While divorce will bring your marriage to an end, looking at it like that is not always helpful. Yes, you are closing one chapter of your life, but thinking about it like that could lead to you looking backward. What you need to do is look forward.
Grieving is a natural part of the recovery process in any loss of any relationship. Yet wallowing in pity, beating yourself up about how you should have seen problems coming, or replaying old arguments is not a good use of your time. The past happened. Now what?
Litigation requires revisiting the past
One of the problems with litigating your divorce is that it is easy to spend time arguing over what has already happened. To prove you deserve a larger share of custody or assets, you need to show evidence, and that can only come from the past. The evidence from the future does not exist yet.
If you choose mediation to resolve your divorce instead, forgetting the past and looking forward will be more straightforward. It’s a case of this is where we are, so how do we move on from here?
Does mediation mean you should forget the past entirely?
Not quite. There may be times where you need to step back into history. For example, you may need to show why a particular debt is not yours, or a specific asset is your own and not marital property. Yet the mediator will help keep you on track toward creating a new beginning. It is less about past details and more about finding a solution you can agree on.
Mediation can be much quicker than litigation, allowing you to begin the new stage of your lives sooner. Understanding more can help you decide if it can benefit you in your divorce.