For anyone considering divorce mediation . . . It is OK to be pessimistic. OK if you are not 100% certain that the process will serve you better than litigation. OK if you do not trust your ex to stick to agreements, show up when they say they will, pay their fair share.
As the mediator, I will ask you what it will take for you to trust the negotiation process. Will encourage you to seek outside support from lawyers, advisers, and other guides. Will regularly explore whether the agreements being reached truly work for you.
I will NEVER impose an agreement on you.
Yet, I will be dogged in helping you and your ex craft a Memorandum of Understanding that leads to a Divorce Settlement Agreement. And I will work equally hard to help you reach agreements within that Agreement that can evolve over time. This is especially important for couples with young children – parents who will need to stay in contact for years to come and who, almost every day, will make decisions that lead either to a kind of peace or war.
If you are up for it, I will try to help you and your ex figure out what it will take to make real changes in the way you interact. I will help you engage in a realistic kind of hope.
As John Paul Lederach writes in The Moral Imagination: The Art and Soul of Building Peace, “Constructive pessimism teaches us that distrust is needed as a reality check to assure us that change is not superficial, Pollyanna-ish, or disguising other intentions. Distrust assures us that we are not dipping into and promoting a cheap hope; it keeps us authentic.”
My goal is to help you harness the power of your pessimism so that it is more than OK – it is GOOD.
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