The Mediator Will See You Now…
{4:18 minutes to read} Often, with the best intentions, clients prepare for mediation by trying to resolve as many things as possible before setting foot in my office. They think they’re doing themselves a great service, getting a running head start. However, in my experience, the opposite is true. The time to see the mediator is immediately.
I encourage people to see me first, and after that the timeline is their own. By seeing a mediator once, you have not committed yourself to a course of treatment nor boarded an express train for divorce. Au contraire! You have gathered information. Learned of options. And relieved the burden of facing complex decisions both ill-equipped and unaccompanied.
When it comes to seeing the mediator, the sooner the better.
Even one initial mediation session saves a couple time, aggravation, and money, but it should occur before they have assembled an agreement.
1. In the Midst of Crisis. When two people are struggling in their relationship, they can be like two fighters doing that thing where it looks like they are hugging each other but really aren’t. The intervention of a third party, even the presence of an unbiased person, can help people relax and become more capable of solving problems together. Getting that intervention sooner rather than later often makes the difference in how quickly things can be resolved.
2. Accurate Information. Without a full picture of the governing law, relevant issues, rights and obligations, launching into an agreement can result in attachment to bad and misinformed decisions. One of the parties typically will be fixedly committed to what was agreed, dug into something based neither in law, fact, or even the reality of their own, or their children’s, needs. It can be difficult and time consuming to loosen this grip enough so they can grasp alternatives and new information.
When you’re drowning, even an octopus may resemble a lifeline of sorts. Couples scrambling to get relief from the current discord and distress are vulnerable to glomming on to even rickety proposals, so desperate are they to glean the potential of peace.
3. Couples making all these decisions themselves and then coming into mediation and saying, “Here’s what we decided,” relegate the mediator to a position of scribe… (See The Difference Between the Mediator, the Draftsman, and Bartleby the Scrivener.) …or messenger of the bad news that what you have arrived at needs revision.
We then may have to spend a lot of time and energy explaining, unwinding, and trying to unfasten them from what they ill-fatedly committed to. This can create unhappiness when parties discover that their plan is actually unviable.
Discord can also result if one party feels misled or exploited because they find out that their agreement is actually quite unfair to them. Trust may have been compromised. It can take time to clear this bad taste from the palette.
In the first mediation session, couples are provided with a folder filled with information. If they choose to depart from mediation, they will at least do so having a framework and some tools with which to work. Clients will have several worksheets, lists of items, and guiding questions to consider.
Like going to a doctor, don’t wait until crippled with rheumatic fever. Go at the first sign of distress.
Going to a mediator sooner can help map an efficient and effective path forward.