorce is not pleasant, but your divorce probably will not be as ugly as you fear it will be. You probably will not have to go to trial and summon your relatives and mutual friends about your spouse’s extramarital affairs, volatile behavior, and financial misconduct. It probably will not take you years to finalize your divorce. Your home mortgage will not go into foreclosure, and no one will go to jail for failure to pay temporary alimony. It is almost inevitable that you and your spouse will disagree about some issues that are so significant that you cannot resolve them without the help of your lawyers. It is a relief, both emotionally and financially, that the place to resolve these disagreements is usually divorce mediation rather than the courtroom. A Tempe divorce lawyer can help you finalize your divorce during mediation.
What Happens During Divorce Mediation?
Mediation is a form of alternative dispute resolution where the parties to a legal dispute negotiate with the goal of reaching a settlement that is acceptable to both of them. It is a common practice not only in divorce cases but also in business disputes and other kinds of civil cases. During mediation sessions, the parties to the dispute, accompanied by their lawyers, meet in the presence of a professional mediator. The mediator is not a judge and does not decide the terms of the settlement. Instead, his or her role is to facilitate the negotiations. You and your spouse are the ones who set the terms of the agreement.
In divorce mediation, your goal is to draft a marital settlement agreement (MSA) that both you and your spouse find acceptable. The MSA includes all the details of property division. For example, it indicates which spouse will continue to live in the marital home and how much money the other spouse will receive as compensation for his or her share of the house’s value. If the spouse who is keeping the marital home must refinance the mortgage, the MSA will indicate this. The MSA also addresses the division of marital debts. If one spouse will need alimony, both spouses probably already know this; during mediation, you can negotiate about its duration and amount. Once you finalize the MSA, the judge simply signs off on it and finalizes your divorce. If you and your spouse have minor children together, mediation is also the place to draft a parenting plan.
Do All Couples Have to Go Through Mediation?
Arizona law requires couples who have filed for divorce to attend mediation before taking their divorce case to trial. After several mediation sessions, it will become clear whether it is possible to reach a property settlement agreement through mediation or whether a judge will have to decide. If you and your spouse cannot agree on how to divide your marital property, the court will schedule a trial. This usually happens when the parties disagree about something major, such as about the value of a certain marital asset or about whether a valuable asset is marital or separate property.
Your case will also go to trial if you can reach a property settlement agreement but you cannot reach an agreement about co-parenting time. Your child custody case will only go to trial if you and your spouse disagree about something big, like which school the children should attend, not something minor, like which parent transports the children from one parent’s house to the other on Friday evenings.
The court will not order mediation if it determines that it is not safe for the parties to be together in the same room. If the court has issued a restraining order where your estranged spouse may not contact you, your divorce case will go straight to trial without mediation.
Mediation is as Close as You Can Get to a Painless Divorce
Discussing all of your financial issues with your spouse is stressful when all you want is to become legally single as soon as possible. It is worthwhile, though, to work out all the details in divorce mediation. The more detailed your MSA is, the less likely you are to end up back in court over differing interpretations of it. If you and your spouse cannot communicate with each other without getting angry, communicate through your lawyers.
Sources
https://www.divorcenet.com/resources/guide-to-divorce-mediation-in-arizona.html
A Tempe family law attorney can help you finalize your divorce through mediation without going to trial.
