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The Divorce Mediator’s Job
If you and your spouse decide to complete the divorce process through mediation, you will work with a divorce mediator to reach an appropriate, equitable divorce settlement. Although many divorce mediators are lawyers, your divorce mediator will not act in this role. Rather, he or she will act as a neutral third party who does not work “for” you or your spouse, but for a fair resolution to your divorce.
The Mediator Is There to Guide You Toward a Fair Settlement
In mediation, you and your spouse work with the mediator to reach agreements about your divorce settlement. The mediator acts as a guide to these conversations, asking questions about your marriage and divorce goals and helping you and your spouse work through your disagreements. You and your spouse will negotiate with each other under the mediator’s guidance.
A Mediator Asks Questions to Provoke Thought and Gain Insight
Can We Save Our Marriage?
When you are facing difficulties in your marriage, do not jump immediately to divorce. If you and your spouse are willing to put in the work, you can overcome your difficulties and emerge as a stronger couple than you were previously. But this is only possible if you are both committed to trying to save the marriage and even then, sometimes it is simply not possible.
The following four questions can help you and your spouse determine if you can save your marriage. Your answers might surprise you – you could learn something new about yourself or you could find that divorce is the right way to go.
Are You Both Willing to Take Action?
You cannot just stand back and wait for your problems to resolve themselves. You also cannot expect your spouse to do all the work to repair your marriage, even if he or she was the one who cheated or committed another transgression. You both have to be willing to make changes to your lifestyle and seek professional help if necessary.
Can My Child Choose His or Her Own Parenting Time Schedule?
The short answer is this: it depends on the child and the circumstances he or she is facing. Typically, Illinois courts permit adolescents age 14 and over to weigh in on their parenting time schedule. When a young man or woman expresses a well-developed opinion about his or her parenting time, the court will often consider it alongside other factors to determine an appropriate parenting schedule for him or her. But a child’s opinion cannot be the only thing the court considers, and it is not required to consider the child’s opinion if there are other, more significant, factors present.
Yes, but the Court Can Overrule Your Child’s Choice
When the court develops a parenting time arrangement, it creates the arrangement that it determines to be in the child’s best interest. In most cases, it is in the child’s best interest to maintain a consistent relationship with each parent. One parent could be deemed to be better equipped to care for the child, and when this happens, that parent generally has a greater share of the child’s parenting time.
Your Responsibilities during Your Divorce Mediation
When you decide to use mediation, rather than litigation, to end your marriage, you and your spouse can save yourself a significant amount of time and money. Although mediation is often “easier” than completing a courtroom divorce, it is not without its demands on the divorcing couple. You have certain responsibilities to uphold while you work through your divorce, which include the following:
Provide All Relevant Documents to Divide Your Marital Assets
Division of your marital assets will likely be the most time-consuming portion of your divorce. Make this part as straightforward as you can by coming to your mediation sessions with all your relevant documents handy. These might include:
- A recent appraisal of your home;
- Statements for your financial accounts;
- Pay stubs;
- An itemized list of your tangible assets and their values; and
Talking to Your Adult Children about Your Divorce
For divorcing parents, talking to their children about the divorce can be one of the most difficult parts of the pre-divorce process. These discussions often include talking to children about the changes that will occur and stressing that they did not cause the divorce.
With adult children, talking about your divorce is different. You no longer have to worry about custody and child support issues or explaining the divorce in an age-appropriate manner. But you naturally still want to protect your children emotionally and continue to have a strong relationship with them, which can make any parent anxious about this discussion.
Their Age Does Not Mean They Need All the Details
When speaking to a young child about divorce, a parent generally leaves out all the details and focuses on the basics: Mom and Dad are no longer going to be married, they will live in separate houses, and you will spend time in both houses. As kids grow older, parents can fill in more details.
Couples Who Divorce through Mediation More Satisfied with their Results
Every marriage, and by extension, every divorce, is unique. Some divorces are resolved fairly quickly while others drag on for months, even years. Some couples divorce at the first sign of marital discord whereas others suffer for decades before choosing to end their broken relationships. For many couples, mediation is a positive alternative to the traditional courtroom divorce. With mediation, the couple works with a mediator to reach a fair divorce settlement through a series of guided discussions. A few benefits of mediation are:
Couples Who Mediate Retain a Greater Level of Control
In a courtroom divorce, the partners and their lawyers present their arguments but ultimately, the court has control over the final outcome. This is not the case with mediation. In mediation, the couple works with the mediator to reach agreements for each aspect of their divorce settlement, giving each the opportunity to advocate for his or her goals the other a way to negotiate them.
How Is Spousal Maintenance Calculated in Illinois?
When one spouse chooses to leave the workforce to care for the couple’s home and children or takes on lower paying work than he or she would otherwise be able to perform in order to do so, that spouse may seek spousal maintenance, once known as alimony, as part of the couple’s divorce settlement. Spousal maintenance is designed to prevent a lower earning spouse from experiencing financial hardship following his or her divorce.
Permanent vs. Temporary Spousal Maintenance
In the past, it was far more common for one partner to stay home while the other provided the family’s sole income than it is today. Divorced individuals who stayed home during their marriages were also less frequently expected to reenter the workforce or enter it for the first time after their divorces. These individuals were frequently awarded permanent alimony, which ensured that they received support from their former partners until they remarried or their former partners died.
Resources Domestic Violence Victims Can Use to Escape Their Marriages
Before you can divorce your abusive spouse, you might need to get yourself out of your home and into a healthy mental and physical state. You can do this by making use of the resources available to you provided by the Illinois Coalition Against Domestic Violence. Use its website or call the Illinois Domestic Violence Hotline to find a safe way to leave your home and reach your nearest victims’ shelter. Ending an abusive marriage can take time, money, and your mental and physical energy, but it is always worth it.
The Illinois Coalition Against Domestic Violence
The Illinois Coalition Against Domestic Violence (ICADV) is a nonprofit organization that provides resources to domestic violence victims throughout Illinois. These resources include grants for organizations seeking to provide resources to domestic violence victims, safety planning for victims, education and outreach for victims, and training for licensed counselors and social workers who work with domestic violence victims.
Determining If Mediation Is Right for Your Divorce
If your marriage has reached the point where divorce is inevitable, do not assume that a lengthy court battle has to be part of your divorce. You and your spouse could be good candidates for mediation, which will make the divorce process less stressful, less expensive, and overall more empowering for you.
With mediation, a divorcing couple works with a mediator, a neutral third party, to reach agreements about their divorce settlement through a series of guided discussions. These discussions cover every aspect of the couple’s divorce settlement, such as the division of their property and how they will handle spousal maintenance. Often, couples who divorce through mediation report higher levels of satisfaction with their divorces than those who divorce through litigation. But mediation is not the ideal solution for all couples. When domestic violence is present in a marriage, mediation is rarely a viable option. Similarly, couples who cannot work together are generally not well suited for mediation. Ask yourself the following questions to determine if mediation is right for you.
Immigrant Status and Illinois Family Law Issues
In the wake of recent political upheavals, it is becoming common to encounter instances when family law questions and concerns acquire an immigration element. Many U.S. citizens hold dual citizenship or are married to foreign nationals. Their children may also be dual citizens. Given that many issues seem to be unsettled, in terms of the new administration’s policies, it is important to be able to react to ensure your family is protected.
Immigrant Status and Family Law
In theory, immigration law is meant to promote the idea of family unity, but in practice, U.S. immigration law can often separate families of different citizenship. Federal immigration law controls where it exists, but there are many loopholes most often filled by imperfect or inexact state laws that are applied unevenly. For example, a battered spouse may apply under immigration laws to obtain a U visa or status under the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA), but it is state family courts and family law that govern domestic violence cases.
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