Avoiding Conflict During Divorce

No matter what your situation is, divorce is never easy. You may be dealing with multiple emotions, sometimes one right after another. You may be angry at your spouse, but then you feel sad simply because your marriage is ending, and your entire life is changing.

Because of this, it can become really hard as you try to divide up your assets and figure out how to move on. In fact, many people will do anything that they can to hurt their spouse, even taking away things that mean so much to the other person.

Because divorce can become so difficult and painful, you may not want to spend time in court fighting over your possessions. Instead, you may want to consider mediation.

If you haven’t had a chance, I recently wrote an article about the reasons why you should consider mediation. If you haven’t had a chance, you can check it out right here.

However, just because you decide to go that route doesn’t mean that it will be easy. You are still going to have to put in the work and do what you can to avoid conflict.

Here are some tips to do so.

Be ready to compromise. If you don’t want to spend months or even years in the courtroom, you have to be ready to compromise. You aren’t going to get everything that you want, and the sooner that you realize this, the better off you will be.

So, before you even start mediation, you need to figure out what you really want and what you are willing to compromise on. It helps if you go into mediation knowing what you are not willing to compromise on. Maybe you want to keep the house or your car. You also need to know what you don’t really care about as much.

What is a dealbreaker for you and what isn’t? What are you willing to compromise on, so that you can finalize your divorce sooner?

It also helps to have a reason why something is important to you and what isn’t. Once you know what you want and what you can compromise on, you should figure out why. During mediation, you are going to have the chance to talk about your reasons, which may help you get what you want. But if you don’t know why something is important, you aren’t going to be able to explain yourself as well.

During mediation, you are going to have to listen. The truth is that most people don’t listen as well as they should. You may be worrying about what you want to say next that you completely forget to listen to what your spouse is saying!

If you are serious about meditation, both of you need to talk and listen to each other. That way, you can find a solution that works best for both of you (and your family).

That being said, you have to be prepared for conflict. The simple fact that you chose mediation doesn’t mean that your divorce is going to be simple. You have to be prepared to deal with some issues that are going to be hard to solve.

That being said, you can’t go into meditation ready to fight! If you start mediation with that mentality, it is never going to work. You might as well get lawyers and duke it out in court.

If you are serious about getting through your divorce in one piece, you may want to consider mediation. It allows both of you to have a chance to talk about your assets, including your children, to come up with a settlement that works best for everyone.

However, before you can begin, it helps to know what you want and what you can live without. You should also know why these things mean so much to you since you are going to have to explain yourself. Then, you also have to be prepared to listen. You should never start mediation out ready to fight, or you might as well go to court!

Previously published on Medium and/or Newsbreak.