Tips for Bringing Up the Possibility of Divorce Mediation

If you’re interested in pursuing mediation to deal with the issues of your divorce, you’ll need to bring it up to your spouse. Having any kind of conversation about your divorce can be understandably difficult, but if mediation is to be successful you’ll need to develop some level of comfort with speaking to each other about your divorce-related issues.

Here are a few suggestions for how you can propose mediation to your spouse:

• Consider suggesting it in writing: If you and your spouse aren’t currently on speaking terms, you could present the idea in writing via email or text message. Making the proposal in writing can help you to take some of the emotion out of it and allow you to word it more tactfully.
• Plan out the conversation: If you will speak to your spouse over the phone or in person, plan out the conversation in advance with some talking points. Make sure you approach them in a way that is nonthreatening, and that gives them a chance to provide their opinion. Don’t turn it into a situation where you aren’t giving them a choice in the matter.
• Provide information: Divorce mediators often have brochures or other informational materials, both physical and digital. Consider sharing these with your spouse to encourage them to do a bit of research on their own to help them get accustomed to the idea.
• Watch your tone: This is one of the reasons why it’s a good idea to pan out the conversation in advance—if your tone is threatening, patronizing or overly pushy, you’re probably not going to convince your spouse that divorce mediation is the best bet for your situation.
• Have follow-up conversations: It’s okay if the two of you don’t reach a decision in the first conversation you have about the topic. Bring up the issue again—the benefits of mediation are worth having multiple conversations over before you decide to go another route.

For more information about raising the topic of mediation with your spouse, contact an experienced Long Island divorce lawyer at Solutions Divorce Mediation.